Bonanzle Tips

What do you need to do to get sales on Bonanzle?

2009-07-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

Its always hard to start on new marketplace such as Bonanzle. She is picking up well but its going to take 4-5 years i think before she is going to have enough buyers to give enough sales to all her sellers.I opened few booths on Bonanzle and managed to get decent sales only after i put hardworks on my listing.

Here few things that i can share with you all here.

1. The first one is to put relevant keywords in your title listing and contents. Since half of the traffics come from Google base then putting a relevant keywords in your title listing might be a good idea.For example if you are selling Chocolate brownies , you have to make " chocolate brownies" keyword is included in your title listing and title content.

2. You have to make sure you take a good and clear picture of the product. You wont believe how well good pictures can give a good impact on your sales conversion.

3. Price , you have to check with other competitors in order to put reasonable price.

4. Acceptable shipping cost

5. Reasonable delivery period

6. Payment , You should accept paypal and Google Checkout because majority of buyers will only pay with these 2 payment platforms.

Bonanzle Market Research : some of handbags sold on 20-25 Feb 2009

2009-02-26T10:22:00.000-08:00

Louis Vuitton Vernis Violet Heart Coin Purse Bag $205.00
Sold on 25/2/2009

Hayden Harnett Havana Hobo Oyster $80.00
Sold on 25/2/2009

Multi-color Brown Brahmin Bucket Bag $5.00
Sold on 25/2/2009

Balenciaga 2006 Black City $990.00
Sold on 24/2/2009

Rebecca Minkoff Purple Mini Nikki $250.00
Sold on 24/2/2009

Rare Coach Denim and Vintage Leather Small Duffle 10405 $150.00
Sold on 24/2/2009

Auth YSL Yves Saint Laurent Large Muse Violet NWT $560.00
Sold on 24/2/2009

Rebecca Minkoff Royal w/ Brown Basketweave
Sold on 23/2/2009

Authentic TDF Red Chanel Medium Flap with Bijoux Chain *TPF* $3,000.00
Sold on 23/2/2009

Gucci Pelham Medium Shoulder Bag - It's a must have $365.00
Sold on 23/2/2009

Mulberry Poppy in blue copperhead snake $595.00
Sold on 23/2/2009

Authentic Louis Vuitton Damier Azur Speedy 30 $500.00
Sold on 23/2/2009

Balenciaga ELECTRIC BLUE PT SGH **holy grail** $1,650.00
Sold on 22/2/2009

Balenciaga 05 Taupe Day $899.00
Sold on 22/2/2009

Marc Jacobs Hudson (ON HOLD) $675.00
Sold on 22/2/2009

Marc Jacobs Striping Bowler - HTF! tPF member $700.00
Sold on 21/2/2009

Marc Jacobs Brown and Tan Trish bag, $679.00
Sold on 21/2/2009

Marc Jacobs Patchwork Quilted Black Lou NWT $450.00
Sold on 20/2/2009

What will bonanzle be like in next 3 years ? Big version of Etsy or small version of eBay

2009-01-31T21:54:00.000-08:00

What Will Bonanzle be like in next 3 years ? Imagine Bonanzle already reached 10 million users by that time. The market is so busy and even those 2 founders wont have hands to handle all users by themselves. They hire hundreds of Customer service officers and build a very beautiful office in California.

What will it be like then ? Will Bonanzle could hold it's community sense like Etsy does but in a major scale of size or Bonanzle will become pain in the ass platform like eBay does who loves its shareholders more than its users.

What will it be like?

Automatic download feature : Selling ebooks and softwares on bonanzle

2009-01-29T03:56:00.000-08:00

I am very happy to see an exponentially growth of Bonanzle. In few months they already hit almost 1 million items under the roof. However most of the item listings on bonanzle are tangible products. It would be cool if Bonanzle can add automatic download feature for virtual items like ebooks and softwares on their platform. I can bet we will see a big scale of sellers migration from eBay if the feature is available on Bonanzle. Even If we look at other competitors like e-crater and blujay , none of these marketplaces have this particular feature and it would be great advantage for Bonanzle to compete in the industry. What do you think?

Can you possibly sell expensive items on Bonanzle?

