Vein, Fleuri or Broadband?

May 5, 2003

The one place where the spotlight shines in online commerce isn’t, as Net amateurs might think, the top selling item on Amazon.com or some other mere retailer. If there’s a place of honor for buying and selling with a click of the mouse, it’s the lead item on eBay.
For those of you unwilling to look in on www.ebay.com, lest a shopping addiction set in – and that’s no unfounded fear – the online auction’s list of hot buys is the showcase of the ridiculous to the sublime, with anything from Czar Nicholas II’s cap to a Rolls-Royce convertible. However, the top item a few months ago finally shocked me.
Or floored me. Or maybe walled me. For a mere $5,000, I could be the proud owner of 2,000 ft² of travertine.
Instead of a true relic from Hernando DeSoto’s band of conquistadors, or a Vespa scooter pre-owned by Audrey Hepburn with a certificate of authenticity, I could be the proud owner of a pallet or two of 18” X 18” X 7/16” honed tile. Shipping, of course, would be extra. And, I didn’t even need to worry about beating the rush; several different lots of tile awaited my bid.
However, I passed on the chance, since I really wanted a cheap deal on noise-canceling headphones. Right at the moment, I couldn’t see a truckload of travertine as an impulse buy for a possible remodeling project, or something to collect and trade with friends (unless they could satisfy my yen for Norwegian black granite and a nice, tasteful grout).
At this point, the predictable thing to do would be a stern lecture on the evils of selling stone on the Internet, and how it’s just not proper. Someone should be ashamed of this kind of behavior.
Anyone with more than a few months of reading this space, though, knows that predictability comes around rarely. Someone’s showing good business sense here, and finally getting the potential of the Internet. In simple terms: Good for them.
I’ve been hooked on the online habit for 17 years, ever since I traded my first message with someone via an Osborne portable computer at 1/3333rd the speed of my current connection. In 1990, I set up a bulletin-board system connection with an employer, took my work home as a telecommuter, and never sat behind the desk at an office again.
I also watched the online boom of the late 1990s, when investors poured billions of dollars into all sorts of online business opportunities. I understood the technology and saw the potential. And, for the most part, I thought they were nuts.
Somehow, people got it in their heads that consumers and business would do all their shopping with some kind of electronic online device. The Internet would provide the path for the ultimate personal sales call, and also become the virtual strip mall in everyone’s home. Movies and groceries and dog food and concrete and accounting services would only be a screen selection away. Client visits and actual storefronts would become quaint memories of the past.
Those forward-thinking notions are now the stuff of depleted retirement accounts and empty office space that, in some areas like California’s Silicon Valley, can be measured in square miles. Most people, it turns out, still like to shop at a real mall and want to look a salesperson in the eye when making a deal. There’s a limit to how much business a person will do with a video terminal and a keyboard, and the lesson proved to be very, very expensive for our economy.
So why is 2,000 ft² of travertine floating around the Internet a good thing? Because some savvy businesses realize that some people don’t shop for the experience; they shop for bargains. It’s why they prowl clearance centers and bankruptcy auctions, and discipline themselves to shop warehouse clubs without acting on impulse and heading home with a three-year supply of mayonnaise.
It’s a rare (and, let’s face, a little strange) kind of buyer that walks into a showroom and asks if there’s an odd lot of travertine somewhere in the yard. Trying to advertise these kind of goods of to the general public makes for a good sales come-on, but you’re still wasting a lot of money to sell odds and ends.
Going online with something like eBay cuts the waste and appeals directly to bargain hunters – including retail shops, fabricators or installers. Anyone buying on eBay also gets plenty of warning that “all sales are final,” which can be difficult to explain to an on-site customer dreamily looking at showroom examples.
Admittedly, this kind of sale can get out of hand. Someone planning on $50,000 in stonework for a kitchen remodeling shouldn’t pick stone and buy stone on the Net; no computer yet can display the true color, depth and warmth of natural stone. Nor should we try and encourage consumers to buy a slab online and then hunt for fabricators and installers, which can lead to nightmares of bottomless depths.
The Net, though, can give anyone in the stone trade an efficient way to peddle excess goods and odd lots. Nobody’s going to get rich on this – but something that’s gathering plenty of dust in storage will finally move out the door and off the books.
As for me, I also passed on a $1,650 chance on eBay to buy some Montana travertine, cut in ashlars, and bought those headphones instead for $30. Maybe the Montana stone would’ve been the better bargain … but I can’t think of how I’d explain a 20,000-lbs. impulse buy to my spouse.