Expand your retail business on eBay

Making the most of it
Regardless of your approach to getting started on eBay, Elms suggests creating a strategy and selection of products from the beginning. She advises new sellers to think inventory. "Some people just sell one or two items," Elms says. "You'd never open a brick-and-mortar store with just two items. [Customers would] treat it as a garage sale instead of a business."

And it can be big business. Sales were down and the future looked dismal for Atlanta restaurant equipment retailer A City Discount, and owner John Stack was about to close the doors. Around the same time, Stack found 250 coffee pots in a stash of used restaurant equipment he had purchased for resale. Stack knew he couldn't sell them in his store. Then, one of his employees suggested putting them on eBay.

"To my surprise, it worked," recalls Stack. "They ended up selling for over $150 each--more than we could get in the local market. That opened my eyes to the potential of eBay."

That was in September 1999. Today, A City Discount does more than $10 million per year, selling 25,000 pieces of new and used restaurant equipment on eBay--which accounts for nearly half of the company's volume--as well as through its own website and retail location. Most surprising, says Stack, 54, is the synergy between eBay and the retailer's other channels. His eBay listings have driven traffic to his website, and customers have phoned from around the country to find out if he has a specific piece of equipment. A City Discount now has more customers in California than it does in its home state of Georgia.

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Spriggs agrees that eBay is a powerful marketing tool. Vintage Stock puts tags on in-store items that are also being offered on eBay, so if a customer is unsure about an item, he or she can take some time to decide and then log onto the item listing to purchase it.

"If you already have a brick-and-mortar store, why wouldn't you be on eBay anyway?" asks Debra Schepp, author of eBay PowerSeller Secrets: Insider Tips From eBay's Most Successful Sellers. "You already have sources for your products. You already know your product line. You are already experienced in customer service. So selling on eBay can't do anything but put your business into a global marketplace with millions of potential customers."

Some brick-and-mortar stores actually have their beginnings on eBay. Keith Chrapliwy, 31, and Andrew Cape, 30, were both graphic designers and started selling furniture on eBay as a hobby. For six years, the two maintained a friendly rivalry in their listings. Then it became clear that their pastime could sustain them as a business. In 2003, they both quit their corporate jobs and opened Modology, a modern furniture store in Cincinnati. In less than two years, the company's revenue has grown to almost $300,000--85 percent of which is still sold through eBay--and continues to climb.

"We wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for eBay because of the high-end furniture that we sell," says Chrapliwy. "It's given us an international platform to sell our stuff." Because of the sheer volume of users, eBay can also build exposure and drive customers from other locales into a retail location. Some of Stack's local customers have found his store because of his eBay presence. And Chrapliwy recalls one couple who traveled from Idaho to his store. Based on their volume of listings on eBay and the reputation that Modology has built, the couple commented that they had expected to find a much larger retail store than the company's 2,000-square-foot location.

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