I Got A Few Things To Sell: The eBay FP30 vs. Bonanzle Booth MythBusters Challenge

Finally watched the whole thing. I'm sorry for whatever hole I was in that I missed this the first time. Really interesting video! Thank you very much for it.

John,
I totally agree with your test. We have been on bonanzle for 5-6 weeks WITH a google feed and sold zero, nada, nothing during that time. I'm gonna give it more time, but like you, I was trying to find another viable venue from which to sell. In the same period of time on Ebay, there have been 21 sales for $642. With the economy, our sales are slower than normal at ebay as well. We DID submit a google feed and I have submitted the URL to over 1000 listing submissions including the major ones. I would love for Bonanzle to show me more.
Also, John, thanks for the info on setting up ecommerce for wordpress. I didn't realize this either. Our actual selling domain, murillosmarketplace dot com, I had set up as a BANS site with my listings and will probably change it over to WP ecommerce - as I haven't gotten any commissions through ebay partnership on new members, etc. anyway.
Thanks so much! Keep up the good work! Have a GREAT week ahead! Kudos for your site, man, I like it!

ebay did feeds automatic putting your sign on main street.u not doing bonanzle feed put that sign on a deadend road.
just the buyers ebay has to bonanzle of course ebay would sell more but the right exposure u can put a good dent in ebay sales were ever u sell

OK, so yeah...eBay is a Cadillac (older model, LMAO) and Bonazle is '2009 VW Bug...I get that. You are 1000% correct, comparing the two could be considered Apples to Oranges.

Just remember, I was comparing the all NEW (at the time) eBay Fixed-Price 30, which was rather untested waters and unproven, so that was really the basis of the testing for me. I needed to simply know which one would convert without any extra "work" and those were the results.

I in NO WAY was trying to set up a 'bogus' test to make eBay come out as favorable. I think people have felt that was my intention?!? But actually I honestly thought eBay would lose! (based on all the Bonanzle hype I was reading and hearing) So the result were shocking to me really.

John

for a test im saying make it apple for apple at least u should of done is got on a search engine.

i agree y do u or me need other platforms when we can do a website. 98% or the people would have a very hard time setting up most websites. i have moved or setup 3 webites at buyitsellit because its easy and gives me the tools i need to sell.
we are sellers thats are job not design sites fix and repair. this is y ebay amazon bonazle work for most people.
for me its all about search engines. quantity of items i have is putting me as top dog in search.

i have to start with ebay sellers crying items not showing in best match ebay search. secound ebay sellers crying ebay items not showing in google search.
y are they crying because internal and google yahoo ect search is most important thing to have.
did u have google base set up at bonanzle - NO
did u submit url to search engines - NO
did u submit rssfeed - NO
u made a bussiness decision on bad info and posting this bad info to other sellers because u to lazy or dont know how to set up a google base feed.
ebay does have a large buyer base and u will have more sales from internal search doing nothing riding the shirt tale let ebay do all the work and pay threw the nose for it.

Hey Randy...thanks for the reply. Lets take eBay OUT OF THE TEST completely. Then lets just look at the results of 2 sales in 6 months on Bonanzle, OK?

So basically you are saying that it is MY FAULT that Bonanzle has ZERO traffic and does ZERO marketing?!? Ok, so on Bonazle, you (the seller) must drive the traffic to THEIR site so you can make sales. Hmmm, now the issue gets even BIGGER, my question is this...

If I am going to...

1) Set up an Google Base submission
2) Submit my URL to search
3) Submit my RSS feed

Why in the world do I need Bonanzle? What is the "value add" that Bonanzle brings to the equations? I am NOT being funny, I am really wanting to know what I am missing here? Cause it always comes back in my mind of, why not just set up my own eCommerce webstore and get ALL the benefits of branding myself?

Honestly, your argument may be PROVING my test instead of disclaiming it?!? Why pay transaction fees and set up feeds to drive traffic to a MALL when you can drive traffic to your own STORE?

Thanks, John

I've been on Bonanzle since February this year and have averaged one sale per month since joining. Just sold a pair of boots last week for my one item in July---of all things, a pair of winter boots in July....lol

For the most part, all of my sales have been a result from Google Base and tweaks I've made to optimize my search results in an effort to make it to Google's front page when a search is performed. Most buyers who found a product of mine and joined the site just to make their one purchase from me that they found on Google.

I don't have many items listed on Bonanzle for some of the same reasons you highlighted in your video---it's just not worth my time to devote listing a ton of stuff, only to average one sale per month. I joined the site just to try it out and see how things progressed.

