Supplementary Amazon Results
I wanted to give a heads up about a new featured we launched yesterday in Bonanza search: the ability to supplement search results with Amazon products when Bonanza has little to no inventory that matches a particular search query.
This feature is designed to fix the situation when a buyer comes to Bonanza and wants to find something that is ordinary, or a commodity (things we don't specialize in). For example, if a user comes to Bonanza seeking accessories for "Halo 4 limited edition," they would find just one lonely result:
This is not a surprise. As has been established, new video games are not an area that Bonanza is trying to excel at, so the results for a query like this are limited. And given the limited quality of our results, we can either leave the buyer with the impression that Bonanza was the wrong place to search, or we can show that even when we are short on results, we can still help them find exactly what they seek. Amazon to the rescue:
A couple key points about this implementation should be noted:
- Amazon results are not shown when we have more than 20 results for the query the user made (90%+ of searches have thousands of results...a search with 20 results or less happens most often when searching for software, video games, and other items that are ordinary commodities
- The results are called out in their own box and marked as Amazon so there is no confusion about the source of these listings
- If the Amazon results are more expensive than the Bonanza result, the buyer has the confidence they need to buy from Bonanza, even in cases where we have a small number of items available
Amazon themselves use a similar mechanism when a user searches for an item they don't specialize in. The Amazon Product Listing program allows third party merchants to pay for links on Amazon to their items, so Amazon can always leave the buyer feeling like if they don't have the item, they can refer the buyer to a site that does. We share the opinion that a handful of results from Amazon is a better user experience than searching on Bonanza and coming up with no suitable result. Buyers who have this experience tend to be buyers who will never return.
In general, it's certainly in our best interests to show the best of Bonanza's 4 million item catalog. But in the cases where our catalog doesn't cover exactly what it is the buyer is looking for, we feel the next best thing is to leave the buyer with a positive impression that will keep Bonanza top-of-mind for them the next time they need to find an item that doesn't have a barcode printed on it.
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61 responses to Supplementary Amazon Results
please explain these 2
Allow users to review products
Allow gold members to create coupons to retain past buyers
The first one is what it says — as we build a product catalog of “everything but the ordinary” (see a couple blogs ago) one natural extension of that is to allow buyers to review the products they’ve purchased. This is separate from reviewing sellers, which remains the same as always. For now, we have a pretty small number of products in the catalog, so a small number of reviewable products, but we hope to grow it over time.
The second is that we’re going to allow gold members to create coupons that we can send out to try to induce the buyer to develop loyalty to the sellers they buy from. Repeat customers are the cheapest kind to acquire!
Is this reciprocal? Will Bonanza items show up in Amazon search ?
Is this income generating for Bonanza, or is it an altruistic gesture to help Bonanza sellers?
Are you planning on adding other ‘partner sites?’
Why are Amazon listings showing up in items sold?
Is this the purpose of cataloging and reviews, to be able to merge Amazon listings more easily into Bonanza?
Why does the recently listed filter in search only display Amazon listings?
I have seen paid links on Amazon, but never listings from other sites such as Ebay or Etsy appear under Amazon sellers listings. How would I find that?
Wow, I think I might end up writing a book if I responded to all of those, but let me try to hit the key points:
Amazon charges 15 cents and up for placement on their sellers’ pages, which does not currently mesh with what we can afford to pay today without losing big chunks of cash. It’s certainly something we hope to branch into in the future, particularly if this move generates us appreciable revenue.
That said, I doubt this is going to generate much extra money, it’s more a usability improvement than a cash-generating move.
I dunno why Amazon listings would show up in the recently listed filter. I suppose that at times there are less than 20 items that might quality as “recently listed,” but it sounds more like a bug than anything, would be good to drop a line to support to investigate that.
We don’t yet have plans to add more partner sites. The nice thing about Amazon is that they complement Bonanza almost perfectly. The stuff they specialize in (commodities) is the opposite of what we specialize in. It would make less sense for us to partner with a site that overlapped our core strength.
