Ruchi Sethi is a Project Manager who’s been with eBay for the last 4.5 years. As VP of eBay’s Toastmasters chapter and a participant of a recent company
volunteering trip to Peru, Ruchi is the definition of an engaged employee. She has a lot experience with market research, pricing, and product marketing, and is familiar with the tools to promote a product online. Having grown up in a “small business family, often helping her parents with it”, she was excited at the prospect of applying her digital marketing expertise to helping small business owners.
We paired Ruchi with Sarah Mueller, founder and owner of Watch Dog Goose Patrol, a product used to help keep geese off people’s lawns. Sarah came to PCV seeking a mentor with experience in pricing strategy and overall digital marketing strategy. She wanted to make sure her pricing is competitive in the market, and also that her products reached the right audience. Ruchi’s experience and background was a perfect match!
Since their partnership started, Ruchi has made suggestions at both a high and at tactical level. Many of her recommendations have already yielded tangible results for Sarah’s business. On a strategic level, Ruchi suggested taking the product to different online platforms (including eBay) so that no matter where her audience was looking, they would come across Sarah’s product. Beyond that, more specific suggestions – like revamping her Amazon page and adding cards asking for reviews – have already resulted in higher customer engagement and sales on Amazon.
Ruchi was so excited to hear about the increase in Sarah’s sales!
She described the experience so far as “an easy way to have a real impact.”
One of the aspects of the program that stood out for her was how applying her
skillset and sharing tactics within her area of expertise could at the same
time be so easy and “hardly any effort” and yet have a “real,
measurable impact on a small business.”
Ruchi shared she would definitely recommend that more of her co-workers participate because, “It doesn’t take much effort on our side, 30 minutes a week, and it doesn’t require doing a lot of research because this is stuff we know in an out, and small business owners just need to be pointed towards the key things they can do to get past the big sellers. Taking that time is not a big deal, but you can make a big a difference, because it’s just what you already do!”
Both Ruchi and Sarah are excited to continue their partnership!