posted on June 26, 2000 01:20:46 PM new Resaleworld Opens $45 Billion Resale Industry to the Web
"Historically, the resale industry has been slow to join the e-commerce revolution, in part due to the challenges inherent in managing an inventory made up exclusively of unique items. Resaleworld's proprietary resale inventory management system, Liberty Online(TM), overcomes that hurdle by continuously tracking and updating sales in-store and online.
"With the Liberty Online system, storeowners may simultaneously feature merchandise on multiple web sites as well as in their retail outlet. If an item sells online, it automatically becomes unavailable for sale in-store..."
posted on June 27, 2000 01:04:19 PM new
I felt that it was really important to bring this to the attention of Family e-Biz, as I know that lotsa liddle sellers scour the liddle thriftshops, and this new initiative will have an impact upon antiquers and vintage-afficianados.
posted on June 27, 2000 01:30:07 PM new
How so? Will the thrift stores and consignment shops start pulling stuff to sell to one another thereby increasing the cost when the stuff finally hits the racks or shelves somewhere? Or will this system open a portal for thrifts and consignments shops to sell directly online? If the latter is the case then the thrifts and consignment shops would be competing with their former customers who bought stuff off the floor to resell online. This would not be good for a lot of sellers.
posted on June 27, 2000 01:36:14 PM new
The way I read the article is that this is an initiative whereby all the liddle thriftshops can come online and see, these people have set up the inventory systems software, so that if the 3-D thriftshops make a 3-D sale of a one-of-a-kind item, that the item immediately ALSO becomes unavailable (sold) in their online listings of merchandise. AND if the sale occurs online, the 3-D thriftshop can't sell the item to a walk-in customer, cuz the item's been removed from inventory.
This software will revolutionize the listings of the Goodwill stores.
Also, check out the new thread I started about the new Trellix/TradeSafe deal, and tell me what ya think.
posted on June 27, 2000 02:13:10 PM new
As a matter of fact I did look at Trellix/Tradesafe.
It looks to me that Trellix is offering a web site building program that you have to download (16 megs too). It looks as if with the partnership with Tradesafe there will be a feature that will automatically integrate Tradesafe into the site. I am not sure but I think it has a shopping cart feature.
I looked at Tradesafe and it looks ok except that when someone wants to buy something you have to go through the email routine of requesting an invoice or form to be sent to the buyer.
I know from my own buying on the web that I want to put stuff in a cart, checkout, and pay for it all at the same time. I find the back and forth email to finalize the sale cumbersome and will buy somewhere else.
Also I couldn't figure out if you use the Trellix software to create a site if you need to have your own domain and hosting service when it comes time to download.
I get the inventory management notion about the resellers. But who will the resellers be selling to, each other or the public? What I don't get is how salesafari.com fits into it and why you have to be a thrift or consignment shop to register. Salesafari claims to be an auction site. http://www.salesafari.com. I did a Whois for salesafari and it came up as the resellers group who are offering the inventory management software.
Goodwill already has dramatically changed with http://www.shopgoodwill.com auctions. I look at the site often and more and more regions are listing auctions. In the past 2 weeks there was a ring listed with an opening bid of $2,000+. This particular Goodwill said it was the low offer it had gotten from a local jewelry shop.
I have mixed feelings about Goodwill. On the one hand I think it's mission is worthwhile, but on the other hand selling directly will hurt families who rely on online auctions to pay the bills.
None of this is a critism of you efforts. It is appreciated. I believe that the rate of change we are and will experience is being driven by the technology that serves us, and every bit of information helps. Susan
There's a great book came out a few years back entitled, Managing At the Speed of Change, and the author mentioned again & again & again & again that if anyone felt the late 90s provided tooooooo many changes in everything, that they ain't seen nuthin' and would look back at the turn of the century as the good ol' days when things were calm and not filled with constant upsidedown insideout change-change-change each & every single instant.
posted on June 28, 2000 12:46:46 AM new
The way I understand it, a thrift store would have to put some kind of scannable CODE on the tag of everything they want to list online. If they also have it for sale in their brick-and-mortar store, then it would have to be scanned at checkout for the computer system to know it's been sold and should be dropped from online offerings. Right?
There aren't any thrift stores in MY city (Salvation Army, Goodwill, or independents)that will bother to tag merchandise that way. They're doing good to just get a PRICE on an item, much less a code to list online.
For the last several years, all the Goodwill Stores here have put everything of ANY value in their Auction Cases, rather than up for sale on the floor. They take written bids (with high minimum openings) from shoppers for two weeks, then the high bidder at closing wins. Needless to say, everything has always gone way too high for dealers to buy. My only hope of buying anything was when the store pricer didn't recognize something to be of value and marked it a relatively low price, which over the last few years has become a very, very, very rare occurrance.
These days the thrift stores here all price everything HIGHER than I can sell it. Same with live auctions. Same with flea markets. Same with garage sales.
So the online Goodwill Auction doesn't bother me....they haven't priced their store merchandise where I could buy it for resale in YEARS. They might as well get retail (or higher) from someone buying on the internet rather than locally.