I honestly don’t think you’re going to leave a potential customer the wrong impression that Bonanza is or was the wrong place to look. Really, I don’t.
If the person only finds one search result, I’m sure they’re going to either like what they see and buy it, or decide they don’t like the price or terms or something and move on. Why do you want to add the competitors items in? Amazon is way more popular than Bonanza. If a customer sees that the item they searched is also on Amazon, then I bet they’ll go right over to Amazon. Amazon 1, Bonanza 0. OR you would HOPE the customer weighs out the options between both sights. And buys from the Bonanza seller.
Why make the customers job easier?
Keep Bonanza exclusive. Keep the competitors out. I personally don’t care for it.
I think that we have every incentive to make the customer’s job easier. We can pretend like Bonanza is a walled garden, but as you point out, the reality is that they know Amazon exists, and they are going to go check there anyway. Why not make it convenient for them to do so? If we show them Amazon inventory and they see its more expensive than ours, that’s a big deal to the buyer. I hope it will happen often.
I think this falls in the same bucket as making it easy for sellers to unsubscribe from memberships or cancel their booth. If you can make life easy for a customer when they least expect it, it’s a very effective way to earn loyalty.
At the end of the day, we want people who visit Bonanza to have the best possible experience. If that means they find what they’re looking for and buy it — great! But if we don’t have what they’re looking for, there’s no reason to make their lives more difficult than necessary. They’re still a potential future customer.
Thanks for the explanation, Bill.
While I’m sure there’ll be a fuss, perhaps once more sellers get their items categorized and traited properly, more Bonanza results will show, leaving less space for Amazon.
I do agree with one point – if I went to a site that had only one or two results for a common item, I may think, ‘wow, this place sure doesn’t have much stuff’. That memory may cause buyers to not return, as you’ve said.
Please explain to me how having Amazon listings are of benefit to the sellers here. I can’t for the life of me think of one advantage to this.
In addition, if you were paying $50 for a membership to Bonz, how happy would you be to learn that when someone does a search, a listing from Amazon will/may also be shown including the lowest price they are selling it for. A potential buyer may not even make it to my booth.
Please, Please make us understand how this is good for the sellers of Bonanza.
It is in the best interests of the sellers to help build Bonanza into a destination that buyers visit directly. The more buyers visit directly, the less everyone pays in those Google Shopping fees.
If a buyers visits Bonanza and can not find what they’re looking for, they’re frustrated and that much less likely to return straight here (per Bookbin’s comment) as a buyer.
You want return buyers, we want return buyers. Bending over backwards to help these buyers find the best items for them — even when we might not have the best item for them in stock, is our best shot to build buyer happiness.
If this has been started to raise revenue, why not just raise the fees?
In your last comment, you said “If you can make life easy for a customer when they least expect it, it’s a very effective way to earn loyalty”.
You made “life” (listing) easy for us (at least in the beginning), and you did earn our loyalty.
But showcaseing Amazon listings on our ads are like a kick in the teeth.
We should be able to opt out of this, even if we have to pay to do so.
Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here. The Amazon ads do not appear in your listings or your store — they appear only within the context of Bonanza search. We have consistently given our sellers ways to opt out of advertising when it affects their items or their booth. But when it comes to the site-wide item search, that’s where we want to give the broadest selection possible.
What I see , and I’m wondering how much thought went into this before activating it.
1. We are now promoting for Amazon free of charge
2. Amazon won’t promote our listings Free of charge
3. More buyers will be directed to Amazon , leaving the sellers here and they will have less of a chance to sell their items.
4. A good many sellers here will just go on over to Amazon and list there, why should they stay here if you are directing the buyers to Amazon. They may as well just sell over there.
We’re not promoting Amazon free of charge
Each click on Amazon generates revenue for Bonanza, which we can use to roll into more features, ads, etc.
