Is Snappy Auctions a Great Franchise Opportunity?
April 20, 2007 by Sean Kelly
Filed under Business
While the largest, most celebrated eBay drop-off store franchise concept , iSold It, has closed 60 stores, suspended domestic franchise sales and warned it may be on the verge of collapse, its next-largest competitor remains upbeat and continues to promote its franchise program.
In a company press release, Snappy Auctions celebrates inclusion on the list that made iSold It famous:
Snappy Auctions has been listed in Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchise 500 list for the first time… With over 63 units open, Snappy Auctions ranked 309th in the survey, in only its 2nd full year of operation. The Nashville, Tenn. based franchise enables customers to make money off of items that are sold on eBay…
Snappy Auctions CEO Debby Gordon claims that Snappy Auctions is not suffering the same fate as competitor iSold It. In fact, snappy Auctions is doing phenomenally:
“We are poised for a phenomenal 2007, after an incredible 2006,” Gordon continued, “and this accolade is just the beginning.” In 2006, Snappy Auctions launched Snappy Sales Solutions, S3, which has contributed to its recent success. “S3 is yet another step toward our goal of changing the way businesses get value from retired equipment and inventory.”
Snappy Auction also boasts having been named one of Franchise Business Review’s Franchise 50, which honors franchise systems based on outstanding franchisee satisfaction through owner surveys and comments.
According to a Ina Steiner’s column on AuctionBytes.com, “Despite the challenges, Snappy Auctions CEO Debbie Gordon believes in the concept and says it’s all about execution.”
Can Snappy Auctions really be succeeding while iSold It, with much the same business model, is fighting for survival? Have they successfully overcome the challenges that eBay drop-off store critics contend make the concept unworkable? What do you think?
YOU’RE INVITED TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON WHETHER YOU THINK SNAPPY AUCTIONS IS A GREAT FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY.
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They do not, it was a typo. They are store #60.
If Adrienne is gone, who’s “minding the stores”?
That’s funny. Who cares about the stores?
Smart Snappy, I read the lawsuit PDF and I didn’t see any mention of the two other clients. Where is this information???
That wouldn’t be in the lawsuit. They have one other major client for S3 and a couple resellers now.
Now you say that’s not in the lawsuit, so when you said “Clearly you didn’t read the lawsuit. They also have two other deals like that one” you meant…….what??
Also you said they had two other deals and now it’s one? What’s the deal here??
And to think, she’s selling software that’s based on the design she got from a store owner. But I’m SURE she’s giving that store owner SOMETHING in return….right???
Only the applicable deal was listed in the lawsuit. I actually think there is only one deal other then the one listed in the lawsuit. At one point there was two others (3 total). One of them being VU. They lost the other, and I can’t remember the name.
The bottom line is that the reason why the staff is shrinking is because of the stores are shrinking. She was making a lot more $ at one point with the couple deals they had that were solid. Now they have a couple resellers and VU.
ALK probably left because she was grossly under paid and running the company. Especially when Debbie was off consulting for $96k + a software and maintenance fee. ALK likely found out about the dollar amount she was being paid to consult and got a little offended. I would have left after all that effort.
A little advice for any company looking at Snappy Auctions awesome SW package:
Hire one person.
Sign-up for Auctiva for free.
Use a damn Spreadsheet.
Keep an inventory.
You’ll make money selling your assets, eBay or not.
Rocket science it’s not.
So why hasn’t she been booted from the VU deal? From what I see, they’re not selling much stuff but crap, so is it just a case of academia not catching up to reality?
So what’s he store count now? I heard there is only one person supporting the existing stores…..sad.
Not much noise out there. Has Snappy shut down?
Shut down!? Now that the Snappy Team has secured a barrel full of Federal bailout (taxpayer) money, your local Snappy Store is alive and well after receiving their portion of the booty from Nashville. In fact, with the economy in the dumper, selling one’s valubles just keeps making more and more sense these days…
Sleep tight America- Bill
Bill Clinton, as always, has him, um, finger on the pulse of America.
The “Yard Sale Economy” is booming. As people are losing their homes and need a place to liquidate their stuff, could Snappy Auctions rise once again to become America’s hottest franchise?
According to one article: “Sociologists say the garage-sale economy is flourishing across the United States as the financial crisis deepens and more people lose their homes.
