EP 15. How to Get Buyers to Stop and Click on Your Listing | The 3S Listing Framework Part 2

In this episode we're tackling the second S in the 3S Listing Framework — Stop the Scroll. Your SEO can be perfect and your listing can be showing up in search, but if a buyer scrolls right past it, none of that matters. In this episode I break down the three layers that work together to get someone to pause and click: the product, the design, and the image. We talk about what actually triggers an emotional response in a buyer, why using your print provider's default mockup is working against you, and the simple image principles that protect your listing no matter how many times Etsy changes its specs.

Resources Mentioned

Episode 03 — How to Choose Your POD Product and Print Provider melissacarroll.co/episode3resource

Listing Audit — A personalized review of three of your listings across all three S's, with a written breakdown and video walkthrough. melissacarroll.co/audit

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey there and welcome to the Modern Etsy Seller, the podcast where busy women build, grow, and profit on Etsy. I'm your host, Melissa Carroll, a full-time teacher, a busy mom, and an Etsy seller who's built two successful Etsy shops in the small moments of everyday life. Here you'll find simple strategies, real behind-the-scenes insight, and the clarity you need to stop second guessing and start moving forward one intentional step at a time. Let's get to it. Hey guys, welcome back. We have been talking about the three jobs our listing has to do in order to make us money. So let me review. First, it has to show up in the search, then it has to stop the scroll, and finally, it has to secure the sale. I call this the 3S listing framework. And last week we went deep on the first S, show up in the search. Getting your listings in front of the right people through search. If you haven't listened to that one yet, you'll want to make sure you check out episode 13 because what we're talking about today only matters if your listing is actually showing up first. But let's say it is. Let's say your SEO is solid, your listing is showing up in search results, a buyer is looking at a page full of products, and yours is one of them. Now what? Now you have about a second to make them stop scrolling and click on your listing. That's it, one second, maybe less. Because they're on their phone, they're scrolling fast, and there are dozens of other listings competing for their attention at the exact same moment. So today we're talking about the second S, stopping the scroll. Specifically, what actually makes a buyer pause on your listing instead of the one next to it and then click into it. And ultimately, it comes down to three things working together: the product you're selling, the design on that product, and most importantly, the image you use to showcase it. Okay, let me paint the picture of what's happening on the buyer's side. Someone opens Etsy and types what they're searching for. So maybe gift for retiring nurse. Then Etsy fills the screen with results, rows of products, dozens of thumbnails, all competing for the same eyeballs at the same time. And there are candles and ornaments, blankets, acrylic desk plates, bracelets, lots of different products. And the buyer is quickly scanning the images. Most buyers are on their phone and scrolling fast until something catches their eye. You need your product and your design and your image to be the one they stop at and then click on. So the question is how? What are the things you can do as a seller to help your products stand out and get someone to stop and click? The product itself is the first layer. This comes down to making sure the product type you choose is something people are actually buying on Etsy. You do this by validating your product idea before diving in. I talked about this in episode three. If you want to check it out, and I offered a free resource in that episode that helps you validate your product idea. I'll link that here in the show notes too, but I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on this. I'm going to move into the second piece, which is the design. The design is where a lot of the stopping power lives. Design is the style, the words, the message, the pattern. It's what's actually on the product. And for a design to stop the scroll, it needs to make the buyer feel something. You have to remember that when people are shopping on Etsy, especially for gifts, they're not necessarily making logical decisions. Instead, they are oftentimes making emotional ones. They stop when something makes them feel something, when a product invokes emotion. A few ways you can trigger that emotional response are through specificity, humor, and nostalgia. First, specificity. A design that feels like it was made for one specific person. Something that makes a buyer think, oh my gosh, this is so her. That's a feeling that makes someone stop and click. It's why so many Etsy coaches encourage niching down and getting super specific with who you are creating for. Then we have humor and delight. A design that makes someone laugh or smile in the middle of their scroll will stop them before they even consciously register why. That is powerful. And then there is nostalgia. Designs that reference a shared experience, a chapter of life, or a memory can make someone stop and pay attention because they create an instant emotional connection. And one last thing I want to mention in regards to design is that if you use graphics, patterns, or illustrations in your designs, then trending styles and aesthetics matter. A design that feels current and fresh is going to be more likely to stop the scroll than one that feels dated. So paying attention to what's trending in your product category and incorporating that into your designs is a simple way to stay competitive in the scroll. Now, the third layer is your image. Your image is how you present your product and design to the buyer. You can have a product type that's selling like crazy and the most resonant design in the world. But if your image isn't doing its job, it won't matter. So let's talk about what makes a listing image work. There are four things you