Personalization Debuts...And Soon!
Having put our personalization algorithm through its paces as an experimental feature over the last month, we are excited to announce that the eagle has (almost) landed, and we will be launching our full-fledged personalization experience within the next few days. But, until then you may ask yourself...
"I think she'd like some field mice."
"No, Arthur! You have to think like a human, not a great owl!"
"Oh my, you're right. Maybe some leather Coach, then?"
"Yeah, now you've got it buddy!"
How does it work?
Bonanza does not have the item depth possessed by Amazon and other big box stores. We have built our brand on having a diverse, eclectic collection of "everything but the ordinary." The good news is that it means we have millions of items you can't find anywhere else. The bad news is that we usually only have one or two of them, so traditional item recommendation algorithms, which rely on tracking a user as they move from item to item and connecting those items together, aren't a realistic possibility for us.
So we decided to slice the problem differently: rather than mapping items to items, we will map people to people. What does that mean? It means that when you take our personalization quiz, a gang of friendly forest creatures look over the results of your quiz and figure out what other Bonanza users you are most similar to. Then, by considering what items those people have shown an interest in (by faving or otherwise), they can guide you toward the items that best match your personal tastes.
Why does that matter?
In addition to giving otherwise out-of-work forest creatures a sense of purpose, it holds the promise of helping you discover items that could take you minutes or hours to discover by traditional browsing methods.
The Bonanza of today is in a unique and very cool position. The millions of items in our inventory put us at a distinct advantage over all traditional ecommerce stores (whose inventories are measured in hundreds, maybe thousands, but never millions) and other eBay alternative sites. But this bounty of great stuff can become as much a curse as a blessing when you want to browse for something like jeans, t-shirts, or jewelry. If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, you can find yourself paging through literally thousands of items, 98% of which hold little to no appeal to you.
We are determined to fix that. While we've seen other sites make reasonable attempts to understand user tastes, we think there's a huge difference in this case between doing personalization OK and doing it great.
But does it work?
After ironing out some early bugs (thanks you furry forest creatures, but dudes aren't too keen on the dresses and panties m'kay!), we have reached the point where the biggest opportunity to improve our personalization results will be feeding more data to our algorithm, er, to our forest creatures. In our testing, we have found that the results already tend to be pretty good, but the way that we will make them "how did it do that?"-great will be by releasing it into the wild and iterating with real data.
The other factor that will drive the quality of our recommendations is the size of our inventory. In the Bonanza of the future, no longer will a few million items be an overwhelming number to browse. We'd love to see Bonanza become the home for even more great sellers, so if you've got a store that you love to shop that isn't on Bonanza, invite them over, eh?
Does personalization still work only for clothing & fashion items?
As of today, yes. We will certainly be looking for opportunities to expand into adjacent categories as we hone in on the quality of our results, but we'd rather build something awesome in one vertical, rather than something that's OK in many.
Are you ever going to stop yammering on and on about this?
I'm considering it. At this point I'd call it 50/50.
How can I improve the quality of my results?
Start faving items! Not only will it earn you Bonanza reward points, it will help us get a sense for your aesthetic so that we can find stuff that suits you.
Will this affect search results?
Nope. Search results will remain separate, so the same factors apply there as always. At this point, browsing one's recommendations is a separate experience from searching, though we do plan to add faceting to the recommendation experience soon (so you can do stuff like filter by size).
I want to try it now, not soon. How can I?
I love your enthusiasm, it gets us pumped up to see you've gotten so into this. You can start reviewing your recommendations now by visiting My Bonanza -> Account Settings -> Other Options and enabling "experimental features." When you next return to the "My Bonanza" page you'll have a link to the personality quiz. We plan to launch this site-wide by the weekend.
As long as you're here blogging, what else have you guys been up to lately?
Lots! In addition to personalization, we've also been improving the accuracy and usability of our item importers, speeding up page load times, and squasing our usual assortment of bugs. We also have some very exciting usability improvements for our sellers on the horizion, so do stay tuned!
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60 responses to Personalization Debuts...And Soon!
Awesome that you are giving our furry friends a sense of purpose. You guys are so cool!! Now I am off to take the quiz again. Sleep is optional, but Bonz fun is mandatory! Here’s hoping the forest beasts can tell me who I really am
Bring it on!!!
