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The ClearingHouse on County Road 39 has launched a new virtual showroom and auction site for New York, Connecticut and New Jersey businesses to auction off their overstock or other products they are looking to move.
ClearingHouse co-owner James “Nick” Nicolino said this week that what sets his website apart from eBay is that shoppers can visit the stores to see what they are bidding on in person.
On eBay, “you have no idea what you’re getting until it shows up at your door,” he said.
With tough economic times facing the country, “people are looking for the ultimate deal now,” Mr. Nicolino said, and he believes theclearinghousesouthampton.com is where they’ll find it.
He said that items place on auction start at just a fraction of the in-store price, and that there are no reserves—so someone who bids the minimum and isn’t outbid is guaranteed that price. All auctions last two weeks, he added, so that shoppers have enough time to come into the store and preview what they saw online.
Some people decide to pay the “buy it now” price, Mr. Nicolino said, because they don’t want to risk someone else winning the product on auction. And other times, shoppers who came in to see what they found on the web end up buying something else, so the increased foot traffic in the store has also been beneficial to The ClearingHouse, he said.
Mr. Nicolino said that he began test marketing his own stock on the website, and the response was overwhelming. “That’s why we knew that we were on to something,” he said.
Customers who put their products up for consignment in his store love the website because products sell much faster, Mr. Nicolino said, though he admitted that they may not be getting as much money for their stuff as they would in the store. But he expects that to change as the website grows and more stores participate.
“The people that are participating in the auctioning now are getting phenomenal deals,” he said of the buyers.
Mr. Nicolino is inviting only stores to participate in the website, and is not opening it up to individuals.
The auction site has already done wonders for the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Ronkonkoma, according to Ed Thompson, ReStore’s director of development and marketing. The store sells donated building supplies, appliances and furniture to raise money for Habitat to build affordable housing in Suffolk County.
The ReStore is a warehouse store, like a mini-Home Depot, Mr. Thompson explained. High-end furniture or artwork people try to donate aren’t really suitable at the store, he said. But now with the auction site, he said the ReStore can accept the donations and sell the products for much more than it could hope to get in the warehouse.
In addition to the auctions, ClearingHouse, through its No Place Like Home non-profit foundation, has been working with Habitat for Humanity for about a year now, providing furnishings for homes Habitat builds.