Not long ago, Bill Rosinger had a dozen or so employees and a
brick-and-mortar storefront selling photographic equipment in
Amityville, New York. Then he began selling a few items on eBay.
Today, Rosinger's business, Cameta Camera, is a Titanium
PowerSeller (eBay User ID: cametaauctions) that may have thousands
of listings open at a time. Most striking is the effect eBay
selling has had on Cameta. "We went from 10 or 11 [employees]
three or four years ago to 55 people today," says Rosinger,
who ran his business for 20 years as an offline enterprise before
finally trying eBay. After that many years in photography, Rosinger
knew cameras. But he didn't know how to manage a sizable eBay
enterprise.
Rosinger found help in the plethora of tools and services
available for offline entrepreneurs who want to expand their
businesses onto eBay. As Cameta Camera's business on eBay grew,
Rosinger found it particularly challenging to manage communications
with buyers.
"Let's say in a given day, 200 listings will
close," he says. "eBay will send e-mails to notify the
winning bidders. But I want to send my [customized] e-mails to tell
them what to do next. These have to be generated automatically, and
they're different for every person. I [needed] a system where I
could automatically send out specific e-mails depending on the item
the person bought." Rosinger also needed software that would
update the status of an order, showing whether it was at the
payment or ship stage, for instance.
Content Continues Below
Custom Business Solutions
For help, Rosinger turned to Tobe Goldfinger, owner of Woodmere,
New York-based JDT Technologies Ltd., a custom software company and
Certified Provider for sellers on eBay who find that existing
off-the-shelf solutions don't quite fit their needs. "The
biggest issue is often inventory control," Goldfinger says.
"This becomes a real challenge if you're selling items
that are available in limited quantities, such as tickets or
antiques."
Inventory problems intensify when sellers use multiple channels
to sell, such as a brick-and-mortar storefront and eBay. "On
eBay, your feedback is critical," Goldfinger says. "And
nothing upsets customers faster than selling them something you
don't have."
JDT also helps sellers set up bi-directional information feeds
with fulfillment houses; creates tools that generate custom,
automatic listings from inventory information; sets pricing for
sellers based on fluctuating sourcing costs; and more. "They
basically ask us to build a customer tool that fits into their
existing selling platform," Goldfinger says. And that's
what JDT did for Cameta Camera, focusing on custom list strategies
and order and inventory management.
eBay Tools
Custom developers such as JDT may charge anywhere from a few
thousand to tens of thousands of dollars for seller solutions, with
ongoing fees for support, upgrades and maintenance. But there are
quite a few tools from eBay and third parties that cost little or
nothing and are suitable for growing existing offline businesses on
eBay.
One of the most useful eBay tools for entrepreneurs is the
Seller OnRamp Program. According to eBay's Katie McNerney,
OnRamp teaches proven selling strategies through phone-based
consulting. "We have helped thousands of companies acquire new
customers and sell slow-moving inventory more efficiently,"
says McNerney. "Our research shows that OnRamp businesses are
significantly more successful than other businesses on
eBay."
The program is free. Any business looking to grow on eBay can
call a Seller OnRamp consultant toll-free at (866) 304-EBAY. Seller
OnRamp helps sellers improve listings to make them more marketable,
giving specific suggestions on topics such as writing listing
titles. They'll also consult on marketing strategies, including
choosing the best day and time to launch a listing.
"We can also help them with cross-promoting within their
eBay Store," McNerney says. If a seller has many items to
sell, he or she can promote related items to interested buyers.
Item listing pages will display a "See More Great Items From
This Seller" box near the bottom, which shows other items
available from that seller. If an eBay shopper clicks on any of the
four items in the box, he or she will be taken to the item page for
that listing. Cameta Camera uses this feature in its Store.
"eBay Stores offers a lot of different marketing
opportunities," McNerney adds. For example, sellers can
automatically send out an e-mail newsletter to people who indicate
they want to receive it.
The Merchant
eCommerce Solutions Center is another free eBay tool for
existing businesses expanding onto eBay. It helps merchants with a
wide range of eBay selling activities, from getting started with
selling online to setting up an eBay Store. You can get instant
online access to how-to information on many matters of interest to
businesses selling on eBay. There are broad overview topics, such
as developing an e-commerce strategy, setting up business
operations and using PayPal. And there are valuable tips on the
finer details, including choosing listing formats, taking advantage
of programs such as PayPal Seller Protection, and even printing
shipping labels from your home computer.
Certified Providers
Midway between custom software developers and broad-based eBay
tools such as Seller OnRamp are third-party, off-the-shelf products
and services available from Certified Providers. These
organizations are validated by eBay as having the expertise and
experience to satisfy customers.
eBay Certified Providers come in two flavors: technical and
nontechnical. The nontechnical providers help sellers design site
templates, plot sales strategies and the like. Technical providers
include custom developers like JDT, as well as off-the-shelf
software and service providers such as Infopia, which sells
Configurator, a product to help sellers create listings that allow
shoppers to configure custom products--such as computers and
peripherals--right on the item page. The tool from the Salt Lake
City-based company has been shown to sharply increase sale prices,
conversion rates and other e-commerce vital signs. With the variety
of Certified Providers creating tools for eBay sellers, you'll
likely find one that's right for your business (see http://solutions.ebay.com). Some services are free;
others require a subscription fee or a percentage of the final sale
price.
Paving the Way from Offline to
eBay
The solutions for helping offline businesses grow on eBay continue
to multiply and evolve. eBay's platform is morphing steadily
with modifications such as the category expansion planned, at press
time, for later this year. On a smaller scale, software developers
and their customers are constantly coming up with new ways to
smooth and automate the multitude of tasks required for growing a
business on eBay. Rosinger, for instance, says he has dozens of
ideas he is going to discuss with JDT Technologies. "We figure
out what we need, I talk to JDT, and they build it. It's an
ever-changing system."
Even while he waits for improvements, Rosinger knows he
wouldn't be the owner of a star business on eBay today without
the tools and services he has deployed to date. Says Rosinger,
"We couldn't possibly handle the number of orders we
do--and handle them as well as we do--without the software to back
us up."
Mark Henricks writes on business and
technology for leading publications and is author of Not Just a Living.