"We've never done anything online, so we naturally saw eBay as the right first step," says Brady Beckmyer, Internet sales manager for Front Row Sports. The store specializes in licensed apparel and memorabilia, selling team jackets and hats, bobble dolls and signed baseballs.

With seven stores in the Las Vegas area, the chain had a strong presence in the local market. By moving some inventory to eBay - especially close-outs and end-of-season goods -- they've opened up a new sales channel and found a new way to avoid some of the seasonality issues that arise from their location in the sunbelt.

"We've got a bunch of leather jackets for sale right now," says Beckmyer. "It's 103 degrees outside right now so we'd never be able to sell these in Vegas. But on eBay they'll move."

Since Front Row Sports opened shop on eBay in February, they've seen steadily growing sales. In fact, in just three months they've achieved PowerSeller status.

"We sell only branded, authenticated merchandise," says Beckmyer. "We make sure the brand and the label are prominent in every photo. We want to make sure people get what they pay for."

That moment may arrive sooner than they think. With 1,100 feedback received since February the sports market is quickly becoming fans of FRS.

gibbs@pclink.com (18554) eDiscountBike

June 2003

After 20 years in the bike business, Bennett Gibbs thought it was time to reinvent the wheel. So after selling a successful bike store in 1998, he started tinkering with selling bikes online.

Then, over lunch one day, he heard about eBay. Gibbs quickly realized that the online marketplace could be the solution to a nagging problem: How to dispose of a semi-trailer load of bike parts he'd inherited from his previous business.

And so eDiscountBike was born. In less than four years, the Victoria, Minnesota business has grown into one of eBay's largest sellers of bikes and cycling gear, shipping 100-300 packages a day. Offering a huge range of gear from bike shorts to watches that monitor cyclist's heart rates, eDiscountBike is the closest thing to a warehouse store for all things cycling.

Gibbs specializes in liquidating inventory from manufacturers and bike stores that go belly up. Armed with a warehouse and decades of experience, he keeps his ear to the ground for good deals then moves quickly to buy up whatever is available.

"I try to buy everything," he says. "When I had the store, we were one of the biggest single-store bike retailers in the country, but we couldn't possibly match what you can move on eBay."

Buying huge quantities lowers his unit cost and helps keep potential competitors sidelined. So when he had the chance to take delivery of 11,000 bike computers, he couldn't say no. As a retailer, he'd be lucky to sell more than a few hundred a year, but on eBay he was able to move the entire inventory in just under a year.

And he's branched out into new areas where his formula of deep discounting and exceptional service seems to work on almost anything. Recently he started selling kitty litter—the kind of product whose low price and high-shipping costs doomed many early online pet supply stores—and is encouraged by the results.

"Doesn't really matter what it is, as long as you have a good product at a good price, you'll do well," says Gibbs.

Gibbs monitors auction activity carefully, and uses the results to adjust his pricing to meet market demand. When he first started listing his bike computers, for example, he set a reserve price of $9.99. Demand increased when he dropped the price to $5.99, then took off when the price was dropped again to $3.99.

Finding the right product description can be just as important as dialing in the price—but it's more art than science.

"I had five semi-loads of Mondial sport racks for your car. These things retail for $120 and we were selling them for only $19.99. But they just flopped when we first put them on line as 'sport racks'."

Then Gibbs noticed someone else enjoying success selling the same items under the brand name and using the words "roof racks" in the description. Gibbs made the switch and sales started clicking.

Traditionally, the bike business has been a rough road for many retailers. As Gibbs says, "It's fun, but it's hard to make any money at it." And when you're based in Minnesota, where you can count on snow six months a year, the cards are stacked against you.

By moving the lion's share of his business to eBay, Bennett Gibbs has beaten the odds by avoiding much of the seasonality that besets his industry. His sales still don't match his old retail store, but with only three employees (versus 55 at the old business) and low overhead, Bennett is able to enjoy a degree of independence most people could only dream of.

"I thank God every day that something like eBay is out there," he says. "I work from my home, I can go up to my cabin for weeks at a time. All I need is my cell phone and an Internet connection."