Seller survey highlights

Thanks Alex. On behalf of MANY of us…is there any way possible to get the FedEx calculator to work for large and heavy items? We are desperate and this is really hurting our sales. Please feel free to contact me. Mary

Thank you, Alex. Appreciate it! Also, a very simple thing to get more buyers to see our whole booths would be to change the teeny tiny little letters on the right side of an item that says, “Other Items” to BIG LETTERS-SEE OTHER ITEMS
Please, this would be so simple and pure and would be loved much by both sellers And buyers. :-)

More buyers… yeah! Thank you for asking us to do the survey!

Thank you, Alex. I love the idea of making OBO being optimized and everything that you mentioned.

I would truly like to see the shipping calculator worked on for all across the board. From being able to set up a shipping service for the USA while at the same time setting up for a different shipping service for international. Ex: Setting up media calculated shipping for the United States and calculated shipping first class mail for international.

Plus, to be able to calculate correctly for all different types of shipping services that are available. Missing is the parcel post calculated shipping and calculated media mail. We have to put in a fixed price right now for those or no shipping price at all and ask that the customer email us for a shipping price. I am sure others are aware of other missing calculated shipping options.

In order to be completely competitive we need shipping all across the board. Buyers do not like to wait on how much shipping will be. They are deterred if they see a high price of shipping for their area and are smart about that. They know how much shipping should costs, usually.

Thanks so much for joining Bonanzle!!

Thanks Alex. Looking forward to new things.
Makes me want to list more. So I better get busy.

Thanks for the update on the surveys Alex. I think I speak for all of us when I say how much we appreciate the fact that management takes the time to listen to our suggestions and acts on them to improve the usability of the venue. In time, I am confident all the details and developments will come together to make one mean green shopping machine.

We thank you for all you are doing to help us reach our goals.

Thanks Alex. Looking forward to all the great improvemts you all are working on. And, thanks for listening to us!

Bill, there are two things that I would really like to see that I don’t know that the survey addressed. Thanks for taking a moment to peruse:

1) A Bonanzle in-house team that can troubleshoot to see what is hanging up our booths from sales. You say in your review that most reported lots of sales. That isn’t true of us. But, we don’t want other sellers critiquing us. We would like some good, solid Bonanzle technical advice on what’s going awry. Connected with that, a forum that is tacked to the top of all forums for technical issues. It takes so long to FIND forums, and then to READ through the scores of pages to find something. I’d love to see technical advice come from Bonanzle technical advisers. Right now, we’re only GUESSING that the information given by well meaning sellers is the right information. Personally, I have lost a lot of hours trying stuff that had absolutely no effect on our sales.

2) I’d love to be able to see successful sellers and what they are doing to achieve success in sales here. With e-Ville, you can use TeraPeak or other resources to see who is selling what and how much. Perhaps give us a means of easily finding these folks and trying to implement some of their best practices into our own. Not to copy cat. Just to compare our own practices to theirs and to see where we fall short, thereby having fewer sales.

Thanks for listening. I think the survey was a great idea. Some useful tools to help us get up to snuff would be great. It just chaps our hide every time the sale comes from somewhere else and we mostly delete items here instead of the sales coming here first.

Thanks for this opportunity. I think it was a good idea. I’d also like to say again, since I Believe I was one that took the survey.
A lot of us would really encourage you admin people to consider doing some targeted advertising. Word of mouth and us pumping the site up all over the internet can only go so far.
Ebay DID NOT get to be a household name by just it’s sellers going out and advertising.
And this site will not gain in that kind of popularity without some advertising on some sort of major venue.

I’m not saying a months worth of advertising, but a few ads here and there would go a long way to getting this site more widely known.
Thank you

There are so many good things that can be done with Bonanzle, the possiabilies are endless.
Look forward to seeing what is in store, just remember, K.I.S.S. ….Keep it simple stupid …. The simplicty is what makes this site awesome!

A+!

Thanks for the update, Alex.

