Google Product Search Becomes Google Shopping
Much has been made about Google's announcement today stating their intention to transition from the current "free listings" model to one requiring payment for inclusion. Not wanting to be left out of the game, I thought I'd offer my take on the impact we expect to see for Bonanza and our dear merchants.
A Brief History of Google & Marketplaces
Bonanzle in 2008, when our GPS feed was taken down.
Those were the bad old days.
Bonanza owes a great deal to Google Product Search (henceforth, "GPS"). At the time we launched in 2008, GPS was still a relatively undeveloped product with several major ecommerce players unrepresented. As would become a theme for Bonanza, we used our crack programming team to build a fully automated GPS submission tool that made us one of the largest item providers for Google Product Search. Times were good.
Well, except for when Google would find an item in our 1 million item feed that didn't abide by the dreaded Google Base Program policies. When this happened (which tended to be every couple months), our entire GPS feed would be taken down, resulting in our traffic being decimated by about 60-70%. Times were not good. But our feed would usually get restored within a week or two, and the party resumed.
As 2009 progressed, GPS finally started getting noticed. A crop of new marketplaces took advantage and thrived, Bonanza foremost amongst them. I'd approximate it was around late 2009 or early 2010 by the time the Amazon's and eBay's got around to developing their own well-crafted GPS integrations. Competition became stiffer. When our GPS feed went down we lost "only" about 35% of our traffic. Still not a picnic, but better than the 70% dependence we started at.
In 2010, we hired a team of 79 computer geniuses, who helped us crack the code of how to track our GPS traffic in Google Analytics (OK, it wasn't exactly that hard. But neither was it easy). Over time, we have seen two factors work against Bonanza in the context of GPS: one is the increased competition from every possible store and marketplace being represented. The other is that the shopping algorithms have increasingly tended toward Amazon, Zappos, Nordstrom and the like when they're present.
The net result of these changes was that, as of last month, our analytics indicated that our traffic from GPS was hovering at around 15% of our total traffic. This relatively minimal percentage corresponds to our focused efforts over the last three years to acquire new traffic sources like email, the social sites, and even some advertising.
Google Product Search Becomes Google Shopping
This history brings us up to today, when Google announced that GPS as we know it will soon cease to exist, replaced by Google Shopping. While this move has sent anxiety through the ecommerce world, it remains to be seen what ultimately happens between now and September (when the transition is scheduled to complete).
How many merchants -- particularly small merchants like those on Bonanza and Etsy -- will be able to pay a per-click fee? I'm sure that Google has a guess; my guess would be "not many." In general, small merchants have to be very smart with their limited resources to make their business work, yet they provide most of the "unique merchandise" in the ecommerce universe. If few small merchants have the money (or time) to get listed in the new Google Shopping, I imagine Google will have a very difficult decision about how to proceed. They have shown a lot of willingness to listen and respond to merchant feedback in the past, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them continue to listen and improve as September draws nearer.
A World Without Google Shopping
Assuming that Google decides to proceed with its plan as currently described, what will it mean for Bonanza and the rest of the marketplace landscape?
As mentioned above, in a bad case scenario, our sellers could stand to lose around 10-20% of their monthly traffic. Unpleasant, but non-fatal for most. Meanwhile, the smaller marketplaces (and independent ecommerce stores) that lean more heavily on GPS for buyer traffic will be in tougher straits. Just as the introduction of GPS fueled a proliferation of marketplaces over the last few years, the subtraction of GPS could well induce a contraction of marketplaces that ultimately consolidates buyer and seller traffic. The strong would survive and become stronger.
It's also possible that alternate sites like Bing or TheFind could grow from this change, and we'll see GPS traffic shift in part to an emerging platform.
Regardless of how the traffic balance shifts, our commitment will remain toward diversifying our traffic sources so that our sellers can experience reliable & sustainable sales through many different channels. Delivering buyers a great experience has been at the forefront of our traffic gathering strategy. As our first-place finish on the Ecommercebytes 2012 "Best Usability" measure attests, many users believe we're succeeding at that goal.