Buyers only get directed to Amazon in the case where they would have left for Amazon anyway — cases where Bonanza doesn’t have the item they’re looking for. Instead of having them get frustrated and type “amazon.com” into their URL bar, we now show them that they can get the best of Amazon and the best of Bonanza in one place. It’s the convenience factor.
Sellers are welcome to sell over there, if they can afford to pay 15%+ for their sales instead of 3.5%
Yes, I stand corrected. The Amazon postings are NOT on our listings.
But, buyers now have a much less chance of even seeing our listings because they’ll be running off to Amazon.
I would disagree. If Bonanza has many listings to show, then we don’t even show the Amazon listings. If Bonanza has few listings to show (like for video games), then we give the buyer the chance to quickly see where they can get the better deal. Given that Bonz sellers are paying 3.5% for transactions on site vs the 15% of Amazon, one hopes that we can beat them on price, and wallop them on the service-factor. The buyer will only leave if we can’t have a fair deal on what they’re looking for.
I believe that Amazon’s 15% fee includes Amazon payment source as well as listing fees. My average selling fees on Bonanza including payment sources is 13.5%, some sellers may be higher depending what they pay for Google ad words. Just saying..
When someone does a search for one of my books, say, “Libra by Don DeLillo” and my listing and 17 listings from Amazon show up, which also brings them to used listings that are much cheaper.
I believe that I’m going to lose a sale and Bonz is going to lose the commission.
Whereas if just my listing came up since I’m the only one selling it on Bonz, the buyer may go “this is what I’m looking for” and buy it. We know that some buyers will shop around. But, you have now given them a tool to find it elsewhere.
While I would never agree that sending traffic elsewhere is a good for the sellers here, what you are trying to convey to us might make a slight bit of sense if the amazon listings only came up when there were NO Bonanza options.
I really don’t believe that we lived in the walled garden some would like to think. With so many places to shop on the Internet, who would just accept a small handful of results without comparing what else is out there? Maybe in the early 2000s, but in this day and age, buyers are going to compare results whether we make it easy or hard. If we make it easy, then we build confidence that they can start their shopping at Bonanza, rather than starting at Amazon, where they won’t see Bonz results.
If we make it hard to compare, then they don’t come here in the first place after they find out that there was a better result they may have found if they didn’t visit Bonanza first.
Bill, I’ve always been a big Bonanza fan and cheerleader, going on nearly 4-1/2 years now. But this time I can’t pull out the pom poms.
Your statement that “Buyers only get directed to Amazon in the case where they would have left for Amazon anyway — cases where Bonanza doesn’t have the item they’re looking for. Instead of having them get frustrated and type “amazon.com” into their URL bar” is not necessarily true, especially for those of us who sell books. In my OC Mercantile booth books are one of my largest categories. So if someone comes here and searches for a particular book and I happen to be the only one who sells it, instead of making a sale they’ll see one of Amazon’s lowball 99 cent books or less and wham, there they go. I lose the sale because I chose not to devalue the book by selling it below cost.
Not so helpful to sellers.
We appreciate your pom poms, and loyalty for such a long time.
In this case, though, I think we are not giving buyers enough credit. They don’t have their heads in the sand. They know that Bonanza is not the only place that sells books. If we’re playing our cards right, we should not have to rely on isolationism to “trick” buyers into shopping here.
Instead of trying to pretend like there are no other buying options, shouldn’t we aspire to give them reasons to shop here because it is the best option? If we’re the best option, because of your service and prices (and our UI), then seeing the competition only reaffirms why a buyer should start their search on Bonanza.
The fact that your shop has been successful for as long as it has is a testament to the fact that you offer a great product at a great price. Create the best product, have confidence that you have the best product, and the repeat buyers will flock.
I am in Australia, so a lot of my items would not be on Amazon – or similar. They don’t want us as sellers – and we are unable to use Amazon payments here or there for payment – again because I am in Australia – so I have no idea how this helps me as a seller.
