What is the best answer for the question "how would you sell an unpopular item" in an interview? And how can I answer it properly?

The item may be unpopular due to inappropriate branding or marketing strategy or pricing decision. So, review the pricing, select the right market segment and emphasize the best attributes of the items that would be beneficial to the customers. This is how you can answer the question "how did you sell x" properly. 

There is an old proverb that says: "One man´s trash, is another man´s treasure"..

Is important, in that circumstance, that the company makes a systematic and rigorous process of segmentation, communication targeting and brand positioning.

Any kind of sales are always hard when you don´t know your public/consumers; but start from the assumption like "if I don´t like it, no one will like it" are fruitless....projections based on personal experiences do not usually work (better use some discussion groups / survey).

Moreover, needs to understand what is considered "unpopular". If, for example, there is, from the market/consumers, difficult on sales, making it unpopular, is because there are objections about the product. So, it´s time to rethink the offer; ridding it from the rejection/unpopularity.

If you knew the above, you can answer the question how did you sell an unpopular item so easily.

The item may be unpopular for the market or other customer,remember it can be popular product with the customer you are discussing this product just if you are able to pitch it perfectly before customer.You have to have the perfect knowledge of your product,your customer and the competitor's product.

If you know the above then you can tailor your sales dialog as per the customer requirement,time need and occasion.

Well when you say unpopular it means the product is not that known to the customer so the best way to sell your product is to reveal the benefits contain in your product  to the customer by presenting ur product in a best possible way.

Unpopular items exist in every Company why they exist there is so many reasons for that,could be because they have low cost or more profitable etc .

How to sell them there is many techniques for example Price promotion ,Pair them with popular items and sell them together as Package Promotion and last method could be to re position these Products in the market to appeal for certain group of Customers .

of course Strategies used in B2B are Different than B2C and vise versa .

bundle it with a popular item....

If customers aren’t buying, more often than not it is an indication that a company is targeting the wrong people. “We all know the saying about one man’s trash being another man’s treasure, and you just need to find the man who treasures your trash,” Zhang quips. To find that man, a company must study its market and customers, figure out why its product is or is not clicking with certain segments, and decide what buttons it can push to get targeted customers excited. “Believe me, going through a systematic, rigorous process of segmentation, targeting and positioning — an age-old marketing approach — is much easier than finding a man who loves your trash,” Zhang continues. “A selling job is always difficult if you don’t really know your customers well and if you simply make projections based on your own experience and intuition. You think, ‘If I hate this, everybody else will hate it.’ But that assumption may not be true.”

Thanks for the opportunity, Regret delay in answer. For a professional salesman, it is not an issue as he meant to introduce a new product in the market & he may assist with product advertising materials like broacher /catalogue /TV broadcasting etc. At the same time, he will do his own assessment the necessity of the product in areawise.based on the survey data he will answer the interviewing team.

we can try to advise the use/customer that we are providing the same product or services that they are using which is at slightly higher price than they regularly pay  with much advanced feature and   better technology. 

By explaining the benefits that they can get from it. With proper introduction and explanation of the product helps the consumer understand the value of what they are buying..

multimedia

and if we have selling points we can go back for the principles of marketing

to see the targeted group of people and show them the wow factors of the our items

and convince them that they need our item for their use...

ofcourse that depends in advertisements,

and our seller to follow the stages of 

1- welcoming the customer

2- discover what the customer need

3- show the benefits of our item that the customers need

4- ending the selling and try to make a long term relation with the customer