2009-01-21T03:23:00.000-08:00

I did some research on items sold on Bonanzle last night. Since Bonanzle is still new , many of us still thinking that we can only manage to sell few penny items here. However what i found on the handbags category really astonishing. I filtered items sold for the price range of 1000-2000 dollars for the keyword handbags tadaaa!! all these items suddenly appeared on my screen.

please click on the image to enlarge.

They are thousands of dollar worth of handbags sold up to date. The conclusion is they are lots of buyers are ready to spend their big money here . If you want to list expensive items just go a head because nothing is impossible on Bonanzle.

Bonanzle membership - Google Analytic

2009-01-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

I just registred as a plus member on Bonanzle. Now i can track my traffic using Google Analytic. I think it is very useful tool if you are a serious seller. By using Google Analytic i can track my visitors not just from Bonanzle site or forum but also from other sources.

First of all you have to register with Google Analytic , get the code and paste in to the given field for Google Analytic user account on your Bonanzle admin.Wait for an 1 hour then it will start tracking your Bonanzle Booth.

It will cost you $10 a month. If you ask me " is it really worth it to use the tool?" i would say definitely yes. Instead of having an ability to track your traffic using analytic you will also get few benefits from it such as

Eligibility to be a featured booth is: on.
Items featured in item searches: no, requires premier membership.
Items twice as likely to show on home page: no, requires premier membership.
Profile star is activated.

If you are not yet registered for plus member , do it now!!!

Bonanzle tips : How to calculate shipping cost base on weight?

2009-01-15T02:17:00.000-08:00

Hai there , today im going to show you step by step how to calculate your item shipping cost base on it's weight. Bonanzle platform supports 2 shipping companies UPS and USPS. It is easier this way because you dont have to calculate seperately and put one by one via fix shipping cost.

Lets how to do it.

Step 1 :

First of All open your listing window , choose buyer pays calculated and fill the form for lbs and oz , select wheather you use normal package , big package or etc. save the listing and update your booth.

When buyer visits your listing , he/she will see get price link on the listing page.

When he/she click on the get price link the calculated shipping will be shown automatically.

How to use one gmail account for all your bonanzle accounts?

2009-01-14T05:41:00.000-08:00

here is the trick , by using gmail you can forward automatically from other gmail accounts to the one you use. By doing this you can open only 1 account in order to monitor other accounts.All sales and message notifications will be fowarded to your main account.

This tutorial will show you how to do it step by step with screenshots.

Step 1 :

Login to Gmail account and click setting at the top right of your page.

Step 2 :

Click on " forwarding and POP/IMAP

Step 3 :

Fill in your main gmail account .

Step 4 :

Save it and you are done , now everytime you recieve an email , that particular email will be sent to your main gmail account. Do this to all your other gmail account registered with Bonanzle and you can monitor all bonanzle accounts with one email.

How to use description to increase your sales conversion

2009-01-14T05:05:00.000-08:00

Everytime you list a product you have to remember the description you write is for human being. When you deal with peoples you have to secure their confidence first before you can get into their pocket . In order to write a good description all informations must be in place such as

who are you ?

Write about yourself , your business experiences and stuffs.

product informations (as detail as you get)
Every single aspect of the product such as

product model
New or used
how to use it
who will need it
manufacturer's name
date of release
is there any defect on the product

Shipping informations

What is the shipping company
When are you going to ship the item
When the estimate time of delivery
when are you going to release the tracking number

Payment informations

Type of payment that you accept
who will qualify to buy the product.

Return policy

how are you going to handle return and return process.
Who will qualify to return the product.

Photos

Photos must be as clear as you can get.
Take close up pictures with clear backdrop.

You have to remember , buyer makes a decision base on the informations in the description. The more comprehensive your description is the higher chance for you to make a conversion. We got to have the buyer's brain , think like them then the sales will come along.

How to manage multiple Bonanzle account at the same time?

2009-01-14T03:52:00.000-08:00

If you have more than one booth , it is really hard to manage them all because you can only open Bonanzle account under one email. The notification of sales or new message is only send to the email you registered with bonanzle for that particular account.

