Word: kopelman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...began when Josh Kopelman went online to find a copy of John Grisham's The Testament. He was about to spend $20 to buy it new on Amazon, but he decided to see if there were any copies listed on eBay. There were 12 up for auction, starting for as low as $1. And nobody was bidding on them...
...occurred to Kopelman--a twenty-something University of Pennsylvania grad and high-tech entrepreneur--that online auctions had a flaw. They didn't work well for mass-produced items whose value was certain. So he decided to create an e-tailing site called "ebazon." Like eBay, it would connect individual buyers and sellers to trade low-cost, used goods. Like Amazon, it would offer simplicity of use and fixed prices...
Half got a jump-start from one of the greatest publicity coups in dotcom history. Its marketing guru talked Halfway, Ore. (pop. 345), into renaming itself Half.com Ore., in exchange for $75,000 and 22 computers. The move made national headlines and landed Kopelman on NBC's Today Show with Katie Couric. Traffic and sales soared, and by June, Half was the 18th largest e-commerce site, with 250,000 registered users. That month eBay plunked down more than $300 million in stock to buy the company...
...major reason for Half's success--in November it hit No. 3 in the e-commerce rankings--is that Kopelman has replicated eBay's strengths. It is a "many-to-many" site, hooking up millions of users to buy and sell, which means it offers millions more trading (and profit) possibilities than Amazon or eToys, for instance. And like eBay, it is a "virtual" site. It doesn't have to shoulder the cost of acquiring, storing or shipping goods...
...just as impressive is the way in which Half's business model is different. Kopelman saw something the folks at eBay were slow to appreciate--just how much demand there was for fixed-price deals. "There are people who love the thrill of bidding and winning," says Kopelman. "But there are other people who don't want to win an auction, they just want the CD." Kopelman's goal was to make it easier to sell an item than to throw it away. He's not there yet--garbage still doesn't need to be bubble-wrapped or taken...