A lot of sellers don’t spend their time on the forums; some may not even know they exist. Can you send a survey to all active booth owners? That would get you a much more complete set of answers, than just the people who happened to notice the survey on the boards. Even many who DO read forums, don’t notice the blog entries, etc. at the top.

I think it is very important to get input from those who AREN"T selling, or not selling much. It’s more productive to keep a customer you already have, than keep finding new ones. If we can help those sellers become successful here, they will bring more business here, and be much more complimentary in their comments about the site. Every one who leaves the site in disgust or disappointment, will tell everyone they know ‘how bad it is’, rather than inviting their friends to join them here.

I have to interject here that I don’t understand why people are having such a problem with making an offer. I bought two things today, made an offer and it went thru’ smooth as glass. The whole process seemed very clear to me. She responded back in less than 5 minutes and it was a done deal. I guess I’m not seeing what the problem is, but there must be one that I can’t see, since it is being brought up so much, even in this thread.

Anyhow, as usual the Bonanzle team is doing a splendid job of responding to people’s concerns. Rome wasn’t built in a day!

Thanks for the continued feedback everyone. I have some work to do myself ‘as a new guy’ in getting to know the offer process well. It’s certainly on my list. Keep your eyes out for a new blog update soon!

Edited to clarify for those asking me questions

1) I would like to see inline editing included in the batch editor so I can change item quantity go down the list & submitting the entire page as it is now I have to select the items with identical quantities which can be very time consuming and cause errors. The ability to revise titles in batch edit would really make our (seller’s) job a lot easier, because title revisions are a constant task.

In the image above you can see there are inputs I can change in a bulk edit type of UI rather than going into each listing to revise the titles I can change them right in the batch edit tool. Same with changing quantities. When I take inventory I adjust quantities as needed, but of course to know the quantity in the listing I have to either open each listing to make the changes if needed or use the batch edit selecting all items that I have only 2 of and set the quantity – same for 1, 3, 4, 5…. it is very time consuming either way and through the batch edit I can accidentally check the right item applying an inaccurate quantity – causing me to over sell – potentially receiving a fat neg as well as a guaranteed loss of a return buyer or reconsideration at a later time.

2) I would like to see a left nav bar added inside the listings.

this is a left nav

as you can see I am in my product listing and the categories are visible. We do not have a left navigation in our product pages. A left nav is hugely helpful in encouraging visitors to browse your other items….

3) I would like to have the ability to create custom sub-cats that drill down 3 levels.

In the above image you can see my custom categories as well as my custom subcategories and their depth. Custom sub-cats means to create a my own category > then within my custom category add my own custom sub-category > then within that sub-category I can add another and so on

4) I would like to see the condition option added back into the listing form, because most people don’t know how to apply it through the batch edit.

5) I would like to see the item traits applied as attributes be optional as well as a clear all feature in the attribute menu in the batch edit.

For those who have never had to strip out bad attributes I can tell you it is a real pain and very time consuming. For each attribute you have to copy the attribute applied to the listing (you have to copy it otherwise you might not typoe it in exact then it won’t remove it) go up to the remove attribute box add the [[pastetheattribute]] for every attribute. Of course for listings with the same attribute to be removed you would check all of those.

• same attribute has identical properties and values such as
  [[color:blue]]

not
[[color:blue]]
in one listing &
[[color:pink]] in another

With a clear all option I would be able to select the listings and remove all attributes regardless of value in the listing – like delete all attributes

6)

• I would like to see the traits rewritten to conform to Google’s acceptable values – including the product_type attribute matching Google’s taxonomy rather than eBay’s mess.

Google specifies acceptable values for certain attributes – the values not included in the acceptable values will be used but they may not show up in some product sorts. Best to have listings fit lock & key with Google’s database categories for optimal results

• the (,) needs to be an acceptable character in the attribute form

Some product_type attributes that Google suggest to be used in it’s product_type taxonomy have a comma. Bonanzle’s attribute editor will not accept a value with a comma – it needs too – lock & key again

7) I would like to see sub client accounts added to the Google merchant account to give sellers access to know errors in our product listings so we can fix them.

