I had the opportunity to speak both with Jeff Scanlon and Gary Lagestee about the Rummage Monkey marketplace.
So where did Rummage Monkey begin? What really set this in motion?
Jeff: We’re Foreign Exchange Sales Brokers working with many middle and small business owners and so while we — like others — saw a need for an affordable marketplace, we figured we’d also do better than the tech guys who started one because we had the business contacts.
I gotta ask it: How is Rummage Monkey different than eBay?
Gary: It’s not an auction site. Sellers ask a fair price, have the option to use the negotiation tool to accept offers, and no one has to wait for the auction to end to make the deal they want.
Jeff: And we offer options in buying, purchasing options, like escrow accounts, Google Check Out, PayPal, and standard merchant accounts — eventually sellers will be able to access and process their credit card transactions via Authorize.net. We’re still tweaking it all, but with our secure messaging sellers and buyers will be able to securely finalize their payment via messages.
Gary: And our fee structure is low. There are no listing fees, low fees for extra features like additional pictures, featured items etc., and fair final value fees.
Can you create your listing with images and photos you host yourself? You know, the old html insert…
Gary: Yes. But for those who need us to host those extra images we have the option, with a small fee of course.
Your fees are low… Many marketplace sites fail because they don’t plan long term with their fees, their server costs aren’t covered and they go belly up. Which leads to two questions: Are these fees you can live with, so the site is viable? Or are these temporary starter fees to get the site started and then they’ll be raised?
Jeff: We’ve planned our fee structure so that we can afford to run the site. For example, you’ll notice that on items $12 or less, we take a flat fee of 35 cents. This is because with what the merchant account fees are, we needed to be certain to cover that amount. These aren’t starter fees, in fact we just lowered them.
So the fees won’t be raised — I don’t mean ‘ever,’ but for the foreseeable future anyway…
Jeff: We’ve planned and calculated, the low fees shown are our fees — our goal with Rummage Monkey is to be affordable.
One of the major complaints about new marketplace sites is that they don’t have any real money put into marketing and promoting the site. No one shows up…
Gary: We’ve purchased and produced a commercial for XM satelite radio, have a strong Adwords campaign, and have banner ad campains at many high-traffic sites like MySpace.
Jeff: Also at Photo Bucket and power sellers groups.
I should make it clear here that Rummage Monkey is still in what you’d call ‘Beta,’ right? I mean you haven’t fully launched yet.
Gary: Correct. We’re still adding features, updating and building the site. Jeff is living and breathing this thing — we have to force him to step away now and then.
Jeff: And most of our advertising, including the radio commercial, won’t happen until we have more sellers — why pay to heavily promote the site, bring customers in, just to have them find there isn’t much for sale there yet? ‘Yet’ is the key part; we are working to get sellers and store owners now.
I’ve read that your planning to officially open & do the major promotion, at the end of March… Is that true?
Gary: We hope to launch the ad campaign at the end of March, or at least within 2 months.
Knock wood?
Gary: Yes, hopefully!
Jeff: Again, this is largely based on the number of sellers and items… Are you going to try it?
*This is when I went to the site and more seriously looked at the fee structures etc. The stores made sense to me — low monthly fees range from $5 (for 500 items) to $20 (for 1,000,000 items) with a middle package of $15 (for 10,000 items). More affordable than I would have guessed.
Can you have more than one store? So that each store has a theme? I believe in niche marketing…
Jeff: Sure. You’ll need a unique ID for each store, but email me and we’ll set it up right for you.
Wow, that’s service you don’t get at eBay. In fact, I’m just thrilled to see contact information on the site. Right there, on the site, there is contact information — physical address, a working email address, and oh-can-it-be-true? Yes! A valid phone number. That alone makes Rummage Monkey worthy of seller attention.
Jeff: Once more sellers come, the ads will run, the buyers will come — & they’ll find lots of goods to buy. Everybody wins.
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At the FutureShop companion website, AuctionCulture.com, it reads, “Organizations that understand the new dynamics between the secondary and primary markets will strengthen their products inherently, and in so doing increase customer loyalty.”
So far, Rummage Monkey seems to be on it’s way to doing just that.
