Mr. Ricky Eckhardt, Publisher
The Publisher
NORFOLK, Va. — Ex-Navy man turned marketplace operator, Ricky Eckhardt has worked across retail, travel, rentals, and collectibles since 2019.
By The Numbers
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Marketplace work | Since 2019 |
| GMV through systems | $100M+ |
| Current work | Cliqket |
The Story
Every market starts before it calls itself one. A seller has a shop. A category expert has a following. An operator has buyers, supply, and a spreadsheet that used to be good enough.
Then the work multiplies.
Payments, refunds, payouts, inventory, seller roles, support, and category rules become the business behind the business. The visible site is the easy part.
Ricky learned that work at Fitted Retail, BookOutdoors, GoCamp, and Nerdworth. The categories changed. The hard parts kept returning.
Cliqket
Cliqket is the engine he wanted during those builds.
Start with the business already moving: a shop, catalog, ticket, event, service, or group of sellers. Add what the market needs as it grows. Agents take on the repeatable operating work. The operator stays close to supply, demand, and the people in the market.
Nerdworth is a live marketplace running on Cliqket. KAE is a seller site running on the same system. The first outside marketplace is moving over now. Each one extends Cliqket instead of becoming a one-off build.
Field Record
- Fitted Retail — Built the B2B checkout behind more than $100M in GMV.
- BookOutdoors — Founding engineer for an outdoor travel marketplace later acquired by Hipcamp.
- GoCamp — Rebuilt a camper van marketplace carrying more than $4M in annual GMV.
- Nerdworth — Runs on Cliqket and keeps the product honest through real orders, sellers, payouts, and support.
The Lesson
Marketplaces rarely die because the homepage was wrong. They die when supply and demand never meet often enough, or when operating the market costs more than it earns.
That is why Cliqket starts with people who already have something moving. A seller with demand. A category expert with a community. An operator whose technology is becoming the company.
The next 1,000 eBays will not begin as empty marketplaces. They will grow from businesses and communities that already know what their market needs.
That is the work now.
Contact
Email: ricky.eckhardt@gmail.com
LinkedIn: rickyeckhardt
Headquarters: Norfolk, Virginia
All opinions are in beta. The operating work is real.