Dawdle, an online market for resold games, consoles and accessories, relaunched this past Fall as a niche eBay competitor of sorts. It’s a place where gamers can get some money back on their old supplies, albeit not through auctions but a straightforward price listing and “buy it now” process.
After amassing a collection of about 5,000 unique items for sale across the site (but not yet amassing much traffic), Dawdle has decided to make things more attractive to independent, brick-and-mortar retailers who might want to sell their excess inventory online. In addition to simply listing your goods alongside everything else on Dawdle, individuals and stores alike can now set up their own virtual, branded storefronts. These are intended to help resellers cultivate their reputations onsite and hopefully ship more units.
Dawdle already has a handful of these storefronts up and running, such as one for BRE Software and another for Magisterrex. Products listed on each storefront can be filtered by type, price, platform, genre, and more. There appears to be no shipping fees or tax for any products, and Dawdle takes a consistent 11.99% commission on all sales.
Seller reputations are built around user reviews and the number of ways sellers identify themselves. Their rankings go up, in particular, the more they link their storefronts to sites that reinforce their identities (Facebook, Twitter, Xbox Live, etc).
CEO Sachin Agarwal says that the items on Dawdle are currently split about 50/50 between newly released products (like those for the Xbox, Wii, PS3, etc) and classic products (like those for Nintendo 64, Genesis, NES, etc.) To generate interest in this new storefront feature, Dawdle has hired a sales team that will actively reach out to independent retailers.