In the '90s, I went on eBay to buy some paddle tires for my four-wheeler ATV and couldn't find any. When I did find a manufacturer that sold them, I bought 20,000 and had no problem reselling them. So the next time you get mad when you can't find an item, realize there's a market waiting to be explored.
My dad was a mathematician and worked for New York City as a statistician. My mom was an accountant and eventually started her own business in her mid-40s. She linked manufacturers in Taiwan to companies in the United States that needed those types of products.
I wanted to start something in New York that focused on making products locally and, because I'd just had my second child, didn't want to be traveling halfway across the world anymore. Originally, I wanted to open up a gallery space and sell things like cushions or blankets that didn't have a season, and have friends or artists contribute.
But had they not paid that advance we would have lost much more, we would have started to go and look for the product all over again, the refinery would have stopped working.
When I take on a design project, I have to jet from the bookstore to the hardware shop to the lamp store and back again just to collect a small portion of the many items I need to fill a home. But, when you hit the flea market, they're all right there. From booth to booth, you have the bases covered.
I truly believe the American consumer doesn’t want to buy products made under abusive conditions.
EBay gave me the framework to discover I was an e-commerce entrepreneur. I touched everything, from shipping to logistics.
Chefs become attracted to being able to get product and then clientele - those are the two things that attract you as a chef.
We sell to businesses who sell other stuff, so we're just going to concentrate on doing that.
When I first went to Las Vegas, I thought I would never go to Las Vegas; you can't get anything. But then I realized that they were trucking in almost everything; you could get a lot of your product, and I think that's why a lot of chefs actually went there.
Once you start thinking about where your products come from and what they 'do,' that's going to be an inherent part of your choice as you purchase products throughout your life.
I'm not out there picking out every single item that we sell, and also we don't even make every single item that we sell.
I can tell you Donald Trump's products may not be made in America, but Donald Trump was made in America.
I tell people, 'I'm the only business in the world where I don't pick my merchandise.'
We're talking to every third-party supplier every day of the week, and our traders are talking to them and buying products from them. When we're doing that, we see opportunities which no one else sees.
We try to buy as much American-made shirts as we can and stuff to sell. It's very difficult to cover every base as much as our country has been saturated with foreign products.
You have to have a unique product that Amazon just can't source. It's all about the product. Why is it important? Why is it different? Amazon are not merchants. They are technology platform guys.
When buying beauty products, I always check the ingredients. The product should be sourced from natural ingredients. It should have not been tested on animals, as I am against animal testing, and it should be soft on the skin.
We have made the decision that we're going to take some key products, such as the Wrangler and the Grand Cherokee, and protect those as being true American icons: produce them in the U.S. and make them available nowhere else.
I don't buy any leather goods or anything made from animal products - no down, nothing. It's something people should be mindful of.
I had sold products in flea markets before and I thought a cleaning product would be a good idea. So, in 2006, I came up with the ShamWow! I had seen this type of product at fairs, but it wasn't well marketed. And from there, I went to this factory in Germany that made them for me.
On Etsy, you can't resell new goods you weren't involved in making, whereas on eBay and Amazon, that is more than welcome - everything from dishwashers to XBoxes, curling irons, espresso machines, and metal detectors.
I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America. I am just trying to get ideas, any kind of ideas that will help our company. Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.
