Relentless Simplicity - The Bonanza Blog
Background Burner Available from Listing Form
Today marks the launch of Background Burner: Reloaded. With this second version of the Background Burner, we have increased our burn accuracy from 70% to about 90%. Given its improved (and still improving) quality, we've decided it is ready to step out from the shadows, and we've added it to our item listing form. You'll now see the burn option available beneath any image you've uploaded.
With picture quality of such paramount importance in earning clicks through Google and Bing Product Search, we strongly believe that the Background Burner is an idea whose time has come. Before now, to get an Amazon-style white background, one had to either purchase expensive photo studio equipment, learn to use Photoshop, or pay professionals to remove your background for you. With the Background Burner, small merchants are empowered to get their own studio-quality pictures, minus all the fancy camera & lighting tricks.
Whereas existing picture outsource services charge about $3-5/picture (depending on difficulty), Bonanza's Background Burner prices are
Full details about the whos and whats of the Burner are available here.
The FAQ includes details on how you can frame your pictures to maximize the quality of your Background Burns. Also:... (continued)
Three things you can do today for your business (Pt 2)
In our first post in this series we briefly touched on how to utilize Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest on Bonanza. In this second part we are going to focus on the payment methods you are offering to your buyers. Did you know that Bonanza now has integration with PayPal, Google Checkout, and Checkout by Amazon? Did you know that by increasing your payment methods to buyers you can increase your sales by (insert % that excites you), well, it has to increase your sales right? It surely cannot hurt to give your buyers more options to pay you. You can access the payment option area via your "Account Settings > Seller Settings" page.
Once you select your preferred payment options, you will need to complete the payment fields for each method with the appropriate codes and secret digits. It is important that you follow the instructions carefully as a mistake could result in a buyer not being able to pay you. One common mistake we see at support happens when a user copy and pastes their codes into the payment fields and inadvertently copy a blank space which is nearly impossible to see (unless you're Superman). You can... (continued)
Bonanza "thumping" a couple of enhancements
In case you were wondering, "thumping" around Bonanza headquarters means that we have uploaded changes to the main site so they are live (or something technical like that). Thumping can also be the end result for anyone who plays ping pong against Jordo, but that does not stop us from continuing to try! Anyhow, we (awesome programming team you) just pushed two enhancements live that are going to improve our buyer and seller experience on Bonanza.
The first change will allow buyers to better manage multiple shipping addresses. Buyers can add or remove shipping addresses via their "Account Settings > Account Info" page. Buyers will be able to select these addresses when viewing their cart.
We have also improved sellers being able to manage their credit card settings in one convenient place (also on your "Account Settings > Seller Settings" page). So if you use multiple credit cards (seller fees, membership, verification), you will be able to manage them on one page.
Edit shipping address(Account Settings > Account Info)
... (continued)
Sell your clothes faster with the Bonanza Fashion Exchange
Introducing the Bonanza Fashion Exchange
Bonanza has always been and will always be the best marketplace for sellers to connect with buyers online. However, not everyone who has great items has the time (or patience!) to become a successful online merchant. What if there was a faster way to get money for your stuff without taking pictures, determining price/title/description, and the rest of that ball o' wax? Well, now there is.
Choose the clothes you want to sell, ship them to us, and get paid
The Bonanza Fashion Exchange is a way for people to quickly sell the extra clothes in their closets. You can get a pre-paid Bonanza Gift Card or just take the cash. We're currently only taking women's clothing (dresses, tops, pants, jeans, and skirts) in good condition and have a long list of brands that we'll accept. We give you an estimate for how much you'll earn, so you can determine right away if it's worth it to you.
Once we get your clothes, we'll appraise them and make you an offer -- if you don't accept it, we'll return your clothes to you. If you do accept it, we'll reimburse your shipping costs... (continued)
Three things you can do today for your business (Pt 1)
It's no secret, Bonanza sellers have one of the largest collections of seller tools online. With so many great tools before you, you may be having a hard time selecting which one to use first. Each post in this series will highlight three of those tools and how you can use them to enhance your business on Bonanza, today!
Today we will call attention to Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, and one way they can help your Bonanza business. As of today, Facebook is ranked #2 in the world based on traffic. Twitter is ranked #9 followed by newcomer Pinterest which is #53 (source Alexa.com). If your Bonanza business is not regularly using those channels then you are missing out on a huge opportunity for exposure. Bonanza makes it simple for you to take advantage of all three of these social networks with quick buttons on each listing to post your items to each of those sites.
When you click on any of the social site buttons above (#1 - #3) for the first time, you will be prompted to log into your account on that site. Once you do, your Bonanza account will be linked to... (continued)
Bonanza.com Wins "Favorite Spot to Sell Vintage Collectibles" for the Second Year in a Row!
