Hello everyone,

My name is Ilya, here is my booth (not for advertisement, just for you to take a look at who I am on Bonanza):

[URL removed]

I hope this post is alright here on community, I would like to share my experience on bonanza and some advise to us all – to help this community grow.

First I want to say that I am a private user, not affiliated with or by bonanza, I own a website (I won’t post a link because no advertisement intended – frankly I just want this site to grow), a top-rated seller on ebay (same), selling for 2 years there, and on iOffer and eBid (for my opinions and info about these sites please contact me – I’ll gladly answer) being on bonanza’s site for only about 3 months. I love Bonanza and it is my favorite by far, I dedicated a lot of time for this site and for my setting up here. everything I state here is solely based on my own experience in the last couple of months of trying, experimenting, and eventually getting on the right road. Things may differ a bit from bonanza’s statements and help sections – so for bonanza’s staff – I apologize if I make a mistake here – will appreciate you letting me know.

Well, I must say it took a while for me to get going at first, I was struggling with views and sales, and really wanted to leave eBay (won’t state here what I don’t like about eBay, but I think we all know the main reasons). I liked bonanza’s interface and overall setting very much but things were slow. Now after some time, learning, adjusting and with experience the sales won’t stop coming. I didn’t quite expect it and the start was shaky.

What I found helps for sales & views is as follow :

1) advertisement plan at 9% at least, of course more if you can afford it, but a plan below the “Basic” cuts the views by about a half.
2) If you sell brand names, you MUST have UPC / MPN number for each item. that way it gets uploaded to google shopping and other bonanza advertisement places. and that is where most of my sales come from at least. If you don’t know, you can find the numbers using google. (item name + upc search)
3) at least 2 (better 3) photos per item (this one I can’t explain, but I had a galaxy s5 case with 2-3 views per week at best, and once I added two photos – I get 8-10 a day. mystery, but works)
4) I pop an advertisement message on community here once in a while, generates some views but I think that’s not a big traffic enhancer.
5) most [URL removed] I noticed many people on bonanza use plain text when providing item details. A few lines of text is not enough these days, Yes, a listing must be kept simple and to the point – but you need a nice description. you need it in HTML, you need things bold, underlined, and a nice shiny picture of the item inside the description it self is advisable. that’s a bit of work I know, but basically, you can find hundreds of free useable html templates on google for listings, I use one template for all of my items. just use one and change the text and photo/s every time. So find a nice template, you can use it for all items. Then give some personal touch, a true description of what you are selling, plus you can copy the items description from a formal place (the manufacturer’s site, ebay listings, other formal review online) to describe it, of course in a legal way, plain official item traits information, don’t copy tables and special listings from ebay sellers for example or copy righted material/photos.
6) Offer free shipping, take the price up a notch if needed for it. the term “free” brings your sale chances up by about 40% according to latest research conducted in the US, it became an obvious expectation from the customers.
7) Should have a decent return policy to give the buyer a security feeling. of course you don’t have to fully accept and refund all returns because the buyer doesn’t like the color (like ebay makes you do for example), I offer a 30 day return policy, and I added in my shipping policy that in case there is no problem in the item’s description and the item is not defective – the buyer is subject to 15% restocking fees + handling charges. Works well, and I even profit from returns. (frankly – I think that out of my 230 sales on my two bonanza booths in the latest months, I got 3-4 returns which is about 1 return case per 60-70, while on ebay I get a return per 10 sales. just goes to show how buyers control ebay’s market).
8) needless to say – attractive price. I sell new/refurbished brand items that were returned to various retail stores, or were refurbished in house and bought in bulk by us. that allow me to sell attractively. I make about 6$ profit per item. The idea is to lower prices down, and do a 1-2 weeks test. what items sell? what items get views? and adjust accordingly. I had a case that did not get any views at all for quite a while, so I took the price down by 1.50$ if I recall correctly (perhaps 2$), suddenly 5-6 views a day ! it can make a significant impact !
9) Clearly state contact details and responding time in the listings. Customers are feeling that much more secure when they know they will be replied to any inquiry or problem in 12-24 hours.
10) The bonanza “TurboTraffic” tool is great – triples the views. This tool is worth the paid membership by itself.
11) To my experience only, avoid coupons. offering coupons is making you take the prices up in order to allow a decent discount – that makes the item show in advertisement (google shopping, thefind, etc) with the high price – therefore many times customers, unaware of the coupon suggested – will not even click that link.

That’s the main things I can think of.. it can take a few days of dedicated work to nicely set-up a bunch of items, but the positive side is once you made it – it stays and you wait. + you can reuse your templates once you restock. I hope some of this was helpful.. I of course mainly refer to selling brand items, this all probably applies less to private stuff and handmade stuff – but I think in this sphere also, some of this advise can generate quite a traffic as well.

Anyway I’m here for any questions or consultations, you can contact me, I’ll gladly answer.

I definitely do not intend to claim I am a top bonanzier or a veteran on Bonanza, but I am having my share of success here and wish more sellers would have the same.

I personally love bonanza and would like to see bonanza grow bigger and stronger and eventually get closer and closer to eBay.. so good luck to us all!

Ilya