Question, last night I looked up a listing of mine. I used the keywords childrens unisex flip flops. Mine was the only one to come up. Granted, most moms and dads are not going to use the word unisex. There were roughly about 20 listings from Amazon that showed up as other choices. But those Amazon listings were not for true flip flops. Instead those listings were for “related” listings that had to do with flip flops, like a t-shirt with a picture of flip flops.
Why can we not have this going on for some of our own listings in a Bonanza search. For example, take my unisex flip flops listing and that being the only listing that comes up….why can’t other related listings come up that are right here on Bonanza?
PS: I just took another look in search using the same title as I did last night. We now have 3 more Bonanza listings besides mine coming up in a Bonanza search. Also, Amazon has got about 3 pairs coming up using this same title….but Amazon also has other “related” items coming up.
About Amazon, I have to admit that I was very concerned when seeing this. I still am. I’m really missing the side pictures that showed up on the right side of our listings, which was something to help in keeping buyers in our booth. Traffic being taken away concerns me….because I do care and it has been a whole lot of work over these last years to get buyers here. Being concerned is a natural reaction, especially with not knowing a thing about what was going on with Amazon at the time. Thank you for letting us know what this is about and maybe some modifications can be done? Amazon can be a real low bottom price killer when it comes to DVDs, CDs, and books….even though I know this is not the case all of the time.
I think it’s a fine idea for us to offer similar “related items,” and in fact it’s something that we have worked on quite a bit already in 2013. I’d love for us to be able to get smarter and smarter as we move forward and figure out when it’s most relevant to show Bonanza items that don’t match the query, vs. Amazon items that do exactly match it.
Also, really appreciate you giving us the benefit of the doubt for listening and adapting things as we figure out better and better ways to help buyers find what they need. We will indeed continue to look at the results we have and improve our relevance to help Bonz become a first destination for buyers.
Stay tuned!
I’m not sure I like this. Some of us have a Niche that no one else fills here on Bonanza. That makes us the go to guy or gal for that product or service. I don’t like being thrown into a larger pool of competition.
I’m sure there are other buyers like me who would have never clicked on a link from another selling venue, if an ad hadn’t popped up when I was looking somewhere else.
Rather than promoting Amazon, Couldn’t you fill the empty space with other items from Bonanza?
Hey princess,
As per my response to TipTop, YES we can and should (and will) continue to look for ways to promote Bonanza items to fill the space when we don’t have enough search results to make for a good response set. But I also don’t want us to pretend like we live in a world where Bonanza is the only choice. If we want to truly earn buyer loyalty and become a go-to destination, we need to be able to prove to buyers that we have the best products & service, even when we have few results. If we ignore the reality that there is more than one or two items of a certain sort, we lose not only the sale (which we would have lost anyway) but also the buyer’s trust (which is the much more important goal that we’re after)
Even though A comes before B in the alphabet – in our case B IS before A in it’s design, ingenuity, community, ease of use and fees.
As for the NEW Coupon feature – oh my goodness! I really think this will work to bring the NEW Member of Bonanza to COME BACK – leave feedback and do some more shopping with me and even the rest of our community of Sellers!
We’re really excited about it too! What makes us different than “A” is that we want to make the seller relevant, rather than hide from the buyer who it is that they are buying from (as Amazon tends to do). There are so many unique and awesome sellers, Bonanza should give them a platform to build their brand.
Hopefully this feature does even more to help buyers get to know their favorite seller, and buy from them over and over again.
I would like to add my cheesy comments. I see this as Bill does, not just because he is good looking but because to build a business any kind of business you have to observe where buyers and sellers come from and go to. I myself think it is a good idea to offer a potential buyer another venue if in fact the said item is low in numbers on Bonanza. I have a brick and mortor computer shop and yes we do tell customers which shop has what they are looking for many times if we know we can not get it in time or we know we can not get a decent price for them. It is the marketplace and how it works. Now tossing tomatoes at the cheese is not a good thing so please do not!
Smart business! That’s how loyal, repeat customers are earned.
