If you travel to antique and thrift stores in America's heartland you find a slightly different idea of marketing than Broadway in New York. .
"Do know anyone about your size that might need a leather jacket?"
"You would not have any idea what a fella could do with a Queen Anne's chair?"
These comments are a not so clever way of asking you to take a look at something they feel you might have overlooked.
In most cases these thrift stores rely on word of mouth advertising and they have been known to negotiate a price unlike their discount store counterparts.
There was a time when barter was a primary tool in making a purchase. In many cases it was skills you possessed that could be used as leverage in making a purchase. Doctors would claim that they were forced to take poultry and livestock in exchange for services and General Store owners often traded flour for eggs.
Ecommerce would be foreign territory for blamed writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. She lived in a more primitive time in more harsh environs.
If there is something that can be learned from this era it was that sometimes you have to think creatively to make something work. There was a time when produce and personal skills could be traded for needed staples. Today the creativity that is required comes both in online marketing and networking.
Ecommerce thrives because relationships are formed and forged that result in increased traffic. The obstacles that keep an online business from success are within that framework of creative thinking.
The old adage is true; there are no problems, only solutions. The adventurous entrepreneur finds solutions.
While it's true that most would not be interested in going back to the days of Ms. Wilder the pioneering spirit she expressed resides in the maverick spirit of ecommerce.
Is it so hard to think back to the 1980's when the Internet was not widespread? If you had been approached as a business owner about possibly putting a website together and then seeking to sell products to a global client base you likely would have refracted, but there were some that did begin ecommerce through this novel approach to sales.
Early adopters of this technology have reaped endless benefits. Many of these businesses express dynamic sales online that far surpass anything they have experienced in their brick and mortar stores. It took time – it took patience – and it took ecommerce to make it happen.
Someday these will be the 'good old days' and someone will look to the maverick spirit of the early adopters of ecommerce and find encouragement from these new millennium pioneers.