Towards the end of February, online users were asked to vote in several categories for the 2012 Readers' Choice Awards on About.com. Bonanza was nominated for two categories. The first category was "Your Favorite Spot to Sell Vintage Collectibles," and the second category was "Your Favorite Spot to Shop for Vintage Collectibles." Voting was limited to one vote per person each day and Bonanza was going up against such heavies as eBay and Etsy among other finalists (Tias, Zibbet, and Ruby Lane). The polls closed on March 21st, 2012 and the votes were tallied and we are happy to report that Bonanza was once again voted by About.com readers as the top "Favorite Spot to Sell Vintage Collectibles" receiving 39% of the vote. This is the second year in a row that Bonanza has received this award. Bonanza also captured a respectable 32% of the votes for "Favorite Spot to Shop for Vintage Collectibles," which was enough votes to take second place in this category (there was only a 5% difference in votes between 1st and 2nd place (Congrats Tias). Now in its fifth year, the About.com Readers' Choice Awards honor the best products, features... (continued)
Strategic cats drive engagement
I am pleased to announce that today we are launching the culmination of a months-long research project designed to find strategic new ways for us to drive greater user engagement on site. The result is another Bonanza-first innovation that we think may soon become standard amongst top-tier commerce sites. We are calling it "Bonanza... with cats!"
Recently surging sites like Pinterest and Facebook have clearly demonstrated the value in building a product that can get its users engaged. To date, Bonanza has focused almost exclusively on building the best buying experience and selling experience, bar none. While these functions can be quite useful when one decides to go shopping, years of Internet usage have proven that, on a day-to-day basis, people tend to choose cats over commerce 9 times out of 10. We figure it is high time that we stop fighting human nature, when we can instead build an experience that takes the best of "cats" and "commerce" and bundles it into one exciting package. We are calling this new hybrid model "cat commerce," or "CC" for short.
If you are a logged in Bonanza user, you are now only a single click away from an engaging CC experience. ... (continued)
Spring Cleaning: Updates to the Booth Edit Pages
a.k.a, what's happening to the "Advanced Settings" page?
Cleaning The Old Junk Drawer
If you have a booth on Bonanza, you may remember the headache of finding some obscure setting for it. For the most part, those controls were in the "Advanced Settings" page; a junk drawer of toggles that weren't even all that advanced. What's worse, there were other ways to edit your booth that didn't even make it into that junk drawer. You had the pleasure of scouring the rest of Bonanza to try to find them.
We really wanted to clean that up. We strongly believe that it's our responsibility is to provide a hassle-free experience to anyone who tries to sell their products with us. Any seller that chooses to invest their time with us should find that their investment is worthwhile. There's nothing worthwhile about wasting time trying to find where things are.
Also, we believed that many sellers weren't aware of some of the features we offered because they were too hard to find. What's the point of offering a feature that empower sellers if no one knows where it is or how to use it? What we needed was a clean way to... (continued)
Bonanza gets a nice mention in Family Circle Magazine April 2012
Did you get your April 2012 issue of Family Circle yet? If not, rush out to the newsstand and get your copy quick! Bonanza has a really nice mention on page 100.
"Bonanza.com, The tagline "everything but the ordinary" may sound like an overpromise, but when I checked it out, I was impressed. Products are unique and there's plenty of variety. I found vintage jewelry, elegant stationery, and upholstered furniture, to name just a few."
They go on to say, "I was immediately drawn to the striking avatar of a Bonanzamark, who is obvioulsy a male model that must exercise constantly...." Well, they didn't really say that but it would have been a good ending right? Thanks so much to Family Circle for the mention and make sure to welcome all of our new guests.
How do I know if my items are showing on Google?
What a great question! As you may or may not know, Bonanza feeds all of your active items (within Google's guidelines) to Google Product Search on your behalf. Back in the early days of Bonanza, sellers were responsible for managing and submitting their own products to Google Products Search (formerly Google Base). About two years ago, Bonanza started to manage this for you.
Over time we have been able to organize helpful information regarding Google Producs and have created a special page for this on Bonanza. We call this page our Google Product Management page. You can find this page by going to your My Bonanza page where it is linked as "Google."
Once you have clicked on the "Google" link you will be taken to your Google Product Management page:
On this page you will be able to:
- View your feed status (shows you the last time your items were uploaded to Google Products).
- View your actual items as they appear on Google Products (you can see what a buyer would see).
- Initiate a feed status review (good way to find out why an item or items are not on Google Products).
- Set up... (continued)
Coming Soon: Email Response Rates
Sample display
Good afternoon, fine sellers! I wanted to drop everyone a line about a new bit of info we will be providing to our buyers as of next week: the email response rate and turnaround time for questions asked to sellers. As you can see in the prototype image I've included at right, we will soon begin tabulating the percentage of item questions that a seller has responded to, so a buyer can get a sense for how likely a given seller is to respond to their question about an item. The idea is that active, engaged sellers are recognized for their participation, while absentee sellers become more apparent.
