Last month, a developer friend of mine and I went live with a beta site for an independent outdoor gear marketplace. So far it has the Backcountry Boiler (that I make), Suluk46’s TiCa Ice Tool, a couple of Enlightened Equipment’s quilts, and some other great products by a couple guys I met on Kickstarter.
We tried to do some maker-friendly things, like give them control of their listings, have fees much lower than retail markup, and provide a clean design that even allows for Kickstarter-style videos. It’s also peer-reviewed, so new makers are chosen by existing makers on the site.
We also tried to do some customer-friendly things, like make browsing easy, have prices at least as low as anywhere else, and not charge until their order ships.
What else would you guys like to see on a marketplace like this? Specifically, what could we do with a marketplace that it would be hard for any one of us (independent gear manufacturers) to do alone? Since most of us started here, I’d really like to know what you all think.
Here’s the site, by the way: SparkMade