At the end of the day, buyers remember a great product, so as long as you all can handle sourcing the merchandise, we'll continue to deliver a polished, enjoyable experience that makes buyers want to come back.
tl;dr
We're not too concerned about the impact of these changes on our sellers, and we'll continue to talk with Google about how to minimize the impact on our sellers. Stay tuned!
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55 responses to Google Product Search Becomes Google Shopping
Due to losing traffic because of recent Google changes in demanding non calculated shipping, I am losing sales big time. In a personal protest, I changed my browser home page from Google to Bing. Perhaps Bonanza could concentrate on making sure our booths are seen in Bing and possibly Yahoo, also.
Time to make lemonade out of lemons for sure. Keep posted as we will surely be exploring options for getting products visible to buyers.
I, for one, have never relied on GPS, but I have relied heavily on Google organic for traffic and sales. Even in that arena, Google has been disappointing me since the beginning of the 2011 holiday shopping season. When their “new and improved” algorithm wiped me off the map to make room for those who pay to play only to give back the search ranking I EARNED once the holiday season was over, I lost all faith in Google.
So, I’m glad to see that Bonz is on top of things and looking at alternatives to generate traffic. However, it’s times like these that I really wish my user ID was in my listing URLs so I could take it a step further to ensure a visible presence on the ’net for myself.
It has been since my user ID was removed that my traffic and sales took a nose dive just when things were starting to improve from all the hard work I’d done up to that point. I have never been able to recover from that despite my continued efforts — as my ONE sale at Bonz for the year thus far should attest to.
If we were able to submit our own products to other places, not to mention branding our businesses, then maybe many of us wouldn’t be having this problem. Not only that, but it would greatly increase Bonanza’s own presence on the ’net; thereby getting the word out about our beloved Ranch.
So, could you PLEASE reconsider that move? It’s not like the Bonanza name isn’t included in that URL, but we cannot brand our own businesses when our products are not visibly tied to our business names — and I mean prior to clicking. If it’s shorter URLs you want, then remove the “booths/” part and maybe even part of the item title (limiting it to so many characters) rather than removing the all-important seller ID.
Thanks!
We changed the URL structure because a shorter URL = more SEO friendly, more item keywords = more SEO friendly. Google, Bing and Yahoo all prefer URLs that don’t have unnecessary information in them (/booths/boothname/items) and
URLs that have item keywords (our old URL structure was a lot less smart about including all of the item title keywords). None of the major marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, or Amazon) do this, because it’s not beneficial to how people shop online.
Might this whole thing be a ‘blessing’ in disguise?
Maybe it’s time for Bonanza to join the ‘auction’ process for two reasons.
1. Greater member satisfaction.
2. Increased buyer interest.
Regardless of what the so-called industry experts might say, auctions are alive and doing well. Statements like, “I want to click on it, buy it, and be done” is not true for auction people.
They go to real auctions in all kinds of weather and sometimes stand around for hours waiting for an item or two that they are interested in.
They support online auctions, because they do not have to be present and they can bid from the comfort of home.
But like anything else, to be successful, an auction site needs to be known and maintain a good reputation.
Usually this is achieved by three things – Good selection of merchandise, Respectful sellers, and Advertising. The first two Bonanza already has, the third is long overdue.
A blessing in disguise for sure. Not sure if auctions are the answer on Bonanza but this is definitely an opportunity for us and our selling community to explore all options, including those that currently exist that may not be utilized to their full potential (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Craigslist, etc).
Thank you, Bill, for detailing the Bonanza /GPS history and your analysis. It’s much appreciated.
I heartily agree with Sheenys-Shack regarding auctions.
I, personally, can attest to auctions doing very well.
Auctions would bring people to Bonanza, by very nature of their existence. There’s nothing like the fun of “seeing what’s on”…unlike going to a site for an item you need.
You go to auctions not because you need something…but, because it’s fun to buy something unexpected.
Auctions built Ebay…and they can become a very successful arm for Bonanza.
