Think of a retail boutique with a very, very limited range of products and bargain basement prices. Now, put that on the Internet and you have the next big thing in online shopping.
Niche online stores are making a name for themselves by finding cool stuff — from travel deals to live event tickets to surplus electronic and other thingies — at discount prices that keep bargain hunters coming back again and again.
“It’s the power of the specialist. They know we are good at what we do,” said Jim McCarthy, co-founder and chief executive of Gold Star Events, one of the Web’s largest purveyors of half-price tickets for live entertainment.
Goldstarevents.com lists about 800 live events each day for the U.S. metro areas it serves — Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Orange County, San Jose, Chicago, Washington, New York, Boston and Las Vegas. Each week, the site sends its 420,000 members a customized rundown of offerings for their areas, based on a survey they filled out during the free sign-up process.
The five-year-old Pasadena, California-based company is able to offer discounted tickets as much as six weeks in advance because of relationships with 2,000 live entertainment venues that want the assurance of filled seats, even at half-price.
Photo by Gold Star Events.
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