Bonanzle does have a great community of users and the forums are on fire. Although I do scroll through the forums for useful information, there still is a fair share of jibber-jab chat and I'm just not into that kind of stuff. Makes me wonder about some of the people over there that seem to have tons of time to chat when they could be using their time more effectively.

If anything positive I will say about the experience is that being a part of Bonanzle has taught me a bit about Google Base (something I knew nothing about until joining Bonanzle) and knowledge I will be able to use for my own site as I work on building it.

You did a great job with your review---it made me think differently about that piece of market share pie.

Hi.

We ran a test, I noted the particulars in the Red Ink Diary blogs. It included importing eBay items into Bonanzle, BUT we also worked the bonanzle booth, google-feeds, had feeds into other blogs/websites, tweeted bonz items. EBay we only included rss feeds, no tweeting. Same results, as John's test, or almost. (we don't do volume on eBay, just a small part of our biz)
1 sale Bonanzle (6 months) , 39 sales eBay. (90 days, lost count for 6 months).

Insofar as your question: "Can a fresh ecommerce store yield as many sales as a Bonanzle store? "

The answer, in our case is YES!
We used NING networks to set up a web store, back in April. probably first of it's kind, a Shop-Ning (kinda catchy, doncha think?) It's a Shop-Happen-NING.

Social sales site, single store owner, only OUR stock.

It's now 4 months. Traffic superior to our bonanzle booth, many sales and contacts made, purchases made, thousands and thousands of dollars of business. about 80 signed on members.
Still growing and going strong.
We see it as our primary future venue.
Worth checking out at http://greenspot.ning.com , see for yourselves.

Not a full-featured "e-commerce" store, (lacking shopping cart, and other features), but we considered the communications and social aspects as MORE important than the e-commerce features, it works with simple paypal buttons. Customer service, communication,s retentions, and relationships are what this one is all about. Kinda more direct and social than bonanzle, and fully owned by US.

Price paid to sell over $10,000 worth of goods (68 items) so far $0.00. Ning is free.
Only costs have been some time, and paypal fees.
Time is "investment quality" for us.. Paypal fees are, well.... not really avoidable are they?

cheers.
vince.

Excellent, Fair test and post - thanks for sharing your research with all!

Hey John. I'll agree up to a point. You see, I've got better than an 80% sell through rate on Bonanzle. Now before people say NO WAY, let me tell you I can back that statement up.

However, that statement is not all inclusive either because when I sell on Bonanzle, I do so in a very un-Bonanzle like manner.

I sell via a live auction format which I've cobbled together with the Bonanzle chatroom and Justin.TV or Talkshoe.com

What is my point in all of this?

Well, it's that,you will not make sales on Bonanzle the same way you would on eBay. But it has never been my style to put up a listing anywhere and let it sit there.

I think that business model is dead, dead, DEAD!

I subscribe to the theory that you must do something dynamic to get sales, which is why, live auctions work for me.

Right now, in addition to the live Bonanzle auctions I do, I am selling via live video auction on http://www.dealitlive.com

So in closing, I don't believe that just posting a static listing is going to work on Bonanzle well for anyone.

Bonanzle has a great community of fired-up users, of which I've profited greatly from becoming involved with, financially as well as non-financailly.

That all said, I do think things need to be tweaked with it's selling structure and the perception of it.

Keep on rocking 'em, John. Thanks for the info. I needed that.

Excellent job John. It's about time someone told the truth about wasting time @zle.

John, I like your style, you tell it like it is and that is the way it should be, I have learned through the years, if someone always give me candy, one day I will have no teeth to eat that candy or anything else and by that time it is to late to sink my teeth into anything. On the other hand if good people that surrounds me point out my short comings, it doesn't make me think they are trashing me, but they just want to see me do better, plus it gives me a better vision of what I am trying to accomplish. Sometimes my visions are blocked by my pride, ignorance or what ever and I need that extra kick in the but to get me back on track.
I feel that's the way you handle the people that surround you and that is a good thing, maybe not when the words first come out of your mouth like a bee sting, but in the end all the words if took to heart to what you are really trying to say will soon turn into honey.
Keep up the good work.

