iSold It is 2006 Priority Magazine's Small Business of the Year

Excerpts from Priority Magazine (article ran 9/2006)

We'll Sell It!

With dynamic leadership, explosive growth, and a savvy business model that allows customers to bring their goods to brick-andmortar locations to be sold on eBay, iSold It is our 2006
Priority Magazine Small Business of the Year

by Reed Richardson

From her very first customer, Elise Wetzel suspected that her new business, iSold It, might turn out to be something special. “I remember he came in wanting to sell a pair of custom- built, Tony Lama cowboy boots, size 13AAA,” Wetzel says, chuckling. “I thought to myself ‘Who
is ever going to buy these things?’” Still, she followed through on what she was convinced was a novel business idea, photographing the boots, writing up a product description, and posting a listing on the online auction site eBay. When the boots quickly sold for $65, he was hooked, she says. “Less than a week later, he was back, with even more stuff for us to sell for him, and, to this day, he still comes in.” He’s not alone. In fact, since that first store opened in Pasadena, CA, in December of 2003, hundreds of thousands of other customers across Europe, North America, and Australia have joined him.

OVER THE COURSE of a year, we here at Priority interact with hundreds of small businesses, sharing their stories so that others can learn from their mistakes and profit from their successes. However, when it comes time to bestow our magazine’s Small Business of the Year
Award, we look for those entrepreneurs that truly stand out, that have successfully combined passion and innovation with execution and results. So, in our previous issue, we put out a call for candidates and the nominations poured in from across the country. The competition was indeed stiff, as you can see from reading about the other four Small Business of the Year Award finalists. These companies embody the best of what entrepreneurship is all about—taking an idea and making it soar—all the while celebrating the triumphs and enduring the occasional
trip-ups that occur along the way. But of all the small businesses we examined, iSold It’s fascinating story impressed our editorial staff and our publishing partners at Pitney Bowes more than any other. Its groundbreaking business model—an amalgam of a brick-and-mortar retail shop and an online consignment store—coupled with its astronomical growth these past
two-and-a-half years made that company our clear choice. So, it is with great pride that we select iSold It as the well-deserved winner of The 2006 Priority Magazine Small Business of the Year Award.