Basically, you are buying the clothes, selling them and keeping the actual amount you get for the items for yourselves. Did I get that right?

So if there is a profit over the top of what the original seller was paid, it isn’t split between Bonanza and the original seller – it is all Bonanza’s money.

In other words, if you appraise a lot of clothing for $300 and the seller accepts and you go on to sell the stuff for $500, you netted an easy $200.

Who is doing the appraising, what is their expertise/experience and how does the original seller know for sure if the Bonanaza offer is a true benefit to them? In other words, how does the original seller know that they won’t be taken advantage of, if they aren’t fully aware of the value of their items?

I just NOW saw this on the Front Page! Wow, that’s a really NEW concept, for sure!
I’d have to give this some good thoughts in regards to Bonanza looking forward to hearing our ideas, so for all I’ll say, is what I really usually say and I Truly Do mean…that I Hope the VERY Best for ALL concerned in this New Feature, in other words BOTH for the People Who’ll be Selling their Fashions to Bonanza’s Fashion Exchange and to Bonanza Who Will Create Listings to Sell what Bonz Acquires for this New Feature, too!

I’m also looking forward to the inputs…I noticed people have LOTS of ideas, and are always willing to share, that’s ONE thing I Love about Bonanza, The Sharing!

So, what I think you’re saying is that someone at Bonanza used to work at the Buffalo Exchange?

Well, consignment-by-mail seems like a nightmare to me. Offers rarely meet a seller’s expectations and now you’re raising the stakes by only reimbursing shipping costs if the offer is accepted (if I’m reading that right).

I’m glad you guys are the ones doing this experiment and not me.

Who are the appraisers?

sounds like second hand sonsignment shop to me. I would rather GIVE my used clothing to charity!

Well I guess I now have a better understanding of the purpose of the all fashion home page.

“…and will be given no special designation anywhere in our system.” The fact that nothing but fashion is featured on the home page is all the “special” accommodation you need, I think.

When do you officially retire the “Everything but the ordinary” slogan?

Better said than I could have CollectibleConer!

Why doesn’t Bonz go into the Antique or Collectible or Jewelry or Pottery & Glass business? I have tons I could sell you?

Unless you’re doing strictly designer clothing, I think the shipping cost will eat your profits.

This is wild—will we know what your selling ID is so we can watch your booth? I’d like to see this work..I just dropped a couple pieces of clothing into my booth to see if anything would happen with it. You didn’t choose the brands I would of..but this will be interesting.

“The estimates listed above are about half of what we think we’ll be able to sell your clothes for, depending on style and condition. They are not guarantees. We’re pretty good at estimating how much we can sell these for, however, so we wanted to give you an idea of what you might get.”

I quoted this from the link from when clicking on Sell Your Fashion from within the blog.

I think you all are right in that you’ll get a good impression on what it is truly like to sell on here….to try and sell for some kind of profit, not just as a hobby.

Offering about half of what you will sell the clothes for on lower priced fashion will be a hard way to go. By the time you pay half, pay the fees (Paypal and Bonanza), packing material, time spent checking over the item and listing it, packaging it, communicating with the customer (s) along the way and after the sale, the profits will be about tied into all of that to be honest. I can see on higher end items it being more worth it but paying half or about still is a risk, which many of us take on here.

This is not to mention the time that goes into advertising the listings.

I do hope that you all are able to get the stuff and sell it. I’m sure some of it you will. But there is this part of me that hopes Bonanza MGMT will feel as some of us sellers do….that we need more exposure even after we’ve done what we can do to get our listings out there. It can be very frustrating. We need help in getting the bigger name out there.

This idea is definitely unexpected. I’m just wondering what direction this will take Bonanza in, like what are some of your ideas?

Now if you bring the crowds here for high end fashion somehow, please help to focus the site on other types of products, too, like collectibles and books, etc, so that while those shoppers are here looking at that sort of stuff (fashion) that they will also be lead to temptation on all the other good stuff we have here on Bonanza. Help to keep things even please.

Thanks for letting me share some of my thoughts.

Great idea, as a concept for just advertising this campaign, the traffic alone will increase and hopefully bring more sales for the bonanza sellers, plus not counting the additional new members, this will bring in the possible buyers that was overlooking bonanza altogether. Nice concept, hope this plan works out.

Hi,
Just sent off an email with questions. Sounds great to me! I LOVE to find bargains in Fashion and I HATE to take the pictures and write the descriptions!