should pay attention to: clarity, differentiation, additional text, and size. So let's go through each of those. First, your product has to be clear and visible in the image. I know this sounds so basic, but it is really a common mistake that I see. You want your product to take up most of the image area. So you need to zoom in. Get close. If your design is text-based, then you need to make sure the words can be read on a phone. You can't count on buyers zooming in to see what you're selling. If they can't clearly tell what the design on your t-shirt or ornament is, then they are more likely to scroll on than to zoom in. The second thing is that your image needs to feel different from everything around it. You want your mock-up on your main image to be one of a kind. When you create a product in Printify or Printful or with whichever print provider you use, they typically provide mock-ups. Honestly, a lot of them aren't great. But even if they are, you don't want to use those for the main image. Every other seller using that same provider has access to that exact same mock-up. So when you go with the default, your listing looks like dozens or hundreds of other listings in the search results. You blend in, and blending in is the enemy of stopping the scroll. Instead, you want to either buy mock-ups or make your own. Making your own is my personal recommendation because then you are guaranteed to have a unique main image photo. But if you aren't comfortable doing that, then the next best option is to buy one that you haven't seen before. Etsy, Place It, and Creative Market are places where I have personally bought mock-ups and all have been great. So those are places that I recommend. When choosing or creating your mock-up, lifestyle images work best. Something that shows the product in a real setting, in use in someone's hands, on a desk, laying in a gift box. The goal is to help the buyer envision the item in their own life or in the hands of the person they're shopping for. Okay, the third thing to think about when creating your main image is whether or not to add text. My general rule is keep it minimal. The image should do most of the work. Only add text to the image if it highlights something that genuinely sets you apart from your direct competition. If you offer personalization and not everyone else does, put it on the image. If you offer free shipping when most of your competitors don't, that is worth calling out. If you have multiple colors or styles that give you an edge, you want to show that. But if everyone in your category offers the same thing, calling it out doesn't help you stand out. It just adds visual clutter, and we don't want that. And the last thing is the size. The size you make your main listing image matters. Currently, the main image has a four to five aspect ratio. But Etsy can and has changed this guidance. And if you aren't careful, it can cause you problems down the road. So here is the principle I want you to build into every primary image you create, regardless of what the current specs are. Center your product, get close, but leave padding around the edges. Don't stretch to the edges. Everything that matters, your product, message, words that you want the buyer to read, should sit comfortably in the center of the frame with clear space around it. This protects you. If Etsy adjusts their crop again, and they might, the important parts are less likely to cut off when you build this buffer. Okay, let's wrap up with a few other details worth mentioning when it comes to stopping the scroll. The first is the listing video. Etsy allows a short video for each listing, up to 15 seconds. And when a buyer hovers over your listing in search, the video will play automatically. Because most sellers don't include one, having a video is an easy way to stand out. I always recommend adding a video, and it doesn't have to be complicated. You can make one quickly in Canva, a simple slideshow running through your other listing images or a few still shots that zoom in or out. Nothing fancy is required here. The one thing I want you to remember is that the video needs to show the exact product in that listing. You can't create one generic video and reuse it across all your listings because when someone hovers, whether they meant to or not, you want them to still know exactly what they're looking at and a generic video will break that connection. The last two things worth mentioning because they are visible to the buyer in search are the price and the title. For the price, it needs to be competitive, not the cheapest, not the most expensive, but on par with what else is showing up in the same search. Buyers can see your price without clicking. If it's well above what similar products cost, they'll pass it by. And if it's way cheaper, they may question the quality and again pass it by. So you really want to make sure you're being competitive with your price. And on your title, the first few words are what show up in search results. Just the first couple of words. So those words need to be clear, specific, and make immediate sense to the person searching. Not clever, not cute, they need to be clear. Think about what your buyer typed into that search bar and start there. Okay, so I want you to remember that your listing does not get a long audition. It gets a fraction of a second to earn a click from someone who has pages of other options in front of them. So make it count. Start with the product that feels giftable and specific. Build a design with words that feel personal and different and present it with a lifestyle image that's close, clear, centered, and stands out from everything around it. Get all three working together and you give your listing a real shot. And if you have listings sitting there, not performing, and you want a second set of eyes on them, I do personalized listing audits. I look at three of your listings across all three S's of the framework showing up, stopping the scroll and securing the sale. And I'll give you a written breakdown and a short video walkthrough and tell you exactly what you need to change. It's $27 and you can grab it at melissacarroll.co slash audit or find the link in the show notes. Okay, I'll see you next week.