‘This is the perfect storm for garage sales,” said Gregg Kettles, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who studies consumers and outdoor commerce….”
“That’s because many people need cash and no longer can afford to be sentimental, said Beatriz Duarte of Manteca, who sold her 3-year-old daughter’s tricycle to a stranger for $3 even as her daughter was riding it.”
For an extra $20, Beatriz woulda thrown in the kid as well.
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2008/10/25/Yard_sales_flourish_as_economy_worsens/UPI-92971224960693/
Bill, as always you are on top of it all. I am sure you know that starting a business in a down economy is the best thing one can do. Mainly because you can purchase the assests of many businesses as they bankrupt (kinda like an ebay drop off store!) Perhaps this is what D & K have been waiting for. And just think…this time you can be ebay’s guinea pig in their new “declining” market place! However, I’ll bet that you will you’ll make more $$ having a garage sale.
I think I will start a donut franchise?! hmmmmmm!)
Sean, you presume eBay is still the place to buy and sell used items. The last few times I looked for quality used items on eBay, all I found was dozens of new item sellers. eBay seems to be turning into a marketplace for stores and not for individuals.
Garage sales will probably win out.
Any update on the AERC suit?
Oh Bill……you are such a nut. I know you loved my blue dress from the moment you spotted it.
You probably don’t know that Obama is really just an animatronics figure with Nancy Pelosi pulling the strings.
OK…this is really sad. I went on eBay and only 7 Snappy Auction stores have anything for sale on eBay.
OK, so now the failure rate is 93% since Snappy said they sold 100 franchises.
And S3 has lost most of their accounts as well with one going to court.
Hillary and I count 18 stores with items active on ebay. And we did not use any of that G.W. Bush voo-doo math, economics and fiscal policy neither….
Vote on November 4th, y’all
Well Bill, I guess you have an inside track or you’re using new democrat-math. I went on eBay, asked for any seller with snappyauctions in it’s name, it came back with about 13 and only seven had active items listed. I guess there are some Snappy Auctions stores that don’t use the name any more.
How did you get your info?
A good way to get the info is to go through the store locations. Each of them has a link to their live auctions. Watch for duplicate IDs used by several stores.
http://www.snappyauctions.com/locations.php
Now that the election is over, maybe Congress will do something about shady franchise owners and maybe they will “bail out” the ex-owners.
Apparently the Big D didn’t even let A a$$ hit the door on the way out. A found out how much D was making on the those S3 deals and got another job. Now there’s loyalty.
I’ll bet A had been working on an exit strategy for a while and Debbie’s other gigs probably had something to hasten the exit.
Heres a question can you open up a drop off store with out paying the ridiculous franchise cost(that’s obviously not working)?
Jermaine wrote: Heres a question can you open up a drop off store with out paying the ridiculous franchise cost(that’s obviously not working)?
Jermaine: The cost and the restrictions of the franchise are just part of the problem. The other part is with the drop-off store concept itself. There is excellent, detailed explanation at amitheonlyone.org which breaks down the costs, overheads, etc.
If you want to sell on eBay, the consensus seems to be to do it out of your house and use eBay’s own Trading assistant/Powerseller’s programs. But there are some serious questions about whether selling on eBay is worth the effort.
Traffic is down and fees are up.
eBay has turned into nothing more than a huge store for new goods and occasionally you can find something used sold by an individual.
Don’t waste your time selling other people’s stuff on eBay unless you need a hobby that sucks money out of your pocket instead of putting it into your pocket.
I’m still trying to figure out how and why the remaining Snappy stores are open. Maybe they’re independantly wealthy.
I haven’t seen a peep in the press about Debbie nor Snappy. Is she keeping a low profile?
no matter what, Rupert…..i still love you
Happy (as you can be if you bought a Snappy franchise) Holidays to all (except DG since she’s on the naughty list and will get a lump of coal). Maybe Debbie Grinch will come flying down the mountainside and bring back all our money and then she can carve the roast beast……naaaah!
Now more then ever. iSoldit is kicking their ass, and it’s sad. Debbie is just collecting money from these poor owners who have no support now, and really nowhere to go.
There is literally no staff in Nashville. Maybe one part-time person doing the books, and the staff in the main store is handling support. It’s pathetic.
