You’ve read the news. “X.com has garnered $Ymill for start up costs on online consignment shop.” “Venture capitalists drawn to online resale sites.”
And the GOOD part of all this for us, the B&M/ and maybe a bit online shop? They’respending big bucks getting a buzz going about consignment and resale, hiring the finest ad men and women to sell their product and spread the word that consignment and resale is haute fashion.
BETTER part of all this? Such mega-professional sites are increasing OUR individual stores’ visibility in both our area’s neighborhood (Ethel! STOP! There’s a CONSIGNMENT shop on that corner, just like The Real Real!)
But the truly BEST part of the proliferation of online consignment sites?
The lessons you can learn. Go through them all, take note of what appeals to you and doesn’t, read their copy and observe their photos. How do their professional techniques increase the desirability of each item?
It’s like a college education in promotion, funded by Wall Street!
Here’s one round-up of online consignment shops. Add any others you have bookmarked in the comments below, so we can all go “peek in their windows”, so to say!
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
I agree that these new online resale sites are creating a buzz but I do not think it’s helping our B & M stores, in fact, it’s hurting them. How do we know? We are a women’s consignment store and have been in business for 14 years. Our business has increased in both sales and consignors in EVERY one of those years EXCEPT THIS YEAR. We just completed our annual survey (we have an email list of 9,800 subscribers) and we asked about these online stores. The responses were very revealing. A large majority of both our consignors and customers were very aware of these new online sites and a large majority had consigned and/or purchased from these sites within the last 12 months. A majority also said that the shopping experience was good and that they would be likely shopping more online. I wasn’t really surprised with the results because we have very savvy customers and consignors.
There will always be a place in the market for B&M stores, but I think the added competition from these large online stores with huge ad budgets and wall street financing will no doubt take a toll on our B&M community. In today’s environment I would not open a B&M store…maybe an online store 🙂
In what ways, Ronnie, have you used the expertise of these online stores to improve your shop? There are lessons to be learned from the pros with the big bucks, and best of all, those lessons are out there and FREE! Can’t tell you how many good subject lines, promotional ideas, and timely advertising ideas I have gotten from them.