Why are clothes, shoes and bags always favored? You state “Everything but the ordinary” but you try your best to ignore the unusual and collectible items.
We would like to know what will happen should we refuse to take this “personalization quiz”? Will we begin to see “miscellaneous” advertising and pop-ups inundating us in our searches, while we shop, or even better, in our MY BONANZA page?
@Tippys: In this case, we chose to start with fashion-based personalization because the type of collectibles that a buyer will want is very hard to predict. And because collectibles shopping is typically a search-based process, as opposed to fashion shopping, which is more of a browse-and-discover process, we have a lot more room to improve on the latter than former.
@HOA: If you don’t want to use the personalization, you’re welcome to dismiss it. There is a link to do so on the My Bonanza page.
Bill I don’t see the link on my Bonanza page to dismiss it neither do other sellers.
You may dismiss the invite to take the quiz and that is all. We have dismissed this message in our My Bonanza page SEVERAL TIMES and it keeps COMING BACK!
My question was “What type of advertising are we going to see if we DO NOT TAKE the quiz, and WHERE are we going to see it”?
REALLY NICE (undismissable) restroom doors in our My Bonanza page btw!
I would like for it to just go away, please. So a nice opt-out link to permanently hide it would be great!
I would prefer to dismiss this but like others do NOT see a link to opt out.
I don’t enjoy having computerized “suggestions” constantly in my face when I’m browsing a site, and since all of your suggestions are going to be fashion related I don’t see the point.
If I’m searching for some Fenton Spanish lace candle holders, what suggestions am I going to see? lace undergarments I bet! SO not interested.
You keep rolling out things that are strictly for fashion and accessories and handbags, always with the comment that collectibles and other things will come later. Well when you start doing something that is valid to my interests in both buying and selling I’ll be a happy camper. Till then I’m just going to ignore you. Hope you don’t mind
Hmm, we’ll investigate why the quiz isn’t dismissable. It should be, obviously. And will be soon. Thanks for the reports.
I took that quiz and it is AWESOME! I know that if I ever want to buy anything, you’ve got my back…and that’s a good feeling
THANKS BOYZ!!
~Hannah
I know I am late to this party but I have faved booths that I like what they sell. I love seeing the new items that they list on My Bonanza page and find that far more effective in motivating me to buy something on Bonanza than the quiz that has absolutely no relevance for me what so ever.
Please do not underestimate this effective tool.
Took quiz, found it to be a waste of time. Please let us remove the bathroom doors from the My Bonanza page.
Well, I also have a shop on another up and coming site, and made the mistake of doing their “taste test”. I am now greeted with 2 rows of itms that I would honestly NEVER buy, every time that I log onto that site.
Unless this type of customer survey is all inclusive, I’m not seeing that it is fair to a given site’s seller bases or that a computer algorhythm can accurately suggest items that I might actually buy.
I also don’t know about the rest of the world, but clothing items is one of the things that I would never buy online. I need to try things on prior to purchase.
Can we just opt out? I do a lot of searches for items I am SELLING… and so do others. That has NOTHING to do with what I might actually BUY. Sheesh! And just because somebody faves an item doesn’t mean they want to buy it.
I am not interested in this, sorry
I just took the stupid quiz and the selections it gave me at the end were just as horrendous as before. I don’t want these items “pushed” at me while I’m browsing or logging in or whatever. I will find what I want with keywords. I know keywords… I can use keywords. I can’t use this dumb list.
My personal list is 223 pages long and has a $5,000 Hermes handbag on it. Really? Sorry but I agree the things chosen for my “personality” aren’t anywhere near a fit. Baby clothes.. where the heck did it get the idea I had a baby? And if the categories will be only those stated it’s really a waste of time cause even people who are shopping for clothes and accessories prefer to look as they wish not be guided. Very few outsiders coming here are likely to use the thing (thank goodness).
I am sure I missed something here. So first the praise, I love this site and the owners and find many things useful.
BUT I thought this site was about everything but the ordinary, not just fashion, shoes and bags which can be bought pretty much every/any where. Wait before throwing tomatoes I have no problem with peeps who sell those items, but sure feel like those of us who sell other things are getting lost in the shuffle.
I do agree that peeps looking for Collectibles and unusual items will use the search feature but if you simply land on the home page it gives the idea that the site is about women’s or once in awhile mens fashion.
