1SaleADay Invests in Merchandise, Not in Marketing

This growing startup is taking a different route to success.

Early last year, 1SaleADay's founder and CEO, Ben Federman, told Benzinga about his big plans for the year. By March, it was revealed that the company had acquired a significant (but undisclosed) investment, which later helped the company move to Miami Lakes.

Now Federman is telling Benzinga about his decision to uproot 1SaleADay's entire operations.

“We set up offices, warehousing, the whole situation together in a cohesive workspace,” said Federman. “We have over 100,000 feet of warehouse space, plus a huge office space, right next to each other.”

A big part of the investment – the main part, Federman insisted – was inventory. “To be able to buy better deals,” he said. “We know what sells, we know what to buy. It's really a matter of being able to buy 5,000 computers all at once without even blinking an eye, or 20,000 routers if that's what it takes, to get a deal that we need to get to bring it to the customers at a price that we feel is right. So the majority of the investment went towards that.”

Federman said that the rest of the money has been used to streamline and grow the company's infrastructure.

“We're trying not to multi-task any employees unless their job is specifically to multi-task,” said Federman. “We're bringing in experts in every field, no questions asked. We're strengthening the company as a whole internally. And as far as marketing is concerned, we haven't really spent any money on marketing.”

How can a website that has acquired more than 400,000 daily visitors survive without a huge marketing campaign?

“We were considering spending $5 or $10 million towards marketing,” Federman explained. “But we really haven't. We're growing. When my partners asked me what I expected to do this upcoming year, I told them that I expected to double it, and that was a big statement. Thank God it has already happened. It has tripled. And we're looking to quadruple.”

Federman reiterated that it's very exciting to be able to buy whatever inventory he wants, whenever he wants, and deliver a great deal to the customer. “That's essentially what we do all day – pick up amazing deals and then turn them over to the consumer, and not have to worry about cash flow or excess inventory,” he said.

“If we buy 20,000 of an item and sell 10,000, the other 10,000 units, we can sell them in three months or we can sell them on any of our selected outlets. We have wonderful relationships with a lot of outlet companies, such as eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and Newegg. We have our own outlet companies, Ben's Outlet, Dynamite Time, and Shadora, which is very category-specific. It's wonderful to not have the threat of dealing with the finance and funding part, and just have folks that believe in you and say, ‘Listen – whatever you need to buy, we're gonna back you up on.'”

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