There’s a great difference between Ebay, as a publicly held company, saying auctions were diminishing because they had a pressing need to keep profits up for Wall Street…
And, Bonanza being able to reap the $$ awaiting from a still huge, pent-up desire for auctions.
This is particularly so since pricing of goods has become almost identical on Ebay and Amazon as big store sellers simply sell their products. Very few bargains anymore…they’re all alike.
Therefore, there’s very little desire to go to them until you want to buy something specific.
That’s where Auctions can be a boon to Bonanza…because people would come to see what’s unique…which exactly fits in with Bonanza’s logo.
And, everyone loves to think it’s their day to outbid and snag a bargain or a great addition to a collection.
In addition, auctions would bring constant buying traffic to Bonanza…because auctions end in a WEEK.
This is one of the best features of Auctions…they have an immediate timetable…listings keep CIRCULATING TO THE TOP
(instead of sitting dormant in fixed price).
I believe this is the perfect time for Bonanza to become 2-pronged: Auctions and Fixed Price.
I absolutely agree auctions would be great and its about time they add that to this site.
Thanks for the post Bill, it gives me some ‘hope’. I also wonder how many of the Big Box Stores who currently do not pay, or pay a small fee, are going to be willing to “pay to play” Many or most rely heavily on paid newspaper, print, catalogs, and television advertising thus paying Google may not be in their budget or in their best interest. Plus with the state of the economy, I would bet most of their advertising budgets are already allocated for 2012.
As far as auctions, of course we have the ability to do them at any time, and we have a great platform via our chat windows to do them live and real time. It is the issue of advertising them, and getting ‘outside’ people to know that they are here.
In this world of instant gratification I understand the move at evilBay away from auctions, they are no longer desired by most people according to what I read. That was a trend that has run it’s course.
We need advertising now, not more silliness we don’t need Boyz and Girlz. The time has arrived. There should be a way to pay for it if everyone puts on their “thinking caps” and puts some effort into it.
Yes, but the “live” auctions we do are seen only by people who are here and who happen upon the chats and find out that they even exist. We need a far broader audience that those people who are members who faithfully follow the chats.
Assuming that is, of course, if our intent is to bring outsiders to the site.
Lots of information, thanks, but what’s the bottom line? Will our listings still be submitted each day and show in Google organic?
Google organic works a little differently than Google Shopping. With Google Organic, Google will proactively “crawl” websites, searching for relevant content to provide users who search Google. In fact, shhhhh, I bet Google is crawling Bonanza right now as I type! All kidding aside, with Google Organic, you need to make sure that your listings are formatted in a way that Google likes, that is pretty much it. The trick is figuring out the secret recipe that Google uses to pick content. Google does publish guidelines and best practices. Here is a link that may assist: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
Is Bonanza eligible to apply for the Google Trusted Store Badge? I think this would possibly help with our placement, even if we do not pay.
http://www.google.com/trustedstores/become-a-trusted-store.html
I also think it would be helpful if every merchant accepted Google Check out as well.
Goggle is the largest product search engine in the world and the people who use it to shop are NOT reading the articles about the changes nor will they be aware of it. They will continue to look for products there, and IMHO we need to do all that we can to stay relevant, especially with the Holiday shopping season approaching.
Not too sure what the requirements are for marketplaces but for individual stores they are pretty straightforward. http://support.google.com/trustedstoresmerchant/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2618967
Not too sure on this one but if doing so is reasonable for Bonanza and benefits our community and makes sense to do, then I am sure we will do all we can to do so.
1. the find: do you submit our items or do we do it ourselves. I’m not finding anything from Bonanza so far
2. bing: how often do they take our feed?
1) We did stop feeding to thefind some time ago. Not sure why, I am pretty sure that the time investment vs. the payoff was not in our favor.
2) We feed to Bing daily.
What other traffic sources beside Bing & The Find will you be focused on?
Can Bonanza feed to or do they already feed to these?
Yakaz.com http://us.yakaz.com/about/submitFeeds.php
oodle http://www.oodle.com/info/feed/
Shopwiki http://www.shopwiki.com/wiki/Listed%20Store
We have submitted to Oodle, TheFind, and Shopwiki in the past. The traffic we got from them previously was not enough to justify the time investment (just a few hundred total visits per day), but if this move proceeds as currently planned, we will certainly be re-evaluating that. We still submit listings to Bing Shopping daily.
I must say that I did quite well with auctions at ebay, but that was some time ago and things may have changed.
Thanks for the Excellent explanation Bill.
I also would like to have our booths user ID in our listing urls. We could than get ourselves seen once again. Why was this changed?
There are many search engines out there that Bonanza could submit feeds to…Not just google, why not utilize them all for the well being of the whole here at Bonanza.
Will Bonanza pay to have our booths show up in the feed or not?
Curious minds would like to know!
We changed the URL structure because a shorter URL = more SEO friendly, more item keywords = more SEO friendly. Google, Bing and Yahoo all prefer URLs that don’t have unnecessary information in them (/booths/boothname/items) and
URLs that have item keywords (our old URL structure was a lot less smart about including all of the item title keywords). None of the major marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, or Amazon) do this, because it’s not beneficial to how people shop online.
darn..never knew you quit feeding to Oodle!
I’m hoping you Boyz will think outside of the box and find something new and exciting for Bonanza, as I think Google is an old dog with too many tricks.
Yes, the auctions on Bonanza via Chat boxes are good, but again we need some new ideas to promote them better. Maybe a calendar/list location just for auctions like we have for public coupons that is someplace where it can easily be found and promoted. I would love to be able to find our auctions without having to roll through all the Promos. Maybe let the sellers list auctions in a controlled manner just like published coupons, only more often.
Thank you so much for the detailed information on Google – Bonanza history. I have personally been getting very [needlessly] discouraged reading the forums lately, even though my sales continue to steadily increase.
I appreciate how some people feel about auctions, but there are innumerable auction sites all over the internet these days…plenty of places for those who love auctions to participate in them.
There is only one Bonanza. My only hope is that “everything but the ordinary” is not lost in the focus on high-end fashion.
MY Texas Treasures – Just a quick comment re your above post. We cannot all use Google Checkout. They don’t let sellers outside the US and UK register to accept it. :( We are, however, allowed to PAY with it.
Great post – thanks Bill! Thanks for bringing into seller-friendly language.
Google is quite the fickle lover, and I speak from the viewpoint of a Bonanza seller who has played the GPS game from get-go, as well as the owner of 2 Logitech Google TV units AND Google Nexus One smart phone. Both of these technology products are terrific AND have been abandoned by Google. I would describe this GPS news as “typical.”
But…I’m making Lemonade: I for one am happy to be free of the exasperating task of endlessly tweaking listings to the satisfaction of GPS’ latest requirements. And I think while it certainly hurts all of us small merchants, we are at least going to be on a level playing field, no matter what marketplace or website we sell from. If potential buyers search for baseball cards, Marsha Brady shoes (side note: nice HPL, “Cooler”), matchbook covers, etc, on Google, they’ll see only organic results (at least, for now!). And if they want shopping results that Google won’t provide, they’ll look elsewhere.
[[GoogleFeedings:tiresome]]
I have read all this about 6 times today and see something that makes the “lightbulb light” each time. We have our Bonanza booth and our own website. We currently generate more business on our website than Bonanza (although picking up!) and we do not and never have done a Google Product Feed. Just too much to do with little help from them- it’s just the 2 of us working at it. We have been willing to forego the possible increase in sales by submitting a feed. Did a sample one just to see if it was formatted right and of course it was not. I’d much rather spend my time fine tuning our booth and listings here as the growth is really starting to happen. May was our highest sales month with you yet and we are happy. I’m still a little unclear though on what your submissions are on our behalf- do they get fed to Google Product Search or Google Organic or both? And if Google goes ahead with their greed motivated changes will we lose our benefit of Bonanza submitting for us every day? Just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water……
Thanks for info. Will have to reread! I also wish our ID’s were in our listing urls.
