NobleSpirit Celebrates 22 Successful Years on eBay!
Today, September 28, 2020
marks our 22nd Anniversary on eBay!
From (0) Feedback to nearly 1/2 million sales!
When we bought our old rambling New England colonial farm house built in 1787, we found this Civil War soldier's pocket bible on a ledge of the old barn attached to the house. Normally, one would keep such a historically as well as personally significant antiquity. Instead, we had a mission for the bible. We sent it on a journey of good fortune to launch our new inaugural business on eBay.
Some 440,000 eBay sales ago, this was our first ever sale. I remember our first sale on eBay as though it was yesterday.
Within the retaining brand, the front inside leaves were inscribed:
“This book went through the Great Rebellion with its owner, A.W. Bartlett. Bought in the city of Concord, 1862”
It was instantly clear that eBay not only captured our target demographic collector/investor, it encompassed the perfect auction model within a vibrant and comprehensive vertical and lateral cross merchandising marketplace. Soon after we decided eBay delivered a perfect global distribution system, we started to replace all those staples in the top left margin by investing many $100,000's in our Meridian software. It was a time well before professional business solutions existed on eBay around the turn of the century. Where each staple told an admin story, technology made it possible to run complex operations with seamless automation. Once we noticed the astonishing loyalty that provided unprecedented consistent daily, weekly and monthly traffic, we committed 100% to the platform. Exclusively. Who wouldn't when customers are in the 10's of millions and page views are in the hundred's of millions!
Our eBay NobleSpirit username was adopted from a boat I named in my father's memory. It was fitting that the business he fostered should continue his legacy.
Prior to eBay, dealing in stamps here in the US and abroad, Europe, South America, Middle East, and beyond meant that if you weren't prepared to drive 100's of miles or fly 1,000's of miles, you weren't in the stamp business. This was the norm for NobleSpirit for decades before eBay provided global access at one's fingertips.
It was 1997 on an overnight sleeper train on one of my regular trips to visit with clients in Florida that I found myself sharing a dinner table with the Chief Marketing Officer of Amtrack. The usual exchange of queries regarding respective occupations, led him to share his story describing how he spent his free time selling his military memorabilia on eBay, which was on the Internet.
"What's an eBay?", I exclaimed.
"You just take photos, create the listing, and the checks just keep rolling in...", he explained calmly.
To be sure, on reflection, I now feel delighted, I never followed with a question asking, "What is an Internet?"
It wasn't until a full year later on this very day in 1998 that I decided to see what all the eBay chatter was about. The journey from (0) feedback to (100,000) plus does not actually tell the full story.
The reality is many 100,000's of sales to over 150,000 customers in nearly 80 countries around the globe, encompassing 100's of millions (100,000,000's) of page views over the years. We ship 55,000+ packages a year.
If there is any doubt that eBay has fundamentally reconfigured the stamp industry at its very core, think again. With over 200 million sales in stamps, eBay has sold more stamps for more money than all other secular markets combined over the last 22 years. You can actually now search Stamp Market Index to access each and every one of those sales.
That eBay has transformed our industry along with virtually every other collectibles sector and maintains the leading first mover role is indisputable.
It has been an incredible journey on eBay since that remarkable dial-up modem started screaming for a better way to communicate on this day back in 1998. In 2003, I founded a trade organization of professional eBay merchants. The Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA). We amassed over 8,000 members world wide turning over some $20Billion GMV. We held 12 conferences in the US and Australia. It was a first of its kind organization that shaped how marketplaces would draw benefit from uniquely qualified engagement with its merchant and service provider resource. Several eBay Presidents delivered powerful keynotes, bringing their C-Suite management teams with them at these summits to tap into the vast seller base knowledge bank of experience and expertise that drives the eBay engine at its core.
That the possibilities are limitless going forward regarding the core foundation and innovation that will continue to put the global eBay marketplace at the fore of the stamp industry is a factual certainty.