Rendezvous Cinema Story

How Shopiago helped this small business to list and sell stock quickly

Following a lockdown ‘treasure trove’ discovery, Shopiago Ecommerce helped Rendezvous Cinema list and sell stock quickly, enabling the small business to grow   With a background in trading used goods and a love of cinema, Rendezvous Cinema’s founder Mike Laundon had always dreamt of making a business out of movie memorabilia. During lockdown 2020, when he heard about a local cinema selling a room full of posters and other stock, he saw his opportunity.   Via the cinema sale, Mike acquired a movie lover’s treasure trove of 1,500 posters going back several decades, alongside film reels and cinema equipment. He started working on researching value and listing opportunities, and then in June 2020 he started listing the posters on eBay and Rendezvous Cinema was born.

Shopiago

The Challenge

The listing process quickly became a challenge as the business was established. Working manually, Mike was listing around 20 posters a day initially, and by October of 2020 it was apparent that in order to meet the growing demand for products, Rendezvous Cinema would have to increase listing speed, alongside sales and dispatch processes. 
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The important thing for us was being able to list things quickly and accurately, with the information that buyers are looking for. We knew Shopiago would make a big difference to that process.

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Mike Laundon, Founder of Rendezvous Cinema

The Shopiago Ecommerce Roll-out

Mike was already familiar with Shopiago from his background in trading used goods, so turned to the Ecommerce platform to support Rendezvous Cinema’s growth. 
Shopiago provided support for the roll-out, via a dedicated Customer Success Manager who provided training, was on hand to answer any questions and resolve any teething issues. In addition, Shopiago’s online tech support chat service was available to help with more technical issues. 
Following the initial roll-out, additional functionality was added to the Shopiago platform which has further automated some of the processes across marketplaces. This was a big help for Rendezvous Cinema’s eBay store. For example, Shopiago’s repricing tool means that unsold stock automatically reduces in price by an agreed percentage value every month.  For Rendezvous Cinema, this represents huge time saving for a process that would otherwise have to be done manually for thousands of items.  
Mike has also found the data and reporting functionality of Shopiago Ecommerce very useful, in terms of tracking what sells well, how quickly stock is moving and general market trends.

Results

From the initial stock of 1,500 items, Rendezvous Cinema now boasts two directors and two part-time staff, who manage over 10,000 eBay listings - listing on average 300 new posters a week. 
Ths business itself has established a good reputation, with around 250 subscribers on eBay, resulting in many repeat visits from movie fans. The business’ ambition is to be working with an active list of around 30,000 items. 
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To build a profitable business out of something you love is a dream for many people, but actually achieving it takes a lot of hard work. Using Shopiago Ecommerce has made our processes so much more efficient and cost effective, and as a result we’ve been able to grow much more quickly. We’ve got big ambitions, and Shopiago will continue to play an important role as we turn our passion project into a successful business operation.

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Mike Laundon, Founder of Rendezvous Cinema

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