Auctions might work as an addition here to Buy it Now if it was a site-wide choice. I don’t like all the little individual auctions and sales – it’s confusing to buyers!
I don’t know how many actual sellers there are on Bonanza but why wouldn’t every seller agree to pay a small advertising fee each month to Bonanza so that Bonanza could advertise the whole site on TV or on the internet or in a magazine. (I’m not talking about paying Google for this latest scheme. Google is complicating its own site and it was already hard to understand!)
We changed the URL structure because a shorter URL = more SEO friendly, more item keywords = more SEO friendly. Google, Bing and Yahoo all prefer URLs that don’t have unnecessary information in them (/booths/boothname/items) and
URLs that have item keywords (our old URL structure was a lot less smart about including all of the item title keywords). None of the major marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, or Amazon) do this, because it’s not beneficial to how people shop online.
Let’s please work together on some type of advertising. As Johnger said, put our thinking caps on. Maybe Bonanza could do a survey on this and we could all anonymously give our opinion in private?
It sure feels like the atmosphere of online selling/shopping is shifting and let’s be ready to roll with that shift.
I appreciate the numbers that were given in this blog. WOW at the 15% traffic from GPS last month. That is quite a drop.
About the auctions, people still like auctions. Not everything does good in auctions though meaning that some things just will not get bought up, may take 2 or 3 times for those auctions to sell and some of those will only sell for .99 cents while other auctions will bring in a nice price. If auctions were to start here, that would be something to advertise and bring on some curious people to Bonanza.
The thing that worries me with auctions is that our stuff does not rotate, so would the Buy it Nows and Best Offers get lost in the shuffle and for the items that only sell for .99 cents ultimately cause the Buy it Nows or Best Offers to “appear” to have a drop in value and reflect poorly (I’m just being honest with how I feel and I have done auctions in the past).
I’d rather see the site get optimized before anything new is brought in and see some advertising of the site sooner than later. Since we’re wanting shoppers to eventually go to Bonanza as a destination I really think the search here could be better. I’m referring to the last big change that was made on search but even the finer details could be better, too.
I’d like for our IDs to be in our listing URLs also
Heavenly aka TipTop
We changed the URL structure because a shorter URL = more SEO friendly, more item keywords = more SEO friendly. Google, Bing and Yahoo all prefer URLs that don’t have unnecessary information in them (/booths/boothname/items) and
URLs that have item keywords (our old URL structure was a lot less smart about including all of the item title keywords). None of the major marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, or Amazon) do this, because it’s not beneficial to how people shop online.
A few days ago I checked for my booth in Bing shopping. I could not put my booth name in there (with or without quotations on either side of my name) and have my listings populate. None of my items came up.
I put my TipTop booth name in there and my items for Ruby Plaza came up but not my TipTop booth for here. So, what I had to do was individually put keywords for some of my listings here on Bonanza in Bing’s search box. For this booth about 3 out of 11 listings only came up and those listings are all set to New.
I’m wondering if lots of us have listings that are not showing up in Bing shopping? It sure is hard to tell what is showing up in there of mine since I cannot put my booth name in their search box and get a list to come up. I wish we had a way to tell what New items we have that are making their way into Bing shopping?
Thank you.
With every challenge comes opportunity, and Google’s “pay to play” initiative may be just the incentive for someone else to take on the task of a true product and pricing database with no entry fee. Bing, perhaps, will rise to the occasion; or perhaps Facebook will see this as a way to redeem themselves among their unhappy investors.
Better yet, suppose the marketplaces formed a unified database, to include everyone except eBay. Etsy, eCrater, eBid, Ruby Lane, Bonz, maybe even Amazon, and all the others, feeding data to one central “catalog.” In this scenario, national advertising could indeed be possible at reasonable cost, given the combined resources of the sustaining members.