Tomatoes may be thrown now as I have a basket ready.
ps. At my age those bathroom doors (I do however love your humor Bill) may cause me to get less listing done and more going across the hall from my office.
ditto what Autumn said
ditto too.
Although I must say, this type of humor is getting old and boring.
Out-dated and not business like.
VERY sorry… and I really am.
Plain and simple questions for the Boyz: What does this constant focus on fashion mean?? Will items in those categories eventually be the only things that are welcome here??
If we can not get rid of them… How about making the bathrooms a LOT smaller.. (removing them is what I would like)
One would have to guess that once you take the “restroom quiz” those doors will soon be replaced by “suggested items to purchase” based on your quiz answers. One would also have to guess that if you do NOT take this quiz, the restroom doors will soon be replaced with heaven knows what!
I buy books with my extra money not purses. You don’t get to lead an old cow to the milk shed since it already knows the way. Moo!
Count me out too.
I really hate to be bah humbug-ish, don’t get me wrong, if I am still here after three years I’m OK with things overall.
I hated (well, disliked it intensely) the in your face, promo thingy which had to be dismissed every time I logged in. The suggestions were wildly off, I haven’t worn 4" heels in 40 years and to be frank the idea of thong underwear is horrifying.
I would like to suggest that Bonanza consider offering those sellers who really do not want to be ‘social’ the opportunity to opt out via our settings. You allowed it for the disco ball, remember?
If we get to the point where we spend so much time dismissing things we do not want to participate in, some will leave. They may well be the kind of reliable steady businesslike sellers you really need to keep.
love, Henrietta!
My first suggestion was an ugly wooden box purse with hot glued sequins on it. Really?? I saw there were 112 pages of stuff for me to look at. I have not the time to do that or the desire to look at pictures of clothes that are not cropped and look cheap and second hand.
Well if the people in charge don’t get it after reading all of these comments, we have a problem. Include me also on “don’t annoy” me with what YOU think I might want to buy.
IMO a waste of important real estate – this should have been either further down the page or somewhere else. I was unable to get rid of the ‘bathroom’ doors and took the too lengthy and too personal quiz that I did not want to take, a waste of time and unprofessional. These type of ‘toys’ that I cannot comprehend anyone wishing to use should be on a ‘game’ link or something….
LIKE! “If we get to the point where we spend so much time dismissing things we do not want to participate in, some will leave. They may well be the kind of reliable steady businesslike sellers you really need to keep.love, Henrietta!”
Toilets at the bottom of listings now?? OMG. I am not resistant to change normally but this is unbelievable.
I WAS considering adding some vintage clothing to my booth but now I doubt if I will. This is almost embarassing.
Now that Mr. & Mrs. Restroom are appearing on our listing pages of ALL FASHION items, ie; clothing, handbags, wallets, coin purses, sunglasses, and hair extentions, we have to agree with many of the comments here.
You are going to lose some AWESOME sellers!
I tried to get rid of the bathroom doors to. Frankly, I find the way the question is asked offensive.
I really do not like the bathroom doors…Although can always appreciate a good joke.
The questions are way to broad at this point to get a real sense of what someone would like to buy and this is one of those things that could be available if someone chose to use it, not mandatory with no way to turn it off.
People do love taking personality tests…Not so sure about taking it to a shopping experience, however if you are going to, why not try using the color tests. They are really accurate and fun as well. That way, people will be able to see all kinds of different types of products instead of just clothing.
Looks like the verdict is in Boyz, in the forums and here. Ditch this one!!
The personal collections are a mess. It isn’t just that it chooses things to show you that you wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole. The items don’t belong together! I see a dowdy, matronly suit and a tee shirt that says Good Girl Gone Bad. And a man’s western shirt next to a skimpy, skimpy youngish outfit. How does that make for a good personal collection? Buyers will be laughing like crazy and telling all their friends about this goofy site. And not in a good way.
Please take this off my booth, yuck don’t like it….Bonanza getting to be more like Ebay everyday….
Did you guys ever consider that maybe you should test stuff like this with a focus group before you throw it out there?
Hey everyone,
Thanks for the responses, and sorry I wasn’t around the computer yesterday to reply.
