Eric Clark is a hard man to catch.
When we first reached out to him to do a feature, it was September – in the height of preparations for the annual year-end holiday shopping blitz.
Helming a multi-million-pound ecommerce business on eBay, one of the leading marketplaces, his days were packed to the brim.
Plus, the ecommerce boom from the coronavirus pandemic meant handling the immense orders this year would require much more time and work than in previous years.
It took two months and a handful of failed attempts. But a quick break in Eric’s busy schedule and a somewhat impromptu moment finally allowed us to get him on the line.
Here’s his story.
The Assist That Started It All
Nearly ten years ago today, Eric opened a store selling products in the sports niche, dabbling in business for the first time.
Separately, his current business partner, Henry, was working in a retail store – by day. By night, he was in resale, purchasing items from the store he worked at and reselling them online.
“...he was in resale, purchasing items from the store he worked at and reselling them online. ”
Friends then, the two were brought together entrepreneurially by the quality of smartphone cameras back then, which Henry was using for his product photos. Seeing how subpar the images were, Eric offered to help with his DSLR.
‘Initially, I was just helping him out. There wasn’t really a profit motive or anything like that,’ says Eric.
Little did they know, this would become a turning point for both of them as sales started to take off.
‘He was selling one a day, then two a day, then three a day, and so on. And he sort of says to me at one point, “Hey we should turn this into something more formal.”’
So they did – joining forces and taking to eBay to launch an ecommerce business.
From Humble Beginnings To a Multi-Million-Pound SMB
At the start, it was a balancing game for the pair as they both still had their day jobs.
‘I’d be taking photos, Henry would be packing orders, and we’d be getting new listings online. They were 12- to 14-hour days just trying to fit everything in.’
They did what any aspiring entrepreneur in their early 20s would do – minimize cost as much as possible.
That meant turning to family.
“Our first warehouse was Henry’s grandmother’s spare bedroom”
‘Our first warehouse was Henry’s grandmother’s spare bedroom,’ says Eric. ‘We had products laid out all over the place in this spare bedroom and that’s essentially where we started out.’
About half a year into their venture, both of them left their day jobs to dedicate themselves fulltime to their online business.
While the first few years saw steady and consistent growth, it wasn’t until three or four years in that they started to experience exponential growth month over month.
‘We’d be going from 30 sales per day one month to 60 sales per day the next month,’ says Eric.
Soon, the partners were stretched pretty thin. So they started to ramp up their backend, working on warehousing, employing staff to pack orders, and so on.
Not long after this spurt, they hit the £2 million-per-year mark in sales. Seven years into the business now, this figure has held steady for the past few years.
The duo has also since returned the spare bedroom to Henry’s grandmother – to whom Eric admits they still owe a long-overdue thank-you dinner.
They’re now operating out of three warehouses in an industrial estate, covering an area of 20,000 square feet with the capacity to hold 1,500 pallets worth of stock.
An Unconventional Strategy
Eric and Henry’s products rank among the top few listings within their product category on eBay consistently – a feat made even more impressive by the fact that the category isn’t only one of the most competitive ones on eBay but in ecommerce in general.
It’s a common belief among sellers that thousands and thousands of different products are required to build a solid eBay store. But with around 200 products, Eric’s business is proof of the contrary.
Eric credits this success to his product-first strategy – a rather unconventional approach. Where most sellers first look to the high ranking listings to identify products to sell, Eric flips it around.
“He looks at the products that he has access to and chooses only those that he thinks belong on the first page of eBay’s search results”
He looks at the products that he has access to and chooses only those that he thinks belong on the first page of eBay’s search results. Then, he finds a way for them to rank by analysing the competition around them.
‘We’ll go, “Ok, this particular style we think we can rank high for using these keywords and achieve this sort of price.” And if all of those factors fall into place, we decide to go for that product.’
The Role of Data and Analytics
To succeed on eBay, the goal isn’t just to rank, but to rank high.