HEADLINE: “UNITED MARKET PLACES ANNOUNCES PRODUCT DATABASE”
The story: The Internet’s leading market places for on-line selling and buying announced today the creation of an on line database of products and services from all their individual members. The continuously updated catalog draws on products from thousands of vendors who offer millions of products from dozens of market places such as Etsy, Ruby Lane, eCrater, Bonanza and others. The consortium of market places combined their programming talents and design skills to produce a single information source with a consistent format and essential information about the product and services offered. Each listing includes a link to the specific market place, vendor and product for additional information and the option to purchase. Co-founder Bill Harding said the database fills the void created when Internet giant Google stared charging a fee for merchant listings in its widely touted shopping search, and many sellers “dropped off the radar.”
The URL for United Market Places is www.umpcat.com. The site sports a feline umpire dressed in black and white stripes to suggest both the impartial nature of the listings, and cat-like swiftness and precision in pouncing on relevant citations in response to user searches. In addition, the vast listing of categories allows a user to narrow down searches to relevant items quickly.
. . .Just a thought.
How about increasing the email marketing efforts? On Etsy, their FINDS is my 5th largest traffic source, and also has my lowest bounce rate.
Etsy sends out FINDS, daily, and also periodically includes “guest curators” , too.
I think Bonz should start a group who will pay extra to have an ad on google for Ant/Vint. (or other cats.) and chg a bit more for membership to upload to Google. Yes it is time to think outside the box before the Fall and before the box collapses
“Once the transition is completed this fall, individual merchants and online marketplaces such as eBay and Bonanza will no longer be able to send product feeds to Google and expect them to show up in search results. Instead, they will have to use Google Product Listing Ads, a paid-advertising program.”
This is today’s lead statement on E-Commerce Bytes editorial page. That pretty much takes the guesswork out of it. Working on our own solutions for our website and anxious to see what the Bonz and we sellers come up with.
It’s the Google two-step….
things are STILL bad, mostly here on bonz. I only sold 2 items in may on bonz, my average per month is between 6-9 or so. still small potatoes, but it’s something. I am selling more on yardsellr than i am on bonz., for ex: i just sold an tote bag on ys for 20.00, i had it listed here on bonz for 10.00 & 5 shipping with no sales same for another item i had listed for less on bonz and it sold for more on the other site!…Something is wrong someplace, that’s for sure., Bonz in my opinion really needs to step up and stop relying on sellers for the advertising only and help out a bit.
Bill would it be possible for Bonanza to give us a way to look at our items on Bing? Like you have for Google? A link to all the feeds would be nice to have.
We have no plans to add a Bing page on Bonanza (short term) but we reserve the right to change our minds in the future
99% of my growing sales come from outside of Bonanza from 1st time users. I surely hope Google wasn’t the source of them all. I pay handsomely for twitter promotions and maintain an advertising budget for my booth. Now I hope my sales have been coming from promos. If I have to redirect my advertising budget to someplace else, let me know.
I know what I am about to ask for is a little off topic, but yet it sort of is not because for those of us on Google+ this will ultimately help our own booths plus those we visit and we are talking Google.
Could we please have a button to click so that we can add something to Google+ directly from Bonanza (ultimately this has the potential for better ranking of those items we give a plus 1 on). Pinterest was added but Google+ still has not been. I thought for sure when Pinterest was added that Google+ was right around the corner.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH
Question for Bill or Mark………
On this thread alone, there’s been about half a dozen comments/questions about having our booth name returned to our URL.
Outside of this blog, on numerous threads on almost a daily basis, the same booth name/URL questions and comments are brought up.
From what I’ve read in some of those comments, with our names in the URL it would give us the ability to feed to other search engines. Maybe that would pick up some of the lost views that this google mess may cause.
Can one of you please put this to rest by explaining why the change was made over a year ago (or longer) and why our booth names can not be included.
I’m in that group that believes that the views started going down when that happened.
Why can’t we have them back?
What was the reasons they were dropped?
Why can’t we get a reply on this subject?
Thanks
We changed the URL structure because a shorter URL = more SEO friendly, more item keywords = more SEO friendly. Google, Bing and Yahoo all prefer URLs that don’t have unnecessary information in them (/booths/boothname/items) and
URLs that have item keywords (our old URL structure was a lot less smart about including all of the item title keywords). None of the major marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, or Amazon) do this, because it’s not beneficial to how people shop online.
