Building the site for myself was for a singular purpose. But, when I made it publicly available, I had to stop & think about the rationale. For example, was I seeking “engagement” so I could monetize via sponsors, ads, etc.? I’m retired so I elected to just assist other boaters - for free unless I was asked to manually assist.
This decision opened up a new sourcing pipeline. As I attempted to gain online access to consignment stores, salvage yards and the like - I learned there was far too much offline inventory to put online (one vendor had over one million parts!).
I created an email request system to over 100 like vendors in order to complement the online inventory. What I subsequently learned that these vendors also provided valuable information to me in order to benefit BUPS and, in turn, boaters.
We termed our manual process to optimize searches the Four Rs:
Review – no BOTs, a human will do this
Research – part request new to us? We’ll collect additional information
Revise – our five years of experience & advanced search features will be utilized
Refer – will send request to our collaborating sellers with too much inventory to list online
NOTE: You'll find this Waterborne article at: https://waterbornemag.com/used-boat-parts/
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