New deals extend BackcountryStore.com to Yahoo and eBay
Online outdoors recreational gear retailer BackcountryStore.com is expanding into two major web marketplaces, Yahoo and eBay, with new agreements announced this week. The deal with Yahoo gives BackcountryStore featured merchant status and customizes terms so as to maximize the opportunity, for example, by sending BackcountryStore search results to Yahoo in order of sales popularity so the best sellers appear first.
BackcountryStore also has begun working with Infopia’s Marketplace Manager program to launch and manage sales of returned and damaged merchandise on eBay. The online retailer moved those sales to eBay because, although its return rate is low, it lacks the venue of a high-traffic brick-and-mortar store to clear such items, says John Bresee, president and co-founder.
“We need to move the overstock and clear it, so we might as well get a marketing advantage out of it too,” Bresee says. “We use auctions as a marketing tool to drive customers to our Ebay store.”
Sales at BackcountryStore, which operates exclusively on the web, are up 103% year over year, he says, adding that the growth suggests the online market for the type of high-end, outdoor recreational equipment BackcountryStore sells is larger than it had initially believed. “The exciting thing there is that a lot of the growth is still to come,” he says. “Compared with the percentage of computer sales that are online, sporting goods are way behind the curve. They are just moving online.”
That means that moving into larger, established online marketplaces is critical. “You have to be in all the places–-search engines, big e-commerce sites, wherever they start their search--that people would go to look for this kind of product,” Bresee says. “Yahoo and eBay are cost-effective ways to get in front of people who shop online. Then it’s up to us to present a good mix of products.”
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