Collectibles Store Lands Superhero Sales with eBay and ProStores
Our sales were much better once we went to ProStores, and our web storefront will be the basis of our financial success
Esteban Nunez, A10 Collectibles
Getting in Sync
Esteban Nunez and Antonio Toledo sell superhero and Disney collectibles at their ProStores web storefront A10 Collectibles. For them, it's not only a business but also a passion. "I'm not just an owner," says Esteban, "I'm also a client." Both are serious collectors themselves, and in September 2007, they saw an opportunity to sell part of their collections on eBay. They soon opened their own eBay store, and eventually realized that they should also start an online store. They went live with it a year later.
They chose ProStores as their small business eCommerce solution because they liked the fact that it was an eBay company. ProStores could sync inventory between the two sales channels so they didn't have to do double the work. "Inventory sync is a key feature for us because we sell a lot on eBay," explains Esteban. "There's no other product we’re aware of that can sync between multiple marketplaces."
Easy to List, Easy to Sell
They compared shopping carts and also liked ProStores' reasonable pricing and user-friendliness. "From having a concept to going live, ProStores makes it simple to create a store. It has good eCommerce templates; it's an easy shopping cart to personalize; and you don’t need to worry about coding. We add 25 new products to our store a month, and we still find it easy to manage. For stores that don't introduce new inventory regularly, it’s probably even simpler."
ProStores’ Copy Product feature is key to their catalog management. It lets merchants create a new product by copying already listed items and adjusting minor details like image and description. "We can keep everything else that comes with the template, like policies and shipping details, and we don't have to keep re-typing the information," says Esteban.
"Another key feature that helps us upsell and cross-sell is Related Products. For any given product, we can associate complementary products, such as items from the same manufacturer or comic book series. A person buying a Captain America statue might collect many things Captain America, for instance, so we can show them a bust or an action figure they might buy."
ProStores also helps A10 Collectibles drive business through built-in eCommerce marketing tools, like Pay Per Click and search engine optimization, and even through its Discussion Board. "If I could pick one success factor, there’s no other better resource than the ProStores Discussion Board," Esteban stresses. "It's user to user, and people go out of their way to help each other. And by helping other ProStores merchants, you can market your own web storefront. They might visit and tell someone else. Word of mouth is priceless and free."
Two Marketplaces in One
Currently A10 Collectibles makes about half its sales on ProStores and half on eBay. Antonio and Esteban are looking into opening a brick and mortar, but their key plan is to make ProStores their #1 marketplace.
"Our sales were much better once we went to ProStores, and our web storefront will be the basis of our financial success," Esteban projects. "Everything we invest goes there, and we’re committed to improving its implementation. We want A10 to have everything A to Z in superhero collectibles."
But they still respect the importance of both channels. "We get a lot of sales on ProStores that we wouldn't have had on eBay because there are customers who think eBay is for used products or for people selling stuff out of their garage. But one thing eBay does give us is traffic. It's like having a store in a mall—there's already an audience looking for something. On ProStores, we need to advertise, but we can do our own branding, serve our customers better, and enjoy bigger profit margins. Our web store won't replace eBay. They're just different marketplaces serving different audiences. One complements the other."
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