The solution is register your Bonanzle account using gmail email. By doing this you can install your gmail manager firefox add-on to login to all email accounts at the same time to check any new sales or message notification.

here are some screenshots of gmail manager add-on

You can isntall your gmail manager add-on here
Click here to install

Drive traffic to your booth through Forums

2009-01-14T03:29:00.000-08:00

This is the easiest way to gain traffic to your booth. The best forum is on bonanzle itself. Why? this is because lots of product browsers are on bonanzle forum communicating with each other and browsing products. You have to remember most of sellers on Bonanzle are also buyers as well.

By creating an interesting topic you will have temporarily traffic surge to your booth.For example by creating a promotion or selling competition topic on the forum. Sellers will start flooding their booth or item links and driving huge amount of traffic to your booth. This will gurantee your topic will be on top of the forum for a while.

You also have to heavily active on replying the topic you created. By doing this you can increase your booth visibility. Out of 100 visitors who are browsing your booth maybe 20-30 are your potential buyers . Out of 20-30 maybe 2 or 3 will endup buying your product.

I really suggest you to use signature for every post on the forum.

If you look at the screenshot , the signature link is more visible compared to the green default link at the bottom right.If you are heavily active forum user who made hundred of post every day , can you imagine the visibility of your booth on Bonanzle itself?

How to zoom and crop any part of your product

2009-01-14T03:07:00.000-08:00

In this tutorial i will show you how to zoom into any part of your product's picture and crop it out using Bonanzle crop tool.

When you click on add product button , you will be taken to the product listing window.

Click on Crop/Rotate link and you will be taken to the crop tool window

Drag to the left the zoom button to zoom our your product and drag the picture to the left ,right , bottom or up to go to the exact part of the product you that you wanted to crop.save it and you got yourself a cropped picture for your listing. You have to use high resolution picture to make sure the picture wont blur when you do the zooming process.

How to create your own bonanzle banner

2009-01-12T03:21:00.000-08:00

There are alot of software that can be used to create banner. In this tutorial i will show you how to create a simple banner using Adobe photoshop.

First of all create a new file.

Set the image size to 692 x 104 pixels according to bonanzle standard banner size.

Open any picture you want to put on the banner and set the height less than the height of the banner for the picture fits well. In this case i put 103 pixels.

Drag the picture into your banner.

Type your slogan besides the image .

Save the banner as jpeg

Open Bonanzle banner uploader

Upload the banner and you are done , you got yourself a new banner. Banner creation is quite subjective , you can use your imagination to create any kind of banner that makes your booth looks attractive.

Yes!! i am bonanzle addicted

2009-01-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

When i woke up this morning , the first thing i did was logon to my bonanzle account hoping for the second sale. I can be on bonanzle 9-10 hours straight without regret .why am i so addicted to this new market place.

The first reason because it's community. You feel like you deal with a living person not with heartless robot that want to suck your money everytime they had a chance.

The second reason
sales are good here. Reports of completed transactions coming from all over the country. For 19000 users that can generate that kind of sales , it is pretty impressive.

The third reason
We can sell without worry , you will not be suspended without reason.

The fourth reason
Everything relatively easy , even my granny knows how to use bonanzle.

These are 4 main reasons why i cannot live without bonanzle because everyday i need to bonanzling or i will depress to the death.

Bonanzle batch text editing

2009-01-11T11:23:00.000-08:00

If you have thousands of listings imported from ebay or craiglist and you find out some part of the description needed to be changed. How are you going to do it? one by one ? hell no !!!. We are fortunate enough because my darling bonanzle offers a batch text editor to make your life a lot easier. This tutorial will show in a very simple way how to do it.

1. first of all you have to go to my bonanza

2. At the left side you will see "batch edit items"

3. open it you will see something like this.

- First check any item you want to edit,

-If you want to add something at the end of the description choose the first field.

-If you want to add something at the beginning of the description choose the second field.

-If you want to replace anything in the description just type the word or sentence you want to replace on the third field and type the word or sentence you want to replace with on the fourth field .

Click submit and wait for a few minute for bonanzle to process your request and then you are done. All your listings fixed Easy right!!

How to write description in rich HTML text formatting?

