The toll of excess inventory and the role of ecommerce

I still recall being handed roughly 10 boxes of suture anchors to practice with years ago at New York University (NYU) medical school. “Aren’t these needed here?” I asked incredulously. “Not at all,” came the answer, despite a hefty price tag of $1,000 per box. In fact, getting the suture anchors off the shelves was seen as a welcome opportunity to shrink the mountain of overstock clogging up cupboard space. I did not realize it then, but the business I would later help to found—essentially a niche eBay for buying and selling medical inventory—had just taken root.