Chris Smith’s big priority is moving inventory. He wants to put as much stock on eBay as rapidly as he can, rather than letting it sit around the showroom or warehouse. Dallas Golf has its wholesale suppliers, like any other eBay business. But even their own wholesalers can’t keep up with demand, especially in the busy spring and summer months. Smith scratched his head, wondering where he could come up with new (or used) golf equipment to sell. Two sources came to him:
- Dallas Golf’s competitors
- Customers who want to replace used equipment with new equipment
Sourcing through your competitors? It sounds improbable, but Dallas Golf manages to do it.
“We go to our competition and say: ‘You sell new products, we have a database of the values of trade-in merchandise. Here are those values; call us once a week with your used inventory and sell it to us for the price we have in the database.’ Once we have the used merchandise, we can mark it up for a profit and sell it directly to customers on eBay.” Smith says he understands the problem with eBay’s rising fees, but golf is insulated from the fee increases to an extent because of the high turnover. “They eat out of your profit, but it’s better than having merchandise in your warehouse waiting for someone to come to your web site,” he comments.
“We go to our competition and say: ‘You sell new products, we have a database of the values of trade-in merchandise. Here are those values; call us once a week with your used inventory and sell it to us for the price we have in the database.’ Once we have the used merchandise, we can mark it up for a profit and sell it directly to customers on eBay.” Smith says he understands the problem with eBay’s rising fees, but golf is insulated from the fee increases to an extent because of the high turnover. “They eat out of your profit, but it’s better than having merchandise in your warehouse waiting for someone to come to your web site,” he comments.