Open letter to Debbie:
Just walk away and re-groom the sw for people to use for free like Auctiva. It’s somewhat useful, but not to base a franchise on it. Help people get out of their leases and start 2009 with some dignity. Your best friend quit because she was getting paid what baggers get paid at Kroger…there is no future, no growth, just go get some corporate job. It failed, end the nightmare for whoever is left.
Snappy is getting crushed by their competitors because they know you have no drive left. At least iSoldit has re-vamped and adjusted, meanwhile your Featured Auction on your homepage doesn’t even come up. Just end it now.
The name means nothing, the sw is marginal at best and you have no employees. You cling onto that corporate store like it’s the only one that worked…and by the way, it is. You have stores selling crap they buy through liquidation, and are making more money doing that then your old, worn out concept.
Re-vamp or re-tool the franchise or just give it up. Owners may perk up at a re-vamping of any idea since they have so much invested already. What a novel idea, a new approach to maybe kindle the business a bit.
End of Letter.
Snappy has been a joke, and I hate to disapoint you, but isoldit was a joke ages ago. They lost all their offices more than a year ago, and more than half of their pitifull list of still remaining stores – aren’t operating as they claim. Many are not paying franchise fees, and are only hanging on until their leases are up. And they are basically non existant internationally. Ebay drop off stores are history! Imagine that!
So there’s NO staff in the “corporate HQ”? What happened to Kay? Where did she go?
Well I did a search on Snappy Auctions and Debbie Gordon and there’s NO new info out there. She must be laying low.
I do have some contacts in Nashville in the investment community and they said she’s not doing well there. Two failed companies: Snappy Auctions and S3 and her only asset is her huge ego and a long list of people who would love to see her held accountable.
Let’s face it. eBay is slowly dying and there’s nothing to take it’s place that I can find. I feel sad for the existing store owners. Its gotta be tough trying to change your business model since Snappy left them high and dry.
Over the holidays I looked at what used to be some of the hot areas in eBay and it was scary. Only the very high end stuff and highly collectable items were doing much traffic. All the rest was new stuff you can get anywhere for about the same price.
Lets face it: the concept does not work, never did, Debbie is washed up, and Snappy hurt a lot of people. If you believe in Karma, DG has a boatload of negative karma coming her way. I drove by my old store location and there’s a nail shop there now. Maybe they were able to purge the Snappy-geists.
Snappy will just dry up and blow away…another testament to it’s founders multiple failures. Maybe she would be better off to “stand beside a vacuum cleaner” as she claims she was told to do.
Well, best of luck to the few remaining stores. DG will most likely not offer any support, help with any leases or even return your calls. If past experience is any indicator you’re not even a blip on her radar.
If Hillary and I were current Snappy ‘Z’s’, facing the eventual fate of all S/A storefronts due in large part to the dealings at Snappy World Headquarters and to a lesser extent by the dynamics in todays ebay, this is what we might do while the lease gets ridden out: 1) Cease using herself’s much heralded software and use something else off shelf. 2) With that done, continue listing items, using the name above the door, the ebay userid, but CEASE any and all royalty’s to herself. 3) Wait for herself to react and hopefully further expose the breach of contract current Z’s operate under. It might get exciting at this point, but who is right here (?) – so hold on and reload as there is every possibility that there are NO bullets left in her chanber at all. Furthermore, any franchise familiar lawyer should jump at a Z’s case given a proper understanding of same. As we see it, you can remain silent and lose your soul along with your investment or you can hold on to your dignity by not taking it anymore. Better yet, the remaining Z’s should unite and present one consistent war-time stand. United we stand, divided we fall. Good Luck.
Bill & Hill
Well, if Debbie Gordon is expecting a bail out, she’s crazier than I heard she was. The only people who deserve anything is all those poor people who were sold a defective, untested, over-promised, under supported and unsustainable franchise.
I think Nancy Pelosi should forget about going after the Bush administration and go after a real bad egg – DEBBIE GORDON!! Nancy, you go girl and say “YES WE CAN!!”
