What's New on Bonanza?

Thank you to Bonanza for listening to the concerns of sellers. I really appreciate it.
I love the zoom feature in the photos by the way.
Question: I have had in the past buyers ask me not to ship for a week to up to 10 days as they would not be in town to receive their items. In cases like that, do we forward the request to support so shipping can be corrected? Or should we just tell them we cannot do that and make them mad. lol

I find this process similar to the feedback system, in that, there are times when things can and will go wrong, and at which time, the automated system may unfairly penalize the seller without knowing the full circumstances. I understand the need to improve buyer trust, but truth be told, there are so many other things that can hurt the transaction that need improvements, and/or adjustments so that glitches don’t occur. As with all the features here, some are great, and others not so much, because I don’t think they are being instituted by those who have real selling experience. Even PayPal and Google Wallet advise against shipping before 48 hours has passed to prevent fraud issues… But most sellers will feel compelled to comply just so they can get a sale to begin with. I really hope this doesn’t turn out to be a detrimental feature that will end up hurting our ability to sell. It’s already hard enough. No offense, but I’m just not optimistic, though I will try to be and give it a chance. I am sitting on one order right now that I can’t ship until I hear back from the buyer.

Thanks for re-setting.

What happens for sellers that do custom handmade work when it comes to marking an item as shipped when it takes them a fair enough amount of time to make the product?

There appears to be a potential problem with a published metric. What you are measuring is NOT when the item ships, but rather the date and time that shipping information is sent to the buyer. I often do pack up the item and apply the shipping label immediately. But, if I do so on a Friday, I may not be able to actual physically ship the item until Monday, or Tuesday, if a 3 day Federal holiday. On the other hand, if a customer tells me to hold an order, so they can add more to it over the next day or two, the apparent gap between offer sold and shipping info. entered will give a false impression. Some sellers who do custom work will need a few days to prepare their orders, and the metric will not account for this; once again suggesting, inaccurately, that the seller is slow when the exact opposite is the case. Finally, we have the potential for abuse – sellers who send the shipping info right away, but don’t send the item until much later, or, maybe, not all. They’ll show well, until they are caught, but it gives a false impression.

What might make more sense, and be more accurate, is to measure the buyer feedback for shipping meeting expectations. After all, what is most important is not the reported (and inaccurate) raw speed, but rather that buyer expectations have been met. This feedback data, like the presumed shipping date, is readily available. Perhaps the most credible data is buyer feedback. Simply summarize the feedback rating criteria in the metrics panel, using the star system. Not just for shipping, but for everything.

Hope that helps.

I don’t know if I should address this here, but it does tie in with the new feature. The Batch Editor/ Booth edit page is not working correctly. Several times I have tried to adjust my shipping time that shows up in each listing, half of them showed the change, the others still show the original set up. Can you guys please look into why this isn’t updating to all listings and recognizing changes we make in that feature? This has to do with the part where it says Seller ships in_____ Business Days. Thank you~

Unfortunately, I have had customers email me confused to why they received shipping notices from Bonanza AND Google or Amazon. Therefore, I only send shipping notices through Google Checkout AND Checkout by Amazon and have not had any confused customers. I hope that I will not be penalized for this. I always add the tracking number but do not check the Send to customer unless the customer paid through PayPal.

I enter the shipping info too, but seldom send the buyer a shipping message. I send that in a separate bmail/email, thanking them for their business, etc.

One problem with weekends / hols is, although most of you are in the US, we have some different hols in Canada (and any other country). We have no weekend Post Office or delivery, so cannot ship on Sat/Sun. We can drop the parcel off at an outlet, but it sits til Monday – that would also require a special trip to drop it off.

Time Zones and international are going to interfere, for sure – look at JustSparkles, she’s in Greece.

Adjustments for purchases made on the weekends need to be made.

Purchases made late on Friday that cannot be mailed until Monday will be considered medium or gradual, depending on how early the shipping information is recorded on Monday.

Here is one problem that I see with the new shipping rating system. I am currently away from my shop. (I can still log in most days, but not as often as I normally do.) I choose to not put my booth on Vacation Mode, but allow my customers to still buy from me today with the understanding that I will ship their orders when I return. I have this special notice placed at the top of each of my listings, in the shipping info on each listing, in a banner on my booth home page, on my profile and in my store policies. I have done the same in past years and never had a problem with my customers. It works fine for me and my customers.