Our ultimate goal is to provide our users as much transparency as possible into a seller's level of engagement on Bonanza. Sellers that consistently respond to buyer inquiries in a timely fashion should be recognized and rewarded for that.
Here are some of the finer points on how the new system will work:
Why is this necessary?
A buyer who asks a question and hears crickets in return is a buyer who has had a bad experience on Bonanza. We want to provide as much transparency as possible to potential buyers... (continued)
EcommerceBytes 2012 Sellers Choice Awards
Ina Steiner of EcommerceBytes recently posted their 2012 Sellers Choice Awards. This annual survey, now in its fourth year, has become an increasingly relied-upon tool to help sellers compare the strengths and weaknesses of the top online marketplaces. We would like to thank everyone at Bonanza who took part in the survey -- for the second year in a row, Bonanza was the third most widely used marketplace for the survey respondents -- Bonanza trailed only eBay and Craigslist. I think this speaks to the power of what our community has created by making newcomers feel welcome, while encouraging your friends to dip their toe in and become our next newcomers.
I've always liked this Auction...er...EcommerceBytes survey for a couple reasons. The top reason is that I am a self-avowed "data lover," and any time that someone can put hard numbers behind a squishy subject, my inner scientist does a series of triumphant fist pumps. 
The second reason I appreciate the survey is that it gives new marketplaces a chance to get their due (usually for being more customer-centric), while more mature marketplaces can flex their strengths (more traffic, profitability, advertising). Sellers can then weigh the pros and cons relative to their... (continued)
Bonanza White + More Sale this Thursday through Sunday!
What would peanut butter be without Jelly? If you answered "Peanut butter" you are right! What would a White sale be without a Bonanza Rush? If you answered, "boring," you are right again! We agree, so starting this Thursday at 7am PST, Bonanza will host a multiple category, multiple day White sale Rush. Shoppers can save up to 50%!
We will be featuring:
- Inside the home
- Women's shoes and clothing
- Men's clothing, shoes and accessories
Sellers with items in the following categories will be eligible to participate:
Inside the Home
Women's Clothing, Women's Shoes
Men's Clothing, Men's Accessories, Men's Shoes
Sellers who wish to join... (continued)
Hello, 2012
Well since we haven't blogged since last year (that joke somehow never gets old. Maybe cuz we only get to a little while every year), I figure it's high time that we fix that!
The Bonz team has been spending the holidays on a well balanced diet of features and bug fixes for our selling community. We've also been able to squeeze in a handful of improvements for our buyers.
The CEO trying to do his part to "clean up the ranch" on FIFI day
One of the highlights for us has been some recent "find it, fix it" (FIFI) days. The idea for these days is that the entire programming and design team (plus whatever you call me) just spend the day using our site in the same way an average seller or shopper would. The only rule is that you have to fix any bug (or "poor experience") you find -- on the spot. On FIFI days, we turn off our usual bug tracking system, and just go to work trying to improve the quality of Bonanza in ways both large and (more often) small. A wee smattering of the stuff we got done during our two FIFI December... (continued)
Kill SOPA, save America's Internet and American jobs: ACT NOW, bill goes to the House TOMORROW
There is a bill being considered by congress currently that could seriously jeoparidze the functionality of the Internet in general, and the livelihood of this site in particular. It's called SOPA. Here's the scoop from Tiffiniy at American Censorship:
"Tomorrow, the US government will vote to have broad powers to block any site. SOPA would not only hurt free speech, it will choke off the internet workforce and its readers by taking down entire websites. Today is the only day we have left to have our voices heard. It's time to pull all stops - please make a call right now to protest censorship. Your call matters. If you don't call, SOPA will pass. If there is one call per minute into every one of our representatives, we have a chance of stalling SOPA enough so it dies for quite some time. Please call Congress now and tell them you oppose internet censorship and stifling the internet. If you own a site, you're in the best position to spread the word. Please post this call widget. If we're really going to stop SOPA, we need you to get involved. If you write emails or have a blog, or if you... (continued)
Recent Posts
- Background Burner Available from Listing Form
- Three things you can do today for your business (Pt 2)
- Bonanza "thumping" a couple of enhancements
- Sell your clothes faster with the Bonanza Fashion Exchange
- Three things you can do today for your business (Pt 1)
- Bonanza.com Wins "Favorite Spot to Sell Vintage Collectibles" for the Second Year in a Row!
- Strategic cats drive engagement
- Spring Cleaning: Updates to the Booth Edit Pages
- Bonanza gets a nice mention in Family Circle Magazine April 2012
- How do I know if my items are showing on Google?
- Coming Soon: Email Response Rates
- EcommerceBytes 2012 Sellers Choice Awards
- Bonanza White + More Sale this Thursday through Sunday!
- Hello, 2012
- Kill SOPA, save America's Internet and American jobs: ACT NOW, bill goes to the House TOMORROW
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