Hillary and I feel Barack Hussein Obama needs to send a load of stimulus cash to Snappy HQ pronto. From 63 stores at one time to 23 today. Of those 23, 5 have zero, nado, zilch items listed, one store has 1 (one) item listed. Friends, thats 26% of the 23 stores with a sum total of one (1) item listed among 6 stores. We hope DG can spare a few quid to those 6 stores and a token offering to the other 17 before shopping. The really good news is that DG is very qualified and demonstratably so to run any of the financial entities that took early bailout cash then paid out millions in bonus money recently. She would be a Jimmy Choo ’shoe’ in…
Sean, perhaps you need to check the email portion of this opinion/comment engine of yours as no email seems to be arriving when posts appear, at least not in this happy couple’s mailbox.
Cheers – Billary
Funny thing going on. There is no noise at all about Snappy and even less about DG.
I guess she’s keeping a low profile since she lost the S3 accounts. I even called the Snappy office: no answer.
Oh how the self proclaimed mighty have fallen
Do you think Snappy will make the top 100 Franchises list this year?
Bert, not a chance in @#&#*!
Website needs to be updated: Hockessin, Newark, Buckhead, Mt. Juliet, El Paso and Chesapeake all look closed. 0 auctions active or sold in the past 2 weeks.
Try the bottom 100!!!
Pitiful.
Interesting. I recall there was a lot of positive press how they were ranked near the top for franchises.
Bert:
iSold It WAS the Entrepreneur Top New Franchise at the same time 60 stores had failed and the co was on the brink of bankruptcy. The top 10 franchises this year include The UPS Store which is one of the most controversial and litigated.
Some have argued that top awards should be seen as a warning sign, since many poor franchises need awards and hype to sell, so they pursue awards and spend lots on advertising (prerequisite for awards).
Many good franchises have successful franchisees that are better ads than dubious awards.
Maybe I should start the list of the fastest declining franchises. Might not sell too many ads, though.
So how many stores are open now? We’ve known it’s just a matter of time before they all close. Snappy was and always has been a time bomb.
Another DG failure.
interesting. I was not aware. You say “Another” failure. What were the other failures?
Bert:
Snappy not Smart may have been referring to S3 Consulting which seemingly went nowhere:
http://www.snappysalessolutions.com/faq.php
And the AERC fiasco in which the head of the franchise company took another job and ended up suing them for sexual harrassment and breach of contact, I believe:
http://www.franchisepick.com/snappy-auctions-franchise-founder-debbie-gordon-sues-aerc/
That’s just a guess…
It’s easy to play armchair QB for all you people. I was one of the first in when Snappy Started. I was also (I think) the first out. Only took me about 3 months of actual work to realize that this wasn’t going to work but it still cost me a lot of $$$. I’ll be paying for it for years to come. Good education..? Yes. Would I take it back…? You bet. Move on folks. I too could sue Debbie for her franchise practices. She broke the law in dealing with me more than once. Still, I take personal responsibliity as I always made the decision…not her. Move on and learn from your mistakes.
Suckah! tells “failures” to move on!
But, hopefully, he understands that the federal regulation of franchising permits franchisors to HIDE the failures and/or unprofitabili8ty of their franchisees from new buyers of their franchises, and this needs fixing!
It is one thing to sign a contract in which you acknowledge that the franchisor hasn’t promised you success or profits and that you aren’t relying on anything OUTSIDE of the contract, and quite another matter for the franchisor to be able to hide the odds of success/failure by not disclosing unit historical performance statistics to new buyers.
We are really “Suckahs” when we don’t understand the big picture and the fact that regulation of frandhising was all about silencing the “Suckahs” and preventing any redress in arbitration and the courts.
http://www.unhappyfranchisee.com/2009/02/carolcross/
So how many stores are left? What is DG doing now? Is anyone supporting what’s left?
Maybe DG should just pull the plug.
Snappy Auctions continues to go prominently! My store is doing so well, I’m planning to retire next month!
Woot!
Well, Rupert’s back again….like malaria…it never quite goes away.
Debbie must be slipping up if there are dormant stores on eBay. I remember how quick they were to tell stores to close their account, take down their sign and stop using the name (like anyone would use it now…HA!!)
I’m doing just fine now, but I still drop by here every now and then just to see what’s going on. From 100 to 15 stores. Now THAT’S the DG we all know and…..well you know.
Wonder if any of the lawsuits were successful? Also, wasn’t Snappy involved in some kind of harrassment laswuit? did that get resovled?