Tech Bytes: Three Steps to Omnichannel Retailer from eBay Seller
Hard to believe, eBay has now been in existence as an e-commerce platform for 20 years. Since its launch in September 1995, countless individuals and companies have sold and purchased goods via eBay. In addition, many full-fledged omnichannel retailers have evolved from small-scale efforts to sell merchandise on eBay.
I recently spoke with two entrepreneurs who launched such enterprises – Marty Babayov, owner/founder of The Suit Depot, and Marc Ducey, founding partner of GolfEtail. Based on our conversations, here are a few key steps that can enable eBay sellers to become true omnichannel retailers.
Starting Small
Both Babayov and Ducey agreed that eBay allowed them to start out as individual sellers and then gradually develop into omnichannel retail businesses. As customer demand increased, Suit Depot and GolfETail were able to start placing orders and developing relationships with the same wholesalers and suppliers used by larger, established retailers.
Today, both Suit Depot and GolfETail operate a store. In addition, Suit Depot operates two warehouses while GolfEtail operates one warehouse. Both retailers offer buy-online-pickup-in-store service.
“Starting on eBay was a good way to do it,” said Ducey. “It let us stick our toe in the water. Five to six years later, it’s amazing what we didn’t know. We’re still learning the marketplace.”
Obtaining (IT) Support
While Suit Depot and GolfETail were able to use the eBay dashboard to conduct and fulfill transactions in their early days, as the part-time businesses grew into full-time retail operations, they needed to expand their supporting IT infrastructure.
Both retailers gradually built infrastructures on top of the basic eBay platform, with both using the Magento e-commerce platform (Magento is owned by eBay). Suit Depot employs a large amount of custom software to handle back-end processes like inventory management and shipping, while GolfETail also employs a NetSuite ERP system and ChannelAdvisor digital marketing technology.
Babayov and Ducey equally stressed the importance of starting with the basic eBay platform and adding functionality as required by the demands of the business. Babayov was a more vocal proponent of using custom-developed technology.
“Looking back, it would have been easier to just use self-built custom solutions from the start,” said Babayov.
Using Every Option
Part of the foundation for the successful growth of Suit Depot and Golf ETail has been both retailers’ willingness to utilize every customer engagement option that became available. This has included leveraging other e-commerce marketplaces besides eBay.
“We sell on our own e-commerce site as well as on eBay, Amazon and other third-party marketplaces,” said Babayov. “We offer the same inventory on all platforms.”
In addition, both retailers engage in mobile commerce with mobile-optimized commerce sites. And while they do not actually sell merchandise via social media, they maintain an active presence on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for promotional and relationship-building purposes.
Most eBay sellers do not, and probably do not want to, become full-fledged omnichannel retail operations. But the emergence of businesses like Suit Depot and GolfETail demonstrates the potential and power of third-party online marketplaces to transform the retail landscape.
In addition to enabling individuals to plant the seeds of a retail business with minimal investment and overhead, eBay and other hosted commerce platforms also offer established retailers the opportunity to easily experiment online with new products, markets and strategies. It will be interesting to see what changes eBay helps produce in retail during the next 20 years.