If you’re considering selling your devices online, there are many options out there, but if you want to test the market with knowledgeable customers who love cutting-edge hardware, and with the potential to grow beyond a niche electronics site, Tindie is the way to go. Gordon Garrity, after starting on Tindie, has now grown to the point where he has his own e-commerce site focused on Raspberry Pi audio accessories!
As another iteration in my seller interview series, check out what he has to say about his experience selling on Tindie:
How did you get started?
Over a few beers at home. I came up with an idea to deliver great audio quality to people using the Raspberry Pi, I met with Eben Upton (of the Pi Foundation) at a music hack event and it grew from there.
What is the best thing about selling on Tindie?
We had no clue on how to sell on the internet, nor how to set up a web presence. Neither did we have the funds to throw at a couple consultants to do it for us. Tindie makes it easy, real easy. It gave us an immediate e-commerce solution and allowed us to point potential customers at it. Tindie got us going and it gave us a presence in the right marketplace. Knowing that there was someone there, in the background, to help IF things failed was useful – even though we really didn’t have anything to panic about.
What is the worst?
I guess it was that both Tindie and us were growing and learning at the same time. We had a few hiccups but anything that was ever an issue was pretty quickly resolved. I missed having a telephone number [support is done through email] to contact someone on rather than just email though.
Have enough stock and communicate: You’ll not know the possible sales but at least tell people when you’ll have more. Work fast: Ship quickly
If you don’t try it you’ll never know what’s possible. We’ve all but stopped selling on Tindie now as we’ve created our own e-commerce site [linked above]. As a stepping stone to greatness – Tindie helped enormously – thank you.
I suppose the takeaway from this is that if you have a great electronics idea, but don’t know how to sell it on the Internet, Tindie is here to help. Also, don’t panic.
We wish Gordon continued success in the future!