I did some random searches for one of my booths. Although I used words directly from my titles, I didn’t get any listing for several searches. For two antique books, I got my items (one was the only one and the other had two results) and a whole bunch from Amazon, in direct competition. Most of my sales have come from web searches,where they have probably already seen results from Amazon. If they have then come into Bonanza to check my listing, why would I want them to see listings from Amazon again.
This sounds like something that would be great for us to track from support. If you are searching for words in your titles and your items aren’t showing up, that is a bug that we need to track down.
You’re forgetting the comfort and familiarity of the Amazon brand name. Amazon also offers rewards points. There are many reasons other than price that a buyer would choose to buy from Amazon over a relatively unknown Bonanza seller.
True, and yet buyers still choose to visit Bonanza first in some cases. It shows that buyers are smart enough to recognize the value of service and the benefits of buying from smaller sellers. So why not give them the information they need to feel confident that they’re making the right choice coming to Bonanza, rather than leaving them with a small result set that makes them feel like they need to leave the site and go search elsewhere to be certain that they’re really getting the best value.
I am often confused by things that bonanza does, and the latest changes and comments on the blog have added to my puzzlement.
A while back, you placed a header that shows above any listing that a new prospective buyer sees that says it is safe to buy with Amazon checkout and Paypal. I only accept Google Wallet, so if buyers see this, it’s a strike against me, but luckily I still get sales.
This banner also says you don’t have to register to buy on bonanza. “You need a new user account like you need a bee sting. No login required to buy here!”
But then in one of your replies above, you say “It is in the best interests of the sellers to help build Bonanza into a destination that buyers visit directly.”
But by not encouraging buyers to create a user account, you are defeating the purpose of making this a destination site, a site they will return to.
I use Amazon a lot for buying, because I have an account set up, it makes it so easy to return and purchase there. Last year, I purchased everything from a generator to furniture to household products, to toys for my church’s adopt a family at Christmas. What makes Amazon so successful, besides the vast amount of items, is the ease of use; with credit card on file, purchasing is a breeze.
After leaving eBay, I sold on OLA for a while. Very basic site, and it has never taken advantage of Google shopping in any way or form, past or present, which is one of the reasons I left there. My sales there came mainly through blogging on a team site blog and also from using oodle.com, both of which were extra work. But OLA did require buyers to register before making a purchase, and I know I had repeat buyers because of this.
It’s nice to offer gold members the ability to send coupons now, to try to keep buyers coming back. Not sure how this works, especially when a seller may have repeat buyers with different bonzbuyer identities, since they haven’t created an account. I think buyers should be encouraged to create an account. Creating an account on bonanza should not be compared to a bee sting! Creating an account and shopping on bonanza should be an easy and enjoyable experience, shouldn’t it?
I don’t think the Amazon search results will affect what I sell, which is vintage/antique/collectible items. That being said, I don’t like the wording “When we don’t have many items that match your query…” It sounds like bonanza is saying, “We are a puny site with not much to offer, so look on Amazon for what you want.”
When I shop on Amazon, there are usually links down at the bottom of the page that say they are Sponsored links and clearly separated from Amazon listings. Not so with the Amazon results on bonanza. The bonanza items should stand out more than the Amazon picks.
How did you decide to place Amazon results if there are less than 20 items found on bonanza? Twenty sounds like a pretty good return. Why not 10, or 5, or 2?
Some of the search results that come up from Amazon are confusing. A search for Anchor Hocking Wexford plates comes back with 7 items on bonanza, and one item from Amazon that is not the Wexford pattern.
In the example you used above, the Halo 4 Limited Edition video game, many of the Amazon results are not even for the Halo 4 Limited Edition game. Results shown include other games such as Halo 2, Call of Duty, and other items, such as wireless controls, etc. If I search for Halo 4 in the video game section on bonanza, 35 items come up; if I search just for Halo, there are 99 items! I don’t see how showing Amazon results benefits bonanza sellers. Showing similar Halo items listed for sale on bonