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Earlier this month I reviewed a new site called I Do Now I Don’t, and the co-founder of the site wanted to call me out on some points I made in the review. Her comment was well-written, clear, and sincere.

After reading her comment, I felt like I may have been too critical and, well, cynical, and that I didn’t give I Do Now I Don’t a fair shake. Mara Opperman (the co-founder) and I had a brief email exchange, and I asked her if she’d like to have a chance to clarify the purpose of her business. I came up with some questions, and the mini-interview follows:

Blogstring: I Do Now I Don’t looks like it is trying to incorporate community and social media functionality into a site primarily focused on being a second hand jewelry marketplace. In your comment you noted that the site originally was focused on helping people sell jewelry after a breakup. What made you decide to create a community here?

Mara Opperman (IDoNowIDont): The initial response we got to our business overwhelmed our servers. We believe that the auction was only a small part of the attraction. Our audience spent a lot of time messaging each other and us using the less than optimal tools we had on our site. By telling their stories, bonds were often formed between buyer and seller. Buyers seemed to empathize with sellers and the stories behind the rings they were selling. Many buyers felt good about helping out someone else.

Right now, our new site is in early beta stage. Because we had originally planned just to be an auction, we were hesitant to “go all the way” to become another social network. So, we’re testing out what members think of being able to share their stories using some traditional social networking functions.

Blogstring: My first thought was that people would be reluctant to share their stories with others. Do you find that it takes a certain amount of time for people to start feeling comfortable, or are they ready to jump in after joining?

Mara Opperman (IDoNowIDont): It’s too early to say with the new site, but when we were running the auction only, we would get tons of email with really detailed stories of what our members were going through. I mean you would be surprised at how many people are ready and willing to tell their most intimate and painful stories. I think members feel more comfortable writing their stories on our site because they see that most people on the site are in the same boat and can relate. Having that common bond makes it easier to share their stories. There’s no judgment; people on our site are there because they’ve been through this stuff and if they’ve learned anything from it, they’re happy to help someone else. We’re excited to see what patterns occur in the future. For example, will our members go from being “broken hearted” to “back in the game” to becoming the ones to give advice to the newly heartbroken?

Blogstring: Looking at the site, it seems like IDNID is a two-person, brother and sister team. How did you get the idea for the site, and how did you move from idea to what we see today?

Mara Opperman (IDoNowIDont): My brother Joshua purchased a beautiful engagement ring for the love of his life, only to find her heart had turned several months later when she broke off the relationship, leaving only the ring behind. Believing he could return the ring to the store, Josh was shocked to discover he would only be able to receive a refund of around 32%of the ring’s original cost. He wasn’t going to take such a loss. After doing research, Josh discovered that he wasn’t the only one in this predicament. Launching Idonowidont.com became our answer to help turn one person’s wrong decision into another person’s fortune, to help you obtain your ring’s true worth and let someone else buy the ring of their choice at an affordable price.

Josh worked with a web designer to build our first site and from there, I joined him with my talent at being the crafty p.r. diva that I always thought I could be! (ahem) As we started to notice the member activity, we began working with some other partners who helped us take the site to the point that you see it today. We certainly can’t do it all ourselves, and we’re learning a lot along the way by slowly building a team of people to help us execute our plans.

Blogstring:. The benefit is obvious for those looking to buy an engagement ring at a significant discount, but what is the benefit to sellers? Have your auctions been able to garner a higher price than say, ebay or a jeweler?

Mara Opperman (IDoNowIDont): Our auction enables sellers to receive as much as 100% more than a jeweler would pay, while providing up to 50% savings for a buyer over purchasing from a jeweler. We also provide simple verification of a jewelry item before completing a sale, something that eBay and other auctions don’t provide.

Our original research found that jewelers will give you 30% of the original price you paid for your ring. On eBay, we couldn’t find the comparable statistics; however, we noticed that it could be difficult to sell highly priced items if you weren’t a well established seller. Plus, eBay charges for the posting which means that regardless of your success at selling, you will spend money. Our site enables new or one-off sellers by solving the trust issue for the buyers through quality authentication.

Blogstring: How are you promoting your site? A cursory search for “sell engagement ring” yields around 2 mllion results, most of which are advertisers like we-buy-diamonds.com , diamondsfordollars.com, etc. Knowing the big players have large advertising budgets, how is IDNID competing using alternate promotional methods?

Mara Opperman (IDoNowIDont): Well, we are employing a guerilla strategy, driven mostly by raising awareness in blogs like yours and the traditional press. You said it – there’s no millions in our marketing budget. In terms of raising awareness, we make the most of bloggers like you and try to do what we can to use our press contacts. In the past, we’ve gotten coverage on Rachael Ray, Whoopi Goldberg, CNN, and others. So, that’s been really big for us in getting the word out. We’ve also had some initial conversations with sites who attract a similar type of audience to see if we can arrange link exchanges. Second, we focus a lot on having satisfied members who spread the word about our site. Since part of our site is a service, we make sure that our customer support is responsive and gets results for our members.

Filed under: NaBloPoMo