2009-01-11T05:22:00.000-08:00

If you are starting to list our your item on bonanzle you will find that there are no button to click for html mode. This tutorial will show how to make your description more colorful organize.

1- First of all go to the listing product interface

2- Type few line of description and press enter , you will see a link "full size edit will appear"

3 - click on the link and now paste your description in the text field and you are done. You can also put pictures using html tag here.

How to create bonanzle widget

2009-01-11T04:34:00.000-08:00

If you have a blog may be you want to show your items to your readers. Bonanzle let us to create a widget to help us boost the traffic. This tutorial will show you step by step on how to create a new widget.

1- First of all click on my bonanzle

2- click on "create a widget"

3- click on the button

4- Fill in the form , Click on create list . You can set the size and many row the widget would be.

5- Go back to your booth and click create widget.

6-This will automatically add first 15 items on your booth. You can choose to add or remove any item on your booth later. Copy the code and paste into your blog and you are done.

Do you think set shipping charges as flatrate is a good idea?

2009-01-11T00:48:00.000-08:00

I have been exploring bonanzle for a week already and i found out putting shipping charges as flat rate going to cause me problem in the future. As for me im selling instant food like noodle and seasoning powder which is the weight of products are various.

If buyer wants to purchase 2 items and unfortunately the first item is the small one which is less in weight and second item is the big one and heavy then i have to charge him/her the correct shipping charges for the small item but i have to charge less for the heavy item because of combine shipping discount.

For example , i set the shipping charges USD 2 for additional item.

The shipping cost for the first item is USD 3
The shipping cost for the second item is USD 5

total shipping cost should be USD 8

but as i put the combine discount as USD 2 for additional item then i can only charge the shipping cost for USD 5. I already lose USD 3 for shipping charges.

The best solution is to check with your local shipping company and charge buyers according to the weight of the item not the quantity of the item. I think it is safer that way to avoid you from losing money.

Bonanzle bulk quantity product listing

2009-01-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

Eventhough listing on bonanzle is incredibly easy yet it still can be tiring if you are listing thousand of products in your inventory. In this tutorial i will show you how to put your listing on csv file and upload the whole inventory .

Step 1

Put your inventory in a correct csv format.

Column Name	Data expected	Required?	Also known as	Example data
title	The title of your item (up to 60 characters)	Yes	name	Doggie
description	Description of your item	Yes	desc	Small, slightly used mutt.
price	Price of your item, as an integer (we'll make it into an integer if it's given as a decimal)	Yes	cost	10.0
images	You can have as many images columns as necessary. Each should give a full URL (e.g., http://www.bonanzle.com/images/myimage.jpg) to an image for this item.	No	image1, image2, image, image_link	http://www.williambharding.com/images/rand11.jpg
id	A unique number or string to identify your item, so if you upload your file multiple times, items with identical ids will update (rather than re-add)	No		ITEM001
category	The numeric category for your item, from first and second level eBay category IDs, listed here.	No	category 1	1281
shipping_price	The flat rate price to ship your item within the continental U.S.	No	shipping, shipping_price, shipping & handling	3.50
quantity	The number of this item that you possess.	No		12
condition	Whether item is new or used. If condition is the word "new", the item is considered new. If it's anything else, it's considered used.	No		new
upc	UPC code for the item (improves rank in Google Product search).	No		012345029950
isbn	ISBN number for the item (improves rank in Google Product search).	No		0-87654-321-2
mpn	Manufacturer part number for the item (improves rank in Google Product search).	No		DOGGIE12

Credit to bonanzle.com

Example :

If you open you spreadsheet you will put your colum as

id,title,description,price,images,shipping_price

Below this column you will insert your data until you finished.


Step 2

click on Sell



Click on inventory file ,



Now your file is ready to be uploaded.

How to setup combine shipping discount?

2009-01-10T22:45:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty important function because bonanzle is not an auction site. sometimes buyer wants to buy more than one item and you need to give them some discount on shipping charges.

How to do this , pretty simple.

Step 1

1-Click on my bonanzle

2-Click edit booth

3- click on advance option

Step 2

Go to this section

click to enlarge on the image to enlarge

Just put your charge on additional item and you are done

How to know what items were already sold?

