Hi, and welcome to “Am I The Only One.” Why are we, Karen & Gene, qualified
to talk to you about eBay drop off stores? Because, like many others, we are a
casualty of one of the hottest franchise systems of the past few years. We
owned and operated an iSold It™ brand drop off store in Georgia.
Our plan was to buy a turnkey system that would allow us to set up one
location, get it operational, and then go open another store and another until
all our stores were functional and generating revenue. At that point we could
sell the business and move on to a new project. The drop shop concept and
the aggressive, well advertised company out of LA so impressed us that we
purchased five stores. What do we have to show for our investment now?
Just this web site.
Reality hit us only a few months after opening. It appears we were sold a
concept, not a turnkey system. And even the concept would not work as it was
structured. What was supposed to be a smart, timely investment turned into a
job of endless problems and workarounds. We coined our new business style,
“Management by suppose to....” Things were suppose to work a certain way,
but they rarely did. So instead of concentrating on increasing production to a
level that would create a profit, our time was spent trying to correct, fix, patch,
or otherwise cure the “issues” that were preventing us from moving to the
next stage and the next store.
We were forced to close after pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars of
retirement savings and weeks of extra time into our only open store. Corporate
terminated us even though we tried to talk to them about the problems. Before
closing we were banned from the company forum because we posed questions
that didn’t help them sell more franchises. We attempted arbitration with iSold
It, LLC but could not pay the $25,000 fee for the judge. Had we known just
some of the things we are sharing with you here, we never would have bought
into this or any other eBay drop off store franchise.
We do not recommend online drop-off store franchises to anyone! If you want
to sell on eBay you don’t need a retail store front. If you think selling other
people’s household items is the way to get rich, please read the concept page.
There is enough evidence available to anyone willing to do the research, that
clearly shows how flawed and risky the drop-off stores are. Anyone who
decides to open one should be prepared to loose thousands of dollars before
closing.
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