But there was just one problem. None of them want to ship just one tiny part overseas.
After some deliberation, Pickering decided to buy several parts from one supplier. “I had the thought that although I only needed one and maybe one spare,” he said. “I thought I'd pop the rest on eBay.”
He listed them all on eBay, and all the parts were sold within 24 hours. After that, Pickering started to buy more and continued to sell them on eBay.
Even though it seemed like an obvious business opportunity right in front of him, while buying and selling parts on eBay, he had just started up an IT business and hired ActionCOACH Business Coach Steve Shaw to help him get it up and running. However, after the first few sessions, it became obvious that buying and selling blender spare parts wasn’t just a distraction or a hobby, but a business opportunity waiting to be explored further.
With guidance from Shaw, Pickering took the business from selling a few items on eBay to a full-grown, successful company, K.A. Parts Ltd, which promotes and sells online spare parts from various kitchenware manufacturers, with sales in Europe and partners in the U.S. Pickering was recently presented the ActionCOACH Action Start Up award for London and South East England.
By concentrating on ActionCOACH’
“We have successfully built a team of people and put manual and IT systems in place deliver a high quality consistent service at a very reasonable cost,” Pickering said.
“Through Steve’s coaching, we have learned how to help our suppliers to help us,” Pickering said. “As a result we have helped open up business opportunities for our U.S. supplier to add value to their sales and improve their marketing. We recently worked on a joint venture to produce a tool. This has helped both businesses to create a product bundle, increasing sales volume by taking sales from our competitors and increasing profit."
Pickering found a U.S. supplier from his initial Internet search for the blender part. He found 10 U.S.-based companies that sold the parts and contacted them all. Most were unwilling to ship internationally, but Seneca River Trading, based in Syracuse, NY, was different.
“Tony Carioggia from Seneca River Trading was more than willing to help,” Pickering said. “Through email, I placed our first order which was shipped immediately and arrived within 10 days. We then worked out a partner arrangement where we committed to buy on a regular basis and received prompt delivery and pre and post sales support.”
Since then, with guidance from Shaw, K.A. Parts Ltd has established a procedure for processing one-off requests and shared product promotion. Pickering added that they are currently working on putting systems in place to further automate procedures. This will allow part-time staffers to take on more roles in the company.
ActionCOACH is the world’s number one business coaching and executive coaching firm, with more than 1,000 offices in 26 countries. To learn more, go to actioncoach.com
