This past fall semester a few fellow classmates and I had the opportunity of creating and selling a product in the E-commerce class offered here at Grove City. In short, we didn’t exactly take an easy route. We decided to create a board game called Recovery. The goal of this class was to launch your product through Shopify and create sales online. In the early stages of launching our product we were receiving little to no attention online. Bringing frustration and confusion to our group. It was time for a pivot, so we decided to focus our efforts to in person selling. The game was targeted for families, so we began with making a targeted effort over the holidays to relatives. As a group we were able to sell all the games we had taken home with us over break. We learned that by allowing our customers to interact with the game firsthand brought in much more interest. They we able to see how the game actually works. Due to the success of in person selling, we decided to make that our focus. Despite the slow start we were able to sell out of all our inventory by the end of the semester. First thing I took away from this experience is that you don’t always need to pitch everyone in sales, rather make an effort to build connections and be genuine. Reducing the pressure and showing kindness exemplified the message we wanted the game to bring. I believe our customers saw that which made them more inclined to buy. Another thing I learned was how as a salesperson it’s smart to narrow down your target market sooner. Our group wasted time on different customer segments that truly had no interest for our product. One last takeaway is a salesperson needs to resilient. There are a lot of ups and downs through the process, but finding a way to have a positive mindset makes all the difference. Overall, I felt as though I was able to grow my sales knowledge in many facets throughout this journey.
taylorjt23 
Bondre24 
wheelerne24 5 thoughts on “Sales experience as a Seller”
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This is a really great example of how important sales is, specifically in person. The game was easier to understand when your customers were able to see it firsthand, leading to more sales even if you weren’t specifically telling them they should buy it. It’s great that you were able to experience this in the e-commerce class because it gave you real life experience of what sales looks like online versus in person.
This is a great example of how to be flexible and adaptable when it comes to selling a product. You figured out that you guys needed to move to an in person type of sales and target families especially over the holidays by allowing them to test the game out prior to possibly purchasing the product. I think being able to adapt to the customer is super important in sales.
This is super interesting to hear about. I never really thought about how sellers feel whenever everyone says no to their product. Especially since many salespeople don’t have a consistent income unless they sell a lot of products. It probably makes them feel very defeated at times but I think as buyers we can still be polite to the sellers even if we are not interested in their product.
I liked how you reflected on your own experience of selling and how you learned from it. Having the opportunity to express your skills and learn how to be more flexible during the process is definitely a needed skill in the sales industry. I liked how allowing your customers to interact with the game and to see what you guys were offering them before they purchased helped the customers to gain more trust and familiarity with your product.
I liked how you reflection on your performance with this post especially about the frustration early on and having to pivot. It’s cool that in person selling worked so well once people could actually see and play the game. Your point about being genuine and not forcing a sale really makes a lot of sense. This sounds like a great learning experience and a solid example of adapting when things don’t go as planned.