How to enhance your secondhand product listing on Shopify: A Comprehensive Template for Professional Resellers

April 5, 2024

Product listings serve as a digital storefront, attracting potential customers and driving sales. In this article, we'll explore the essential elements of creating high-quality listings that engage your audience and increase conversions. Quality listings not only showcase products effectively but also build trust and confidence in the seller. They are also very important when you cross-list and sell across multiple marketplaces. Indeed, comprehensive descriptions avoid disputes with buyers and canceled sales. 

how-to-enhance-your-secondhand-product-listing-on-shopify-a-comprehensive-template-for-professional-resellers

Why choosing Shopify to develop your resale business ? Check out the following article : Choosing the Best E-commerce Platform for Professional Fashion Resellers: Shopify, WooCommerce, Prestashop, Magento or Bigcommerce?

Enhancing Product Categorization 

Organizing your products into relevant categories can improve the overall experience for your customers, by making the navigation easier for them as they find what they're looking for in one single research.  Use descriptive tags or metafields to help search engines understand the content of your listings and rank them accordingly. Additionally, consider implementing a consistent tag format as outlined in our Listing guide, which includes recommendations by fields. 

Find below a list of some important fields to use in Shopify, all detailed in our listing guide :

  • Brand
  • Universe
  • Category
  • Sub-category
  • Main Material
  • Composition
  • Main Color
  • Condition
  • Condition details
  • Model (especially for bags)
  • Size (by mentioning the size on the label of the product)
  • Size detail (runs small, big, etc.)
  • Watch Automatism and Band Material (for watches)
  • Stone type and metal purity (for jewellery)

How to structure data on Shopify product pages for secondhand items

Using Shopify tags for navigation

Tags are a useful tool for helping users navigate your store. For instance, you can tag items based on size, color, brand, or condition. This way, customers can easily filter and find exactly what they're looking for. As highlighted by Shopify's help center page,  tags are not intended for SEO purposes - means that your item's visibility won't be enhanced through tags. Consequently, it's paramount to select wisely the keywords in your product title and description. These keywords play a pivotal role as they directly impact the searchability of your pre-loved product listing. For more insights of the importance of implementing a SEO strategy  for fashion resale business look at the following article : Tips and Tricks: Mastering SEO Keywords for Fashion Resale businesses

Leveraging Shopify Metafields

Metafields allow you to add custom fields to your Shopify store. You can use these to provide more specific details about secondhand items, such as measurements, material composition or care instructions, origin, etc. This can enrich your product descriptions   and provide more detailed information to your customers. The benefit of Metafields compared to the other Shopify fields is that you can create dropdown menus and thus, avoid spelling mistakes.

Using the “Vendor” field for brands

The “Vendor” field is a key element for resale businesses as it allows to showcase the brand of the product. As a pre-owned fashion seller, you are likely offering multiple brands and using the “Vendor” field is the best option to display the “Brand” name. The Vendor field also enables you to create collections and filters for buyers, making it easier for buyers to shop for their preferred brands.

Categorizing products with the “Product type” field

Categorizing your products can help customers find items more easily and keep your product listing organized. It’s an optional field means that it is not mandatory but it could be very useful to customize your listing depending on some product specificity even if Shopify recommends to use the standard categories as they are better recognized throughout your admin. Keep also in mind that you can only add one product type per product. For pre-owned items, we recommend being as detailed as possible in the category that you chose, especially if you want to cross-list your products. This ensures accurate categorization across different marketplaces and maximizes your conversion rate. Instead of simply filling in the “Product Type” field with generic terms like “Handbags,” try using more specific categories like “Crossbody Bags” or “Shoulder Bags” for instance.

Structuring your description text

A well-structured description is crucial for selling second hand items online. Make sure to include all relevant details, highlight the item's unique features, and use clear and concise language. In particular, describing very precisely the condition of the item matters a lot if you want to avoid returns, or customer disputes. 

Moreover Shopify provides an AI tool, Shopify Magic, to help you generate your product description automatically.  This feature utilizes the information you provide, such as product title and keywords, to generate a suggested product description. Additionally, Shopify Magic can provide recommendations to assist you in rewriting specific sections of an existing description.

We recommend always using the same structure in your description text to maintain a harmonized website and ensure that all key fields are clearly stated.

Leveraging SEO keywords for effective description 

To maximize your listing's visibility, it's essential to optimize them for search engines. Compared to what we might think, tags aren't used by search engines on Shopify, so don't use tags to try to improve search results for your online store. Instead, add relevant keywords into your product titles, descriptions, and metadata. Our listing guide will help you find the appropriate keywords to help search engines understand the content of your listings and rank them accordingly. For sellers seeking help to implement their SEO strategy we here is a detailed article on how to master SEO keywords for resale businesses.  

how-to-enhance-your-secondhand-product-listing-on-shopify-a-comprehensive-template-for-professional-resellers
© illustrations by Storyset, Freepik

Benefits of exhaustive product description for pre-owned items 

Increased trust

Providing detailed descriptions for pre-owned items is very important to erase the barrier between you and your potential buyers. Vintage Lovers appreciate transparency especially when it comes to buying a luxury pre-owned item. Don’t hesitate to provide additional details regarding the condition and history of your products. For instance, including authentication certificates is highly recommended for any luxury items being resold; it adds credibility to the product listing and reassures customers of its authenticity. Many tools are available for professional resellers to authenticate their pre-loved items : Ensuring Authenticity in Secondhand: Essential Websites and Applications for Authenticating your Luxury Items

Boosting visibility through SEO

A qualitative description can also boost your visibility on search engines, as detailed descriptions are more likely to contain relevant keywords. By including relevant keywords within their product description, sellers are more likely to see their listings appearing in the first page of search results, thus attracting more organic traffic to their stores. 

Less disputes with buyers

Detailed descriptions help customers understand exactly what they're buying, reducing the chance of returns or dissatisfaction and by the meantime reinforcing the seller's credibility. 

On marketplaces: avoiding canceled sales

Exhaustive descriptions can help avoid canceled sales on marketplaces by setting clear expectations about the item's condition. For more in-depth tips and strategies on how to optimize your Shopify listings, download our comprehensive guide here. 

Oly-platform-cross-list-your-product-catalog-automaticallty-marketplaces

Save time. Increase your sales.
If you are a professional fashion reseller and looking for a solution to manage your online inventory automatically on all your sales channels, become one of our users!
Try Oly
JOIN NOW