I really do not see the point in all this except for those who do sell fashion online to have more competition, Now as I see it fashion hpl will be as they are showing on the front page, needless to say I think this is the strangest thing yall have ever done, lol sorry I am not trying to be ugly I just dont see the reason behind this unless you all are wanting to start your own thrift store…I just don’t get it..I would think it would be easier if you went to auctions or buy things in your area to resell online, seems to be a big step or risk you are taking just to “walk in our shoes” jmho

I like the idea of Bonanza finding out what it’s really like to be a seller. I also like the idea of them passing along what they learn. This may just be a short-term experiment for all we know. Let’s not over react. But then again, I don’t sell fashion (except for a few items), so I can understand some of the comments above.

@princessGifts7 “Won’t this be a conflict of interest?”
@whynotnow “MORE competition for those who are here who sell clothing?”
@lovelylittlethings “all the sellers, regardless of product line, already face stiff competition. This will just add more”

We really don’t want that to happen; the only reason we can try this out is because we have a solid core of very successful sellers already making Bonanza awesome. With any change we make, we’ll keep an eye on how this impacts the rest of the selling community — we hope a rising tide will lift all boats, especially if we can get more people using Bonanza Gift Cards and more traffic to the site in general.

Bonanza Gift Cards? Are these still really Pay Pal gift cards branded as Bonanza? I hope not, as when we had those, only those booths who accepted Paypal could accept the Pay Pal Bonanza branded gift cards. There were a LOT of mad gift card recipients who could not spend their cards, as the item they wanted was available only with Google Check Out and or Amazon. And they could not use them.
Please clarify. thanks

Please answer this question:
Most of the folks running Bonz (Mark, Bill, Tom, and most others) have now and have had for quite some time their own booths with items they sell. So if they have not figured out what it is like to be in the shoes of all of us other sellers by that after all of this time, what is so different about the approach you are now talking about?? Just does not make sense to me and many, many others :/

I’ve been thinking about this all night and have decided for me personally, Go for it Boyz. I can’t find a downside to it. It’s their risk and hopefully our reward. If it drives new people to the site, I’m not complaining. If they have a Bonanza gift card in their hand that they want to spend here, again I’m not complaining. Certainly whatever advertising the Boyz do for this project has to be of benefit to us sellers. I sell collectibles and books and am not really affected as direct competition, but let’s face it, every time someone opens a new booth no matter who they are, its competition and we welcome them with open arms. So why is this different? Hopefully only positive will come from this. And if you are a shoe and boot seller, hats, coats, gloves, scarves, or any other accessory (especially jewelry) that goes with these clothes that they are going to sell, then I think it will be a huge benefit. And I’ll just hope that they are looking for a gift for Mom or Dad or Grandparents that they can find at my booth.

I only see a win win situation…for the boyz.

How embarrassing this is all going to turn out. Remember Bags Bonanza?! What a joke, maybe this really is a left over joke from April Fools?

I have NEVER been able to sell a piece of second hand clothing at either a yard sale or on line, NEVER.

interesting……

This seems to be a good marketing idea. As a seller of vintage clothing and jewelry, I can’t say that I am thrilled about having to be in direct competion with you for sales.
Also, making a cattle call out to buy up the merchandise from across the country is taking that much more away from what we sellers go out and work to find all year long at rummage, estate, and tag sales for our stock. (if you really want to see what it’s like for us sellers, start by doing this)
This could very well prove to attract the attention we need for all of Bonanza sellers, and vintage in particular. But, wouldn’t it also be a possibility to purchase advertising to let the public know that the vintage sellers here on Bonanza would like to see their merchandise and offer them a fair price if they are willing to sell? That could work on 2 fronts, bringing in the customer’s with merchandise to sell (and then spend), and attracting new sellers who are interested in selling on a site where they can also pick up new bargains.
Selling pre owned clothing is a time consuming process, that includes laundering, ironing, mending and measuring before you can even think about pictures and listing. Even though you will be able to pick and choose, some of that work will still be there in many cases. I hope additional staff will be hired to take care of these things before you go live.
My main concern is that the people devoted to the maintenance and improvement of the overall site will have to get involved with these tedious tasks. NMB

@ryan, so yes in answer to my question, the ‘gift card’ is in fact not a Bonanza Gift Card, rather a Paypal Branded card, which are sold through paypal to anyone who chooses to purchase?
1.Do you plan to make it clear to either buyers of gift cards or those who sell clothes, that the gift cards can only be used ONLY in booths who accept paypal and not site wide?
Sorry to be repetitive, but I had a buyer several months ago who had received a Bonanza gift card, wanted to purchase an item in my booth and could not. She was not happy, and wanted a refund of the gift card and was not able to do so.

Thanks, all! We’ve identified some good places to clarify what this is all about, thanks to your comments. We’ll keep watching this experiment and be sure to keep everyone up to date on how it works out.

We’re closing comments on the blog post; please keep the discussions going in the forums!