I apologize that we haven’t allowed better ability to choose to hide this after a day’s time. As all old timers know, we use feedback from our community to iterate and improve, and often times we get our first iteration done within a day of launching something new, in this case, we won’t have our first revision done until tomorrow (Sunday), but it is coming.
I’m fine with changing the gender question, although that is one that is hard to ask in an interesting way. We’ll mull it over some more and see if we can come up with something better.
As far as the quality of the recommendations, it is something that we will are tracking and will be continuing to improve as we gather data. Fundamentally, I’m confident that shoppers don’t have the time to look through 10,000 items when they’re browsing, so the opportunity to build something that improves that is an exciting one.
That said, distilling the essence of a shopper’s tastes and presenting them with items they love, amongst millions of possibilities, is a very ambitious problem for us to tackle. But I believe that, given our diversity of items and our social flavor, we are uniquely well positioned to be able to address this better than any other marketplace, and when new shoppers arrive here and it “just works,” it is going to be one more important piece of what makes us a destination site for shoppers.
Bill, I opted out of the collections for very specific reasons. This to me is not any better than having collections on my listings. I do not like having this at the bottom of my listings and want to know how to remove it off my listing pages. Is there going to be a way for us sellers to opt out of this as we did with collections so buyers don’t see this on a listing when they are viewing an item?
Can you tell me how to take this off of my listing page? I have opted out of collections, and do not want to showcase other sellers items nor distract the customers I try so hard to bring in. I am also a paying member of Bonanza.If you have a way for us to create a collection that consists only of our own items, I will be happy to participate in that endeavor.
Thanks
Could the ability to further refine results be added? I would like to select the clothing sizes that are included, as well as exclude categories that I have no interest in.
I also just finally decided to take the plunge and take the personalization collection quiz. After answering the questions and then going through some of the items on what is supposed to be my personalized collection, there were way more items on there that did not suit me than did. Also I found it real surprising to find my own items I have for sale on it. Another suggestion if this is going to be a permanent thing (I hope it is NOT) is that you take a person’s age into consideration. I for one do not need things like fur lined bras and g-string panties on any clothing collection and I know I’m not the only one this type of thing that something like this showed up on. I answered the questions honestly and nowhere did I indicate even remotely close to that type of clothing. I know if I were an outside buyer and a modest person who saw that it would scare me away from shopping here to see that suggested. The programming for these “collections” is horrible at best!
@MyTexas: Sure, I think that we can figure out a way to opt out of this, I think it could work basically like the Collections, where you can opt out of showing personalization and being recommended during personalization.
The first time I took the survey, I received a lengthy list of monsters and war games. I have never ever even looked at, much less indicated an interest in, possessing such items.
The second time, I got all clothes — they might be wonderful for some folk, but for a 73 year old woman to whom gravity has not been kind, the bathing suit slit up from the bottom and down from the top to almost connect (or disconnect, depending on your point of view) is totally inappropriate. So are the 4 inch heels and the clothing for teeny boppers and women who party wildly.
However, I felt it was an insult for some droid to decide that I liked these things. I find the choices offensive for me.Your results are not statistically sound when one considers the lack of depth and focus of the questions.
And, only the Lord knows what people browsing the site may think when they see that stuff showing up on our pages — as if we personally endorsed them.
Not good. Not good at all.
When I, as a buyer, go to ANY other site to shop, I am not bombarded with some quiz to take, and if I were, I would leave and never go back. If I came here for the first time and saw the quiz, I would exit, stage left, immediately. Shoppers know how to shop. Buyers know what they want and that’s all they are going to look at, I don’t care what you do. Bargain hunters are something else though, but even they are probably not up for a quiz and a specialized showing of what you think they might like. I don’t see how this can ever turn into a good idea, no matter how much icing you put on it.
Bonanza is not helping my bp meds to keep my bp at a good level. In fact, I find myself frustrated with most of the changes that appear to make my attempt of operating my business (that was what I hoped it would be when I started out but sales are too few and far between here to call it much more than a hobby, which is doesn’t help my bottom line much) on Bonanza seem to be a part of some kind of online game or gimmick. Frustration raises my bp which is a bad thing.
I think that many of us are feeling a bit lost in the Bonz shuffle and like we and our potential buyers are not an important factor in the direction the site is headed. If the direction is similar to a video game or teeny bopper style popularity quiz, that is not the direction I intend to follow.