One of the requirements Eric has for his products is their ability to rank on page one of eBay’s search results. These are typically short keywords with high search volumes.
‘At the end of the day, on marketplaces, if you’re not on page one, your product may as well not exist,’ explains Eric.
And that’s where data analytics come into play. To help him rank, Eric leverages ShelfTrend’s live eBay data.
He has a list of 170 or so keywords that he constantly tracks. He goes on ShelfTrend three times a month to generate the reports he needs to analyse his most important metrics: keyword rank and sales volume.
“He goes on ShelfTrend three times a month to generate the reports he needs to analyse his most important metrics: keyword rank and sales volume. ”
‘Generally speaking, if the search rank improves, the sales volume usually increases as well. So we track those two metrics over the past 30 days,’ explains Eric.
Armed with that data, he tweaks what are seemingly small but surprisingly impactful things, like the photo layout, title, listing description, and minor price adjustments in order to improve their listings’ rank.
‘Ultimately, we look from the customers’ lens and we go “What is a customer likely to respond well to?”’
If a listing suddenly drops significantly in sales or rank, Eric uses ShelfTrend to understand the cause so that he can plan accordingly. Is it the market or a new competitor?
Quality Over Price
Eric also uses ShelfTrend to keep an eye on the performance of his competitors’ listings, monitoring the sort of stock that they have available and whether his products are better.
And that doesn’t mean a lower price point. Though it may be what many sellers use for a competitive advantage, it’s not the case for Eric.
“...the vast majority of his products are priced higher than his competitors”
In fact, the vast majority of his products are priced higher than his competitors’. It’s a strategy that works because where he doesn’t offer a lower price, he more than makes up for with quality and service.
‘Because of the quality of our listings, products, and service as well which, of course, is very important, we feel all those factors sort of enable us to charge slightly higher prices, but still compete quite effectively with these competitors,’ says Eric.
With a 99.6% positive feedback store rating, no one can argue with that.
Challenges Along the Way
To say it took hard work for Eric and Henry to get to where they are today would be a massive understatement.
They may be enjoying sweet success now and reaping the rewards of their work, but the journey from small-scale sellers to an established SMB certainly wasn’t without its bumps.
At just 20-odd years of age when they started, the first hurdle they faced was getting trust.
‘Credibility is quite hard when you’re that kind of age, when you’re going to see suppliers who have been in business for 30, 40 years and they see a 20-year-old walking in saying “Hey, I want 2000 orders,”’ says Eric.
As with any business, they’ve also had plenty of behind-the-scenes issues to deal with. But by and far, the biggest challenge has come from within.
“The hardest part really is putting the work in and staying committed to it all.”
‘The hardest part really is putting the work in and staying committed to it all.’
With success comes copycats. Seeing new competitors surface once in a while selling similar products – and at times exact replicas – to the ones they’ve designed and created has become part of the game.
But that’s not something Eric loses sleep over as most of these spin-offs have pretty short shelf-lives.
Eric has that down to them not really knowing what they’re doing because they’re copying instead of innovating, an approach with longer-lasting success.
‘There’s something clearly off with their strategy because they often don’t hang around. Their listings will be there for maybe a few months and then they’ll tail off and they’ll disappear.’
Plus, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The number of times they’ve been copied is validation of not only they're doing things right but also their position as a market leader.
‘It’s Been a Crazy Journey.’
Looking ahead, Eric’s looking to expand internationally.
Most of their sales have so far come from their home market, the UK. The pair are now looking to exploit opportunities in countries like Germany, France, and even the US.
Looking at how far they’ve come since operating out of a bedroom, Eric can’t help but note, ‘It’s been a crazy journey.’
The resulting ecommerce boom from COVID-19 lockdowns has led to 2020 being the best year so far for their business and they’re on path to setting new records.
If they do, celebrations will certainly be in order, which may just include that overdue dinner treat for Henry’s grandmother.
The names of the people in this article have been changed and their business details withheld at their request to respect their privacy.
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