Thank you, Keno. I’d really like answers to those questions, too, because it has been since the change that my Bonz booth has failed to gain any success. As a matter of fact, even the little success I was just starting to have at that point pretty much dropped to nil.
I’ve only made one sale at Bonz this year despite my efforts and that would make this by far the worst year since being at Bonz. So I would like to have control back of where my products are being submitted so maybe at least I can gain exposure for them and my business myself since Bonz doesn’t advertise.
It’s not about being dramatic or a pain in anyone’s tushy. This is my business and my business cannot grow if I cannot get my own products out there to be seen in a multitude of search engines. I think this past year proves that. I shouldn’t have to submit them one by one. I should be able to submit my entire store. It would be different if Bonz actually advertised on a grander scale, but Bonz does not.
I’m a disabled person who’s been trying to regain her life after an accident I shouldn’t have survived. So this isn’t just some hobby to me — this IS my life and I’d appreciate it if I could have control of my own business back so I can have at least some hope of having my life back. Thanks
We changed the URL structure because a shorter URL = more SEO friendly, more item keywords = more SEO friendly. Google, Bing and Yahoo all prefer URLs that don’t have unnecessary information in them (/booths/boothname/items) and
URLs that have item keywords (our old URL structure was a lot less smart about including all of the item title keywords). None of the major marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, or Amazon) do this, because it’s not beneficial to how people shop online.
Even though all my antique/Vintage and used items are appearing on Bing. I have never had a sale from there.
I think I may be seeing a ray of light from the darkside.
I am looking into paying more elsewhere (AMZ,RL,EB) because to pay a little more and have sales is better for me than not paying much and never selling products that are not seen at all. Lots to think about. I love it here and did well with the old way of Google. But come June it will no longer be that way. If the Boyz can’t come up with a creative solution within 4 more weeks I will be forced to make a decision. Thus I will be ready for the Fall selling season.
Had we been advertising the name of this site so it was receiving people utilizing it as a search engine for products; we wouldn’t be in this mess. I just can not afford to sit, hope, wait and wish much longer. This last month has been a sinker already. No being dramatic, depressing or a downer—-just stating the facts of reality here.
I am fairly new on Bonanza, but after reading some of these comments, I find that a lot of the “old pros” are thinking like I do. I joined Bonanza in March, and right away had one sale. Since then I have had none. I did very well on Ebay, but because of their increased fee requirements, sought out an alternative, thus Bonanza. When I average it all out, Ebay serves me better, even with the fees. Perhaps an Auction format would be better for Bonanza.
Just tried a test on Bing – took 24 of my older items so they would show up and did searches. The best I did was page 5, after eBay, Amazon, the find, shop wiki etc. Most only showed when I entered the exact title with quotes. I have no idea where to turn, but Bonanza is so far down on Bing’s radar it might as well not exist. BTW – I saw no other Bonanza sellers at all.
Yes, I would gladly pay a small to moderate advertising fee, a la Ruby Lane, to get some exposure in places like project wonderful. Also, a way to have favorite links that we could share with other sites would boost overall search ranks
1st Month has come and gone with 0 sales. I like the ease of use Bonanza provides and price structuring. In the end though sales rule the day and to have sales you must have good targeted traffic that will make our efforts worth while.
The leaders and followers of B will need to focus lots more energy on traffic building,however or whatever traffic/conversion to sales should be the #1 focus, otherwise the B will soon enough become a distant memory for us.
The following seems to have been overlooked, not yet being answered:
Could we please have a button to click so that we can add something to Google+ directly from Bonanza (ultimately this has the potential for better ranking of those items we give a plus 1 on). Pinterest was added but Google+ still has not been. I thought for sure when Pinterest was added that Google+ was right around the corner.
Thanks SS. This is actually something that is on our list to do. Things that are on our low priority list need to be revisited given the recent changes with Google search (Bill also mentions this above). I have also added your blog comments to the task we have on this. Thank you.
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