Please, can’t we just get down to the basics of buying and selling and stop all of the “cute” stuff?
so if we opt out of this , that only means I can’t see it right? Will a customer still be able to see this?
Mr. & Mrs. Bathroom doors…….TACKY, UNPROFESSIONAL,DISTRACTING……Get rid of them…PLEASE
oh and there is no TP in the ladies, and stall # 3 needs a plunger (which by the way there are none listed on this site so I guess you’ll have to go to the hardware store).
The results I got from the Quiz were disgusting, If I had been a new customer coming to the site, I would have closed my browser and told all my friends not to go to that Bonanza site to shop.
Guys, this is not something we want customers to see. Please spend your time more wisely, develop something that is really important to the shoppers, and the Sellers. There are so many glitches I see folks talking about that need to be addressed, instead of developing a Quiz which does not show what the person would even look at much less buy.
“Sure, I think that we can figure out a way to opt out of this, I think it could work basically like the Collections, where you can opt out of showing personalization and being recommended during personalization.” Bill, this statement did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling (your reply to @My Texas)- I think it is clear that we (many responders) want to hear “we can figure it out” and “it will work this way”- please…this one is a real negative and those of us who do not want it should have the option not to.. you guys have done a great job but to quote someone VERY important to me “Sometimes even Superman trips over his cape”- this has to go- it sits right in the middle of My Bonanza page and even forces my faves out of view because it’s so big. Inquiring minds want to know…when will we be able to exercise our own option on this one?
I wish you would spend more time on helping the sellers. Fix things that do not work, make it easy to check out, make it easy for buyers to find what they are looking for, make it easy for buyers to purchase what they want.
This is a serious business for most sellers and they need buyers to find their items, not play games.
I love Bonanza, but I do not like the way it is going.
Please get rid of the ugly bathrooms – experimental stuff should be run by sellers for input and value before splashing this stuff on our pages.
It might be helpful if you asked people whether they were here at the ranch to primarily buy or sell. Perhaps the personalized lists will be useful for buyers, but for those of us here to sell, they’re sort of a waste of time. And ditto the comments of cshort; the clothing choices were both insulting and laughable. Don’t get me wrong; I’m loving Bonanza; but I think that computer generated selections for individuals is an overrated concept by online web designers. I’ve heard similar complaints about such lists generated by sites like Netflix and Amazon. Not to mention, they will, over time, cause potential customers to bypass items they might have found interesting, but which didn’t make the lists.
This quiz and it’s results insult buyers intelligence, but I guess you are overlooking that in the responses we are giving you. You need to end this immediately!! Buyers almost always know what they are looking for, they don’t need to be lead, especially by an insulting quiz and it’s insulting results. Have a cup of coffee, take a deep breath and just hit the delete key and you will have this solved.
True, True, True Johngermaine. I agree completely.
If you must insist upon having your goofy quizzes, why not make a small little blurb some place OTHER THAN LISTING PAGES that asks a nice little question: “Would you like to take a quiz from the Bonanza web site that might be able to show you items listed on the site from various sellers that match your personality?” “Warning: The results are not likely to show you anything that you will actually buy.”
Good idea Indizona!!!
Thanks to those who left constructive feedback. It would seem that the essence of the comments being repeated here fall into three buckets:
1) “I don’t want my buyers to see personalization questions on my item detail page.” Done and done. We have now enabled you to remove this if you wish, it’s now an option on the Advanced Options page of the booth.
2) “I don’t like the first question of the personalization test” / “I don’t want to see personalization on the My Bonanza page.” OK — you can now hide personalization on the My Bonanza page, and per my earlier comment, we will revisit other ways to ask the ever-difficult gender question.
3) “The quality of the recommendations was lacking.” Building a perfect recommendation engine is not something that happens overnight, and there will always be those who would rather take the time to browse through all possible items themselves, rather than use recommendations. That being the case, we will be continuing to refine and measure the effectiveness of our recommendations over time. Once they arrive at a point where we see them consistently driving a higher rate of sell-through than search results, we’ll be able to look into extending them into further domains, which will be an exciting day.
I’ve closed commenting for this blog post since it seems like it has passed the point of being constructive feedback, but hopefully the changes we’ve now deployed will address the lion’s share of the concern, and we look forward to hearing further feedback via support if you have additional suggestions on how to improve our recommendations.
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