posted on March 20, 2008 08:04:48 AM new
Good for her! I wonder if her approach would work as well for people like me who sell a wide variety of collectibles and books. I don't think it's as easy to build a customer base in the wildly diverse collectibles area--ephemera/postcards/doodads/old widgets, etc. It can be years between my selling something in the same category twice (except for books).
Maybe if one sells the same general things, as this woman does, a customer base is fairly easy to build.
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posted on March 20, 2008 08:15:43 AM new
For a number of reasons, including the one stated above about the consistent product line, these people can be successful on sites other than eBay. But an important fact is that they WERE successful on eBay, again, due to their business plans and practices, in conjunction with the large eBay audience. I would go further and say that these five would have been successful even if the internet had not been invented (please don't bring up the Al Gore canard).
And yes, none of these success stories involve "a random bunch of stuff that I just happened to find here and there".
posted on March 20, 2008 02:03:31 PM new
Good for all of them. I hope they all remain true to themselves and are very successful. Ebay takes away some seller's individuality.
posted on March 20, 2008 08:35:30 PM new
We did the same thing at work. Built a basic customer base with eBay. Promoted the website and as of last summer, dumped eBay all together. The website produces about the same revenue that eBay did, but for far less in fees. An overall profit increase.
posted on March 21, 2008 08:39:43 AM new
I'm happy for her - I've been planning to make a move within the next year - doing some shows and having a website - it's a little more difficult having more of a variety of items. But it's do-able. It's nice to see success stories - very encouraging during this upheaval.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Caroline
Caroline