New York Startup: Self To Shelf Is A New Business To Business Market Place

Selftoshelf,New York startup,startup interviewNew York based entrepreneurs Doug Crisona and Cyrus Park have created a new marketplace for businesses to market to other businesses. They call their New York startup Self To Shelf. They liken it to other marketplaces already out there like ebay and etsy but instead of onesie twosie operators with side businesses, their marketplace is for established businesses to sell their wares to other businesses without the need for their own e-commerce site.

Self to Shelf is a wholesale marketplace. If your looking for a place to sell your wares to other retailers, or you represent a retail shop, than this may be the platform for you. You can now get in front of a large and curated community of retailers and wholesalers without having to rifle through other folks, not so serious about their business, that can stifle sales and pollute a community.

“We read a newspaper article titled “Getting Your Product onto Retail shelves”.  The story was about a man selling a gourmet food product who wanted to get into retail stores.  His predicament was that he had a great product that his (small) customer base loved.  However, he didn’t have the means to spread the word about his product to get the attention of stores.  So he was forced to pound the pavement and go door-to-door, pitching his product.  The article presented a few solutions: hiring a sales rep/product broker, or going to trade shows.  From our experience, we’ve seen these traditional routes work well, but they can be expensive, time consuming, and very limiting by one’s budget and geography.  So we got to talking about how an online marketplace, if done right, could really help to change this aspect of the industry.  We started by talking to a lot of people in the industry and it grew from there.” Crisona told us in an interview.

The two cofounders are looking to help others break into retail which can be a very hard process going through traditional channels.

Check out the rest of the interview below.

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