Bidorbuy recognises local entrepreneurs
Award events were held in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth to honour successful sellers on Bidorbuy.
“While we have successful sellers all over the country, most of them are concentrated in or around these major centres”, says bidorbuy CEO Jaco Jonker. All in all, about two hundred sellers were honoured as best in 2011.
According to Jonker, on average about 7000 individuals and businesses sell on the site every month, generating about R360-million of annual gross turnover. It is estimated that about twenty percent of sellers make a living on bidorbuy. Some specialise in the niche market of their choice; others sell a wide range of products.
Among the 2011 top sellers are people who sell jewellery, watches, collectible coins, computers, cell phones, electronic goods, home appliances and digital cameras. All of the top sellers agree that the important thing is not so much the type of products one sells, but to sell products one believes in, and to always offer good customer service.
“Our encounters with the top sellers revealed that the majority of them started out by chance. Their fist experience usually involved buying on the site. However, they soon saw an opportunity to make some money”, says Jonker and adds: “For the most entrepreneurial-minded among them, the next step was to leave their day job.”
“The beauty of bidorbuy is that a seller can make of it anything he or she wants”, says the bidorbuy CEO. “We provide them with sophisticated online selling tools and with marketing exposure to the largest audience of online shoppers in South Africa. The rest is up to them. They can use the platform to sell as a hobby, or to sell as a serious business.”
Jonker explains that the costs of running a business on bidorbuy are low and the learning curve is relatively mild: “Once sellers have created their listings and uploaded images on the site, it is, of course, a business like any other business, requiring a lot of work, patience and perseverance, but also offering a lot of rewards”.
Jaco Jonker says that the bidorbuy annual top seller events are aimed at recognising and nurturing home-grown entrepreneurial resourcefulness. “With unemployment as high as it is in South Africa, I feel that accessible and affordable online trading platforms like bidorbuy.co.za provide valuable opportunities for people to start their own business, and even employ others, as quite a number of our top sellers do”.
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This article was originally posted on South Africa Business Communities
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