The intimacy of the “old” eBay that I loved is resurfacing in the niche auction sites, and is a key concept for Loobalee.
Though much smaller, niche auction sites are enjoying a leg-up on the big guys, such as eBay. Specialty auction sites appeal mainly to people interested in the market they serve. At Loobalee, we including the best of what these sites have to offer.
Tight Community
Take JustBeads.com for example. Unless you have a serious interest in jewelry making, bead design, or bead collecting, you may have not even heard of this site. And, you are extremely unlikely to buy or sell on the site.l
JustBeads.com and other niche auction sites enjoy the intimacy of a target community where, for the most part, a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect exists.
Other niche auction sites include PenBid.com, the GolfClubExchange.com, and eRock.net. Each of these sites have high appeal to their target audience and each welcome newcomers eagerly into the community.
Likewise, newcomers are incented to provide excellent services and to be excellent customers in order to establish and maintain a positive profile among the members of these special interest groups.
Loobalee.com, by its very nature, will mainly attract a target audience of parents, relatives, and caregivers who have a high interest in designer children’s clothing and merchandise, thus we can foster a similar niche community environment.
Custom Site, Custom Processes, and Custom Content
Additionally, the niche auction sites are able to customize the procsses and content on their sites to suit the needs of their customer to a tee.
There are multiple auction sites popping up that cater to children’s clothing, but these sites are using the same standard auction processes that serve the large auction sites — nothing special here. They are trying to compete with the big guys on price (e.g. free listings and minimal back-end fees), but they haven’t customized any of processes that are generically designed to serve anything and everything from .99 cents to $100,000.
At Loobalee.com, we are fully customizing our site, our processes, and our content to meet the needs of our target audience and target market. We don’t need to be concerned with meeting the needs of a large, broad audience, such as eBay and the generic auction sites must manage.
We look forward to unveling our niche services and specialty marketplace soon!
– Suzanne Rielle, Co-Founder, Loobalee.com