Best Practices
Seller Success Stories
Share your story--
join the discussions for:
More seller stories
Urban fashion company finds its groove
on eBay
L.A.-based urban streetwear clothing wholesalers Apparel Zoo (user ID: apparelzoo), found their niche selling retail on eBay. They're leading the way for the freshest trends in the retail market—and now they're taking it all the way to the bank.
As soon as Apparel Zoo started out on eBay, they garnered a positive response—very positive. "We went from zero to about $50,000 a month in like two months," says owner Ebby Davood. "All of the sudden, I started thinking to myself, we have a real business here." But, teamed up with Operations Manager Jason Delshad, it's more than a real business. It's leading the way for the freshest trends in the retail market, as an online urban apparel seller that gives customers the lowest prices available.
To say Davood and Delshad found their niche is an understatement. Both have roots in the Los Angeles clothing industry—they even have roots that go back to their elementary school days. Throw in the fact that they're self-professed eBay shopaholics and you've got eBay gold. Davood had the merchandise and the wholesale experience, and Delshad—who had prior online retail experience—was looking for something new. So the two hooked up and became "... the first online wholesale seller, selling to different mom-and-pop chains and household stores." By October 2011, the two ventured into selling retail on eBay as Apparel Zoo.
After just three short months, Apparel Zoo hit the coveted eBay Top Rated Seller status, and they noticed that it immediately doubled their previous numbers. Their biggest challenge then was hiring enough warehouse workers to ship the orders—not a bad problem to have.
Today, Apparel Zoo's eBay Store offers well over 8,000 individual items, which accounts for up to 85% of its total sales. Davood says, "eBay is a lot more user-friendly than any of the other sites we've tried to sell on. Some are just so difficult and there isn't any customer service whatsoever." And the features of their eBay Store, especially Markdown Manager, have been a huge help. Delshad says, "I pretty much only put sales out for one day instead of a week. Having an individual sale run each day creates a sense of urgency that customers really respond well to." A Store redesign is on their roadmap too, to take full advantage of even more eBay Stores features.
Turning frustrated buyers into repeat customers
It's a popular phrase for a reason: When it comes to service, the customer is king. For Apparel Zoo, the key is to have patience and bend over backwards for the customer. "We really understand that customers come first," says Delshad. The proof starts with their return policy: Anyone can return anything, at any time. "We also get a lot of issues with sizing, so we let the customer return the item and get a bigger size right away."
Keeping the feedback positive also plays a huge role in Apparel Zoo's success. Says Davood,"If, for example, a package gets lost or destroyed, we ship them another one right away. We also give them store credit in case they want to order something else. But more important, we understand that the customers are how we got here in the first place. We really want the customer to be happy, because in the long run we know that if they're happy, we'll get positive feedback from them." Repeat business is always good business.
Getting the conversation going via social
With feeds on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram, Apparel Zoo has embraced social media in a big way. Anything to build the brand, grow relationships with customers, reach out to new ones, and drive traffic to their eBay Store is a good thing. Having over 76,000 Facebook fans and 3,400 Instagram followers, they ought to know. Delshad says, "On Facebook and Twitter, we run probably around five to six posts a day. Some are comedy posts and some are ads for our new arrivals or stuff that we're putting on sale. As far as Instagram, as soon as a new product comes in, we take photos of it and post it up saying, 'Coming soon to Apparel Zoo.' We gain a lot of customers that way, as they won't be able to find the merchandise elsewhere because it just came onto the market."
Make your photos count
Apparel Zoo considers photography for their eBay listings to be a continuing evolution. You need the right product shots, the right number of shots—the more photos the better—the right color and lighting, and most important, the right model. Davood says, "At first our pictures were good, they weren't great." The team has gone through four different photographers at this point, and they're now on lucky number five. They've learned that getting people that are photogenic and attractive helps generate more sales. "A few times we didn't use a model and it didn't go well," says Davood. Upon reshooting the article of clothing on a model, they sold out of the product in a couple of weeks!
Nothing's going to slow them down
Apparel Zoo is poised to keep growing. "We have a good hold on the surf, the skate, the urban, and the hip-hop customers. We're just trying to take over more ground and get more products that can raise our sales to a different level," says Davood. That means Apparel Zoo will continue to do their research, beat the competition on pricing, and gain even more market share. They've recently scored contracts with big-name global brands, and that's definitely going to help them realize their vision. They also plan to revamp their eBay Store and take advantage of even more of the features eBay has to offer. "It's a great market," says Davood. "We're not stopping, by any means."