Bonanza! The term is used on bonanzle.com to tell everyone you are running a short special sale. This sale can come complete with special flashing lights and music if the seller so desires, and your booth and items are put on the special Bonanza list to make it easier for people to find. This can be a fun sale for all. The sellers are in their booths or at least on the site, ready to answer any questions, and the customers can find some great bargains.
But, some sellers haven't been using this tool effectively, only putting a small number of items on sale, or only offering a small discount, and making a Bonanza seem more like a Bon-scam-za. And I have seen these same sellers complain and slam Bonanzle for their Bonanza sale not raking in the sales.
So, the boyz of Bonanzle decided to set a limit on the discount rate. no more mini Bonanzas of 5% off. They are saying you must offer at least 15%. And boy, have they caused an uproar over this.
Bonanzle has always took pride in allowing the sellers to run their own business as the sellers saw fit. Which is a good concept, if you are dealing with "professional" sellers who are working hard to grow their business. But, unfortunately Bonanzle, like eBay, Esty, etc, not only have the "pros" but they also have some people who sell just don't take their business seriously. So for the sake of Bonanzle's business, rules get set.
Now like it or not, it is their site, and they have the right to run it as they see fit. Just like you have the right to list on whatever site you see as the best one for you. Although I don't always agree with any sites decisions and changes, I always try to see them from their view point. What I do NOT agree with here on this decision is the fact they did this without ANY warning, announcement ahead of the game. And to add to the confusion, it is NOWHERE on the site that sites the discount must be 15%. Matter of fact, 10% is used in their instructions "Two Minute Guide To setting up a Bonanza" .Come on boyz! That IS poor business practice! You have newsletters, press releases, your blogs, your forums, and Twitter to spread this word, yet not only did you fail to do so, you are misleading in the site "How To's" . I know you are busy, but, if you fail to communicate changes that affect YOUR customer base, ie, the sellers, all you will do is cause, for the lack of a better word, 'Drama'. And the one thing I know you all strive for is minimal Drama.
Will an announcement ahead of time, ruffle some feathers? Sure it will, but at least you will have time to smooth some of those feathers down.
I don't know who dropped the ball on this one, but I am hoping to see that change without notice never happens again.
Later..........Renagade
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6 comments:
Agree! There was a "new" news letter put out last week and nothing was mentioned. Nothing on the blog or what's new page. Lack of communication is not good for business.
Very nicely done! I love reading your blog.
Best Wishes :)
Thanks, this is the first confirmation I saw of this point.
I noted a few frustrated tweets, and contacted the tweeter, then spent half an hour rooting around bonanzle to find out if this was the case.
Still couldn't find it.
Thankful that you pointed it out as real at this point.
cheers.
vince.
I understand that people are very frustrated over this and you have a well written point. The way that I see it is if someone is only going to offer 5 or 10 percent off I personally would not buy from them anyway. That to me is not enough incentive or what I would consider a sale, especially if they are not high dollar items. I do sell on bonanzle which is why I chose to stay anon, have not had a bonanzle yet but would never have had one for lower than 20 percent off. Should people have been informed of the change? probably, but with everything else they are doing to try to improve the site that to me is very minor in the grand scheme of things.
Thanks for your fair view of this Renegade. You are right, we should have made an announcement on this. We dropped the ball on this and we apologize. We will do our best to keep all informed prior to any changes which affect our community. We will also do our best to update the help sections for those changes to avoid further confusion.
Thank you everyone for your support!
Mark
Bonanzle
I love BONANZLE! That's the 1st thing I would like to say, however, every month since I've been selling there, I've had a BONANZA & every single one, was a bust! Not 1 sale yet.
But I keep trying & probably will every 30 days... I blaim "NO ONE" for this BTW...
I've sat there staring at my booth for 3 hours (the max allowed to have one) every single time & I'm lucky to have 1 person enter my booth & most of the time, it's another seller who so kindly leaves a message for "me" to stop by "their" booth...
The minimum discount I give is 25% & I've gone as high as 50% on certain items. Still no sales.
So... this minimum of 15% rule, doesn't bother me a bit. As a matter of fact, at any given time, when I myself go browsing the BONANZAs going on, I see mostly 5 & 10 %ers...
Buyers these days want stuff for nothing (we all know that, or should by now) plus free shipping & I'm finding more buyers, especially newbies with 0 feedback, sign up, make purchases & either never pay or are never to be seen again...
IMO most of them have become spoiled from buying on Ebay, from sellers who are almost forced to offer free shipping.... or else!
And you all know the rest!
Concerning the announcement or rather the lack of, I say to all the whiners, give it a rest! This site has taken off a lot faster & bigger, then anyone expected, especially the owners.
A minor "oversight" like this, while they are trying to keep up & improve the site for everyone, really is trivial.
I don't blame them for my lack of sales during my BONANZAs & if giving a 25% or more discount isn't getting me sales, then why do all the nickle & dime sellers that are probably doing most of the complaining, think that capping it @15% is such an injustice?
Please splain Lucy! I need to wrap my brain around this....
No one is going to convince me that the only ones getting thier "feathers ruffled" as someone else phrased it, about the announcement "not" being made, are the nickle & dime sellers that will no longer be able to nickle & dime the buyers!
The sellers that already discount 15% or more anyway, capping it & not getting an announcement out, for that matter, would really be a moot point IMO & it's just an opinion!
As for the cap, has anyone thought about the possible reason behind this? There could be a hundred reasons!
Buyers complaining about the low ballers could be one reason. As someone else mentioned above, 5% discount is not much of an insentive, 10% and even 15% isn't much either IMO & I'm saying that as a buyer!
So.... there's my 2 cents worth for what it's worth & tons of "IMO"...
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