Full Moon Loom

The Situation

Cynthia Crawley, Full Moon Loom owner and operator, had a box of textiles sitting around her house that she needed to get rid of. Rather than give them away, in 1998 she decided to sell them on the internet. Little did she know, she was about to discover how she would make her living for the next 15-plus years.

“At the time I didn’t even know how to turn on a computer. I heard you could reach the whole world through the internet, so I thought I would give it a try,” said Crawley. “I listed each textile on eBay, and they sold in a hurry. I knew I was on to something.”

Crawley started to gather many handcrafted textile products at a time and listed them on eBay. Full Moon Loom’s sales grew rapidly, but like many retailers new to the e-commerce world, the company experienced growing pains. “The length of time it took to get just one item listed on eBay was overwhelming,” said Crawley. “Eventually, I knew we needed some kind of management tool that could upload our listings in bulk.”

The Solution

Full Moon Loom started using Rithum Marketplaces to manage its eBay business and expand to new marketplaces. Using the Rithum platform, Full Moon Loom could upload inventory in bulk, manage orders, monitor inventory and organize all images and data from one dashboard.

“Once I started working with Rithum, I quickly saw that it had all the bells and whistles I needed to manage my eBay business and grow,” said Crawley. “The Rithum feed keeps everything organized, and I don’t have to constantly make updates to my product listings and inventory.”

Rithum optimized Full Moon Loom’s inventory feed so the company could branch out from eBay and sell on Amazon as well. After a successful launch on Amazon, Full Moon Loom used Rithum to expand further to Newegg, Rakuten.com Shopping and Sears. “Once you start listing products with Rithum on one marketplace, it’s very easy to add another. All I had to do was send my data feed to Rithum to quickly sell on new channels,” said Crawley.

Crawley led the charge of selling handcrafted textiles online, but others soon caught on. More and more competitors started cropping up that were selling the same products, and price wars on Amazon and eBay emerged. Fortunately, the Rithum Repricer adjusts Full Moon Loom’s prices using enhanced business rules so that its prices always stay competitive on Amazon.

“The Amazon Repricer is so helpful,” said Crawley. “My biggest competitors are on Amazon. I frequently win the Buy Box, and I don’t have to constantly watch my competitors’ pricing. I couldn’t get by without it these days. It’s a great feature.”

The Results

Since working with Rithum, Full Moon Loom has grown approximately 25% year-over-year. “At first, my sales were increasing so fast, it was hard to believe,” said Crawley. “And our sales have been steady ever since. “Without Rithum, I would have never gotten this far. In fact, I might not even be in this business today. The growth of Full Moon Loom over the years is largely due to Rithum’s features and continued support.”

Continued growth has allowed Full Moon Loom to start manufacturing its own line of textiles. Having its own authentic brand plays to the company’s advantage and has allowed it to sell internationally. “We needed to have a product that no one else has, so we started manufacturing our own textiles,” said Crawley. “We’ve since expanded overseas. I sell worldwide on our website, and I just set up eBay’s Global Shipping Program. Now we’re receiving international orders every day.”