So many well said posts. I think that Cliff said it best to the point and beautifully written. You need to focus on where its going to work for you. But to say that one site is the shining beacon when its simply not true is a misstatement. I have minimal time to focus on promoting somebody else's site, playing games, interacting on public boards. My focus needs to be interacting with my customers, and bringing them the best product that I can for the market they are buying in. As I said before we did the googlefeed optimization blah blah didn't work. The fact is people who buy do not have CONFIDENCE in the site. Thus they are not going to buy from the site.

I think the test was fair, or at least it has largely been my experience as well. I think rather than altogether discounting Bonanzle, which I still feel has a good future, it might be better to stop discounting eBay, which regardless of opinion is still the present for online sales, and in my opinion, especially vintage goods.

I've been on Bonanzle since about July 2008. At the time I did a 100% import of my eBay items, basically a set it and forget it kind of deal. As the ranks swelled with new sellers last fall I had a handful of sales each month, but the trickle stopped after the New Year. I listened to feedback and began editing all of the eBay talk and terms out of my Booth items. Now I had a few thousand at the time, so that was looking like an insurmountable task, so I deleted the bulk of listings, cutting my Bonanzle stock down to a couple of hundred items and went in and fine tuned them. I did the Google Base feed, which is admittedly more effective than eBay's own GB feed as 100% of my Bonanzle items showed up in GB, while there seems to be monthly troubles with eBay's feed and, of course, no appearance of auction of FP items.

Now with only a couple of hundred items the sample size is small and the handful of sales for the month has turned into a handful of sales for the year. Quite honestly my most common activity on Bonanzle is deleting items sold on eBay. I've tried some unique items which have sat in my Booth, then once moved to eBay they've sold relatively fast.

Do I think Bonanzle is a dead end? No, again, I'm expecting it only to get better in time with my hopes centered around a jump this holiday season. I chalk it up to my particular market still be located firmly on eBay.

Am I rethinking my use of the site? Well, yes. After spending some time on the Bonanzle boards (reading, not posting) I came away with the impression that a lot of promotion had to be done for success, which is fine, I can understand that, but similarly to John's message I'd rather direct such energies towards my own pie. So towards that direction I'm currently working on my own store for the largest of my vintage niches (using BISI, see my guest post about them on colderICE.com if interested) and considering re-working my Bonanzle Booth as a home to one of my secondary niches (and while I'm at it, thinking of Etsy for another group of items which fit there).

As long as I can keep my labor on Bonanzle minimal I like it as a platform for those who won't have anything to do with eBay or PayPal. Naturally if results improve, I'd dedicate more efforts to the site. Which i understand makes it a kind of Catch-22 situation.

Any kind of comparison of organic traffic + sales between the 2 sites is won hands-down by eBay, though I think everyone realizes that is, and should be, the case.

Regarding Bonanzle as "marketplace" by your definition, well, honestly I'd like to see more of that. There had been rumors of an affiliate program at the New Year which I was looking forward to as a way to lure in new customers. I like the platform, I like the guys who run it, I like a lot of the fellow sellers, but what I'd love is customers.

Thanks, Cliff

It was a well thought out video on your experience. You have never claimed to be an "expert" or guru although others have called you such. You are a business man and use what works for your business. You expressed what you did and how it did not work well for you. In no way do I feel like you "trashed" Bonanzle just offered your opinion. I know that it works for some and not for others as is the case of all the alternative platforms. If any of the smaller sites worked for everyone there would not be so much drama about the various sites. I personally am not at a place where I can do my own website do to my time challenges so I am still a platform based seller. I have a items on eBay and Bonanzle and I will use what works for me.
People just need to realize there is not a one size fits all in ecommerce as we are all different people with different need, personalities and thought processes and get over it. I am tired of people trashing others reputations just because they happen to have a different opinion.

Ok, rant over and this is just my 2cents

Karen

Well...all the buzz around this and your spot on. The decisions have to be made for your OWN company, and livelihood, not for anyone else. There are many things that need to be fixed on B, and on the great and mighty E, but the bottom line is it is your decision to do what you need to do for you.
As usual, your commentary is useful and amusing all at once. Thank you!

John - we have sold on Bonanzle and have seen few results. As you know we are along time antiques dealer on the web (going on 14 years). We put up the best of our inventory that flows on a daily basis. To date the results of our sales on Bonanzle have been poor. I like the guys who own the site. They are lovely people. But the truth is this site is not a site that will be useful for serious dealers. By the way WE HAVE AN OPTIMIZED GOOGLE FEED database. So the test we have conducted were pure. At this time we are no longer going to put up anymore stuff on Bonanzle as it costs time and money for my staff to dedicate for no results.