an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . october 2014 learn how and when to remove this template message ebags type private industry retail founded 1998 headquarters greenwood village colorado united states key people mike edwards president & ceo peter cobb co founder evp mike frazzini cto products handbags luggage backpacks laptop bags duffel bags number of employees 100 website www.ebags.com ebags is an online retailer of handbags luggage backpacks laptop bags and travel accessories based in greenwood village colorado near denver . the main website ebags.com carries bags and accessories from more than 650 brands including samsonite jansport kate spade fossil patagonia and nike . ebags also operates both handbags.com and the ebags corporate sales site and offers its own private label products under the name the ebags brand . contents 1 history 2 awards 3 corporate sales 4 handbags.com 5 gts and 6pm . com 6 references 7 further reading 8 external links history edit five people founded ebags in the late spring of 1998 jon nordmark peter cobb frank steed andy youngs and eliot cobb . the first four worked more than 50 years collectively at samsonite . eliot cobb worked as vp of finance at wherehouse music a national music retailer . the company purchased two domains eluggage.com and ebags.com not knowing which domain they would use . ultimately they chose ebags.com because it lent more opportunity to expand into multiple categories . 1 the website ebags.com launched on march 1 1999 with seven brands including samsonite jansport and skyway luggage . the focus was primarily on luggage due to the backgrounds of the founders . from summer 1999 ebags starting experiencing rapid growth . much of the early success of ebags can be attributed to three strategies a drop ship model customer reviews and an outsourced call center . ebags drop shipped most products direct from manufacturers to consumers . this reduced the company s inventory risk . the company still drop ships products but a portion of the business has moved to an inventory model which has allowed them to work with a wider selection of brands . in addition to lower inventory costs ebags lowered operating costs by outsourcing their call center outsourced to the philippines although today it is back in the u.s. finally the company focused on garnering customer reviews which was a relatively new concept in e commerce in 1999 . 2 following the website launch three events caused cash to dip the dot com bomb of 2000 the recession of 2001 and the terrorist attacks on september 11 2001 . september 11 specifically caused ebags luggage sales to slow to 2 % growth for the next six months . to recharge the growth ebags diversified into handbags and purses business cases sport bags and backpacks . this allowed the company to rely on more daily use brands like kathy van zeeland tignanello perlina stone mountain and eastpak . in october 2004 ebags launched ebags.co.uk with the intent of expanding further into europe at a later time . the ebags uk offices were located in cambridge england . that year marked ebags expansion of its brand representation to more than 600 total in the united states and europe . ebags.co.uk was later closed in december 2008 and the company focus returned to growing the main site ebags.com . 3 by the end of 2008 ebags passed 100 million in annual gross orders . in fall 2011 prior to the start of holiday season ebags moved its call center operations back to the u.s. they currently use in house employees to handle calls and contracted with hgs ltd. to handle overflow . the shift allowed the company to shave about 34 % off its customer care expenses because the u.s. based customer service representatives were able to resolve customer complaints more efficiently . american customer service reps shaved about a minute and 20 seconds from each call and resolved customer issues on the first contact 80 % of the time compared with 69 % for calls handled in the philippines . 4 today ebags.com continues to sell bags and travel accessories from over 650 brands but now also offers accessories including jewelry hats scarves iphone cases travel clothing and camping gear . as of 2016 they have sold over 25 million bags and have over 3 million reviews on the website . awards edit ebags has received the following awards 5 website of the year in 2011 multichannel merchant 2011 mcm awards gold consumer specialty products web channel 2009 tga award 1 website of the year in 2008 multichannel merchant 2008 mcm awards gold consumer specialty products web channel 4th highest scoring merchant out of 100 top online retail sites the e tailing group 2008 6 2007 retail customer experience study 9th out of 300 etailers future now 7 2007 mcm awards gold consumer specialty products web channel 2007 fusion award pure play e commerce operations ris news 8 2007 circle of excellence second time award winner bizrate website of the year in 2006 multichannel merchant 2006 mcm awards gold consumer specialty products web channel tga community service award in 2006 travel goods association 9 website of the year in 2004 multichannel merchant 2004 internet retailer best of the web the top 50 retailing sites 10 2004 mcm awards gold consumer specialty products web channel website of the year in 2002 multichannel merchant 2002 company to watch denver post website of the year in 2001 multichannel merchant corporate sales edit ebags has a corporate sales division that operates the ebags corporate sales website ebagscorporate.com . this division handles large orders for conferences and tradeshows corporate gift programs and other promotional type events . in addition to bags and travel accessories they provide a much broader scope of products including writing instruments mugs mobile tech items and outdoor leisure products . handbags.com edit ebags purchased the handbags.com domain in 1999 . for several years the website was a blog offering advice on handbag trends styles and brands . in july 2011 ebags rebranded handbags.com into an online retailer of handbags women s bags and fashion accessories . the website s slogan is handbags.com bag obsessions begin here . unlike ebags.com handbags.com is targeted specifically to women and was the first of the ebags sites to offer social features like signing in with facebook and a shareable wishlist . ebags still operates handbags.com today . gts and 6pm . com edit in 2002 ebags took what they learned from ebags.com and formed global technology services gts a division that operated e commerce sites for two other brands in the bag industry tumi and case logic . in october 2002 they began operating tumi.com followed by tumi uk in october 2005 tumi germany in july 2006 and tumi japan in august 2006 . the case logic gts site launched in july 2005 . during this same timeframe ebags also launched 6pm . com . purchased as shoedini.com in march 2004 and renamed in november 2005 6pm . com combined ebags knowledge of bags with the complementary business of shoes . 6pm s main feature was matching bags with shoes . 6pm was sold in october 2007 to zappos and ebags returned focus to the ebags.com site . similarly the gts division was dissolved and resources were reallocated to the core business . references edit a b http www.travel goods.org travel goods showcase clips tgs vol34no2 2009 tga award peter cobb.pdf http www.smh.com.au small business entrepreneurs ecommerce success in the bag 20130407 2hetz.html http blog.shop.org 2009 02 23 qa with ebags peter cobb on why they shut down their uk site http www.internetretailer.com 2012 01 19 ebags brings its call center house http www.ebags.com about index.cfm fuseaction awards http www.internetretailer.com 2008 02 22 e tailing group index debuts with qvc com topping the chart http www.grokdotcom.com 2007 11 26 cyber monday future nows 2007 retail customer experience study http risnews.edgl.com old magazine 2007 ris news fusion awards39932 http www.ebags.com about index.cfm fuseaction pressitem & release id 167 http www.internetretailer.com 2003 12 02 2004 i internet retailer i best of the web br the top 50 reta further reading edit entrepreneur s e commerce success in the bag from the sydney morning herald ebags.com surpasses 2.5 million customer reviews via market watch ebags announces discount program for members of the military and veterans from marketwire outside magazine names ebags exo hardside 24 spinner among the year s best gear from marketwire ebags packs up record holiday sales from internet retailer why ebags is an exceptional ecommerce site from multichannel merchant your personal shopper with the initials r.s.s. from the new york times ebags carries it off from businessweek external links edit ebags.com the ebags brand ebags corporate sales handbags.com case logic . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title ebags.com & oldid 725673837 categories companies based in greenwood village coloradocompanies based in coloradocompanies established in 1998luggageonline retailers of the united kingdomonline retailers of the united stateshidden categories articles with a promotional tone from october 2014all articles with a promotional tone navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 17 june 2016 at 04 54 . text is available under the creative 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