Clarification: I would like to have access to the sub-client account for my Google Products Feed so I can view what items have been disapproved and why so they can be fixed.

8)I would like
Amazon simple pay
http://www.amazonservices.com/content/amazon-simple-pay.htm

Revolution Money Exchange
http://www.revolutionmoneyexchange.com/
&
moneybookers
http://www.moneybookers.com/app/

integrated

9)I would like the kaboodle & stylefeeder share buttons added. Actually it would be best to have the addthis widget added to the site
http://www.addthis.com/

the widget in a clear visible location. I have to tell people (sellers) far too often where to find the twitter & facebook buttons

Also, the toolbox should be visible to visitors not registered and logged in. After all we (sellers, Bonanzle, and buyers looking for a great place to shop and recommend) need the products/booths to be syndicated to as many sites as one might want to use. The addthis widget is the best tool for syndication.

10) I would like for Bill to get rid of the obscene green shade overpowering MyBonanzle page so I can tolerate being logged into my account.

11)

• I would like the ability to add metadata/tags to my listings and pages – including the ability to add site verification meta content

The ability to add the metadata as well as the backlinks allow us to

• Open merchant accounts on thefind to load our own feeds (the Google Products Format) so our items are listed accurately & optimally and we can create coupons to be listed on thefind. theFind will never bother cleaning up the mess of the feed it fetches – why would it there isn’t a backlink & it is second only to Google Shopping as the largest shopping comparison site. It is to our benefit to make optimal use of the opportunity.

metadata

metadata/tags is inserted in the web docs head and is not visible in the rendered page. You can view the metadata by click view in your browser tool bar & selecting view page source

this is what it looks like

Search engines use metadata for various reasons and it is the only way (we) would be able to add verification codes to satisfy sites like thefind so we can use them optimally

• I would like the booth panels or a booth footer added for adding backlinks for thefind, tjoos, and any other valuable tool.

12) I would like to have feeds formatted to conform to the specifications required for the various shopping comparison sites shopzilla, become….

I’ll add to the list as things come to mind

Another thought

alt text to our images – we need to be able to add this for accessibility purposes as well as for image search engines.

Great Survey
Thanks for the chance to participate and nice to see the response. (although I only saw it due to a forum post!)

Yes tidy up the forums, the two selling ones could be combined.

Thanks for posting the results so far Alex and appreciate all the efforts in making this a more efficient site. I also have to agree “ECB” does have a lot of valid and amazing ideas that would be most beneficial to Bonanzle.

Thanks so much Alex! & Thank you too Eye Catching Beauty!!!!
Awesome synopsis of great and much needed features and abilities here! especially an inline editor and metatags! woo hoo!!! MUWAH x0x0×0×0

Amen to all of the above!! Kudos to Alex, for diving in and listening, and helping immediately. … ECB… I have no idea what you were asking for, but if it helps the site, I want it too. lol…

My request is added to the list, PLEASE some hard core advertising… We started asking for that a long time ago, and memberships were born of it. A nation of cheer leaders is never going to get us taken seriously enough to have people say I bought it on Bonanzle… I work every day doing some sort of promo work for the site, and even have an independent web site, directed here. Please help us make this just BUST OUT!!

We have the frame work, and I realize that we still have a lot of plumbing and wiring and sheet rock to attend to until we have a finished pulsing product, but is does seen that there are many redundant fixes being requested.

I also agree with BookbinEtc. Forum readers are most likely to have taken this survey. All sellers probably should have been offered the opportunity to participate. They also might possibly be the ones that do not sell as much, and could give you a better bigger picture of the sellers perspective.

One or two ads, in your face kinda stuff, could just light the fuse… just my two cents…

Thanks!!

Here is the link to the retailer information for Kaboodle
http://www.kaboodle.com/zm/retailers

I second kayceestudios request to be able to edit from the listing