2009-01-10T21:51:00.000-08:00

How to view items sold on bonanzle ? Simple !!

First step

Click buy !!

If you want to search completed sales for mobile phone , just type the mobile phone in the search box.

Second step
Click find

Go to the left of the page checked "sold in last year"

Third step

Click find again All items were already sold should be shown on this page.

How to post a picture in forum

2009-01-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

If you want to post a picture on bonanzle forum , the method of posting picture is quite different from other forum.

Usually we use [img][/img] tag to post picture. however on bonanzle you have to put !pictureurl! to post picture.

Click post topic and you re done , simple right!!. If you have just posted new items on your store , you can put it on the forum to make it more visible.

Submitting your bonanzle booth to Google Base

2009-01-08T22:22:00.000-08:00

You have already setup your booth and now what? If you want to sell your products then you need to have traffic . By sending your products to Google base your booth will be visible to fresh potential buyer who are looking for your product.

How to submit your products to Google base ? You have 2 options to get it done.

Option 1: Setup a Recurring Item Grab - By using this option the feeding to google base will be done automatically. You dont have to submit or remove everytime you change your product inventory.

Option 2: Do a One-Time Item Submission - This option is less technical to do. However you have to add and remove the product manually every you make changes.

here is the instruction from bonanzle . I will show step by step how to get this done.

Instructions to Setup a Recurring Google Item Grab

Follow these instructions, and Google will grab the items from your booth as often as once per day.

Log into Google Base. If you don't already have a Google Account, create one.
From the main Google Base page (http://www.google.com/base), click on "Data Feed" from the options on the right side of the page.
In the upper left corner of the page, click the button that says "New Data Feed".
You'll be taken to a page asking you about your display name, item feed description, and website URL. Fill in the display name with the name you'd like buyers to see alongside your items (e.g., "Bonanzle"). For the web site address, enter your booth address, "http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/thesoapcompany" (don't copy the quotes). Then click "Next."
You'll be taken to a new page asking about your feed details. For the item type, pick "Products," and for the type of data feed, leave "googlebase" selected (like so). For the data feed filename, paste in the following filename:

thesoapcompany.xml
Click the "Register Data Feed" button at the bottom of the page, and you're just about done. The only remaining item is to schedule how often you want your feed updated. On the page that lists your data feeds click the "Create" link just to the right of the word "Schedule." A box will pop up asking how often you want your items updated. Choose whatever frequency you want (See how this looks). It also asks for the "Url of the file," paste this in:

http://www.bonanzle.com/booth_feeds/thesoapcompany.xml

And you're done! Nice going! Buyers, here you come!

Option 1: Setup a Recurring Item Grab

Step 1

Login to Google base and click new datafeed . Fill the data feed file name with the name given by bonanzle. In my case the name is thesoapcompany.xml Click register datafeed

Step 2

Once you clicked on register datafeed you will be taken to this page. the only thing left is to schedule the feeding. Click on create link besides the schedule.

The name of url file should bonanzle.com/booth_feeds/yourxmlfilename.xml
Click schedule and you are done.

Option 2: Do a One-Time Item Submission

This is an easy one even my granny could do it.

Click on have bonanzle send your items to google ,

fill in your google email and password and you are done.

Want to see how your products stats on google base , just click on active items . Not so hard right?

Bonanzle 101 - fee structure & seller account setup

2009-01-08T21:44:00.000-08:00

Bonanzle is the best alternative of ebay so far that can generate decent sales for seller. They dont charge any listing fees only small charges for completed sales.

here is bonanzle's fees structure

Final Offer Value ¹	Fee
Less than $10	$0.50 ($0 if registered during beta)
Less than $50	$1
Less than $100	$3
Less than $1000	$5
$1000 or more	$10

Pretty awesome right ? Sellers have been ripped off long time enough at the other site now everybody can make decent money through this marketplace.

I already setup my own booth on bonanzle , guess what the process of setting up seller acount is very very easy. No credit card needed just fill in a simple form and you are set to go.

Fill in the registration form and activate your account through your email.

Login and click sell to start selling , pick any option you want walla you just get yourself a new seller account.