However, now if I have a sale while I am gone and ship it when I return within the time frame that I have already specified and the customer is aware of when they purchase an item, I am going to face a seriously poor shipping rating. This is despite the fact that my customers are aware of the delay in shipping and are agreeable with it. It has the ability to negatively reflect my customer service which can negatively affect future sales, especially if it is a new potential buyer who is not yet familiar with my customary good service.

I know I am not the only seller who follows this approach rather than taking their store completely off line while away. Is this really part of the intent of this new policy?

Good morning I too am concerned about weekend and statutory holiday delays. Our outgoing mail leaves at 2 p.m. so if someone makes a purchase at 1:45 it has to wait until Monday which makes me look like a deadbeat. To have to contact support for every weekend or Canadian Holiday shipping delay in order for you to reset the metrics would be extremely frustrating.

This whole system is conducive to sellers reporting the item as being shipped before it actually is just to protect themselves.

In response to Bookbins concern about email response time – I’m wondering if you could differentiate in the headings of the bmails to clarify which bmails are “ASQ” and which are “Send Seller a Message” so that the recipient knows which one needs to be answered and which one is ok to let sit.

thanks

p.s. love the zoom feature

Oh, and, I, too, have had trouble with these two lately:

1. The Batch Editor, same as mentioned above, and,
2. The Ask Seller a Question. No matter which link I click on to ask seller a question, the message goes to the member that “A buyer has a question.” It’s not isolated to an item page. I asked a member a question last night, from her booth page link, and when she replied, I could see from my original message, “A buyer has a question.”

This seller replied instantly, but, it was late, she was tired and was going to bed after her reply; and, I felt badly that my question might have caused her a “quick” instead of a “zippy” rating if she had waited until the next day.

Where is the “relentless simplicity?”

Meow!

Hey Mark – thanks for responding to everyone’s concerns

While in the sellers “item detail page” there are 2 bmail options.

a) Ask seller a question: this is the ‘timed’ one… correct?

and

b) Send Seller a Message: This one is NOT timed right?

but both a] and b] appear with the same heading in the sellers bmail messages…. so they don’t know which one is urgent and which one they can ignore.

I ask this because I send my Twitter Promo clients a bmail letting them know what I’ve said about their item so they can be informed if they don’t have a twitter account and don’t catch the tweet in their ‘Recent Activity’ on their My Bonanza page [if 3 other people tweet after me then it’s lost]. These messages I send really don’t need an answer and I would hate for them to panic every time I send a bmail [btw I ALWAYS use the “send seller a message” option and NOT the “ask seller a question”] – so to make the bmail heading say “Someone Is Asking You a Question about…” and/or “A Message About Your Item…” would be a big help

Hope I made it clear what I’m trying to say

I love that there is going to be a, “What’s New” Feature and hopefully it will be updated, before changes are made so everyone has a chance to look it over…Before crazy drama takes over clear thinking.

Thanks Mark!

I NOW realise that OBO’s are inclusive, and because I DO communicate with customers to make sure thet “WE” ar on the same page.

I feel that it is less than 100% professional to have to doublecheck with a customer to make sure that “WE” are both working with the same set of numbers.

“I” don’t see what “they” see when making the offer, and “they” aren’t seeing what “I” see when considering the viability of the offer. It’s business. “WE” SHOULD be seeing the same thing.

I would still like to see the numbers breakdown on MY end, … for clarity and ease of use.

Hmmm…. There is much to debate here and consider, as I have been reading through the other comments made thus far. Blarney Stone has brought up a good point, and I know that when we print shipping labels on PayPal for items sold on eBay that the tracking information is automatically posted to our sale on eBay. Why, then, can’t we get it to post automatically here when we print our shipping labels? The more times we have to double do something, the less time we have to do the next thing that needs to be done.

Ok, I don’t like this… case in point… I’m shopping and go to an item… shows under shipping “ships in 1 business day”… then I see to the right…GRADUAL, may take a week to ship. So I’m thinking as a buyer, which is it? Is the seller fibbing about his shipping time since Bonz says they may take a week?? So as a buyer, I LEAVE……….. and go elsewhere where shipping times are stated once and not contradictory.

I grow and sell live plants. It’s not always feasible to ship the next day. I take the time to look up a customers weather via their zip codes. If it’s safe to ship, I will. If not, I contact the customer and tell them when it would be safe. If someone purchases a plant on a Wednesday night, Thursday or Friday, I won’t ship that plant out to them unless they live relatively close to me. I don’t want plants sitting in a P.O. over the weekend.

I decided to sell on Bonanza several years ago because Ebay and Amazon were trying to run my business. I want a place where I can run my business. Maybe Bonanza will rethink this for those of us who sell live items.