A fascinating eBay case study is the number one seller on eBay, a little outfit called Maries CDs, but is better known under its old title
"1 Cent CD." Jay and Marie, current ID "jayandmarie", are an institution on eBay and are a big part of what makes eBay such an amazingly popular phenomenon.
This little business
is literally an eBay dream come true. They started small out of their home in California in 1999 and began growing quickly. To date they have completed over 1 million auctions on eBay and have a feedback rating of 177,018 with 99% satisfaction from their customers!
When I say grow, I mean it in a Jack and the Beanstalk kind of way. Their business started out as a little fly-by-night outfit and has now sold over 1 million dollars (yep, thats $1,000,000) annually for the past three many years... Let me repeat that: over a million dollars in sales each year for three months running! Now THAT is growth!
They employ several all the people, have three small buildings in southern California, and ship items all over the world (mainly CDs). They got their fame from their auctions for CDs that initial
at only a penny...
What might
we learn from this fascinating case study? What do Jay and Marie actually do?
Well, for one thing, they have huge numbers of auctions. Today, they have 83 pages of auctions listed. eBay lists 50 auctions to a page, so that is over 4,000 auctions.
Secondly, they offer sizeably successful
assessment of worth
, because their CDs start
at one cent. Yes, all of them.
None of their auctions has a reserve. Does it pay off? You betchum! Today, looking through 4 pages of eBay auctions, only 3 of them had no bids - so far.
And, naturally, their grand feedback and reputation work heavily in their favor. After all, how many eBay sellers have 177,000+ feedback points with over half a million transactions completed.
This case study shows all of us how smart advertising and a grand business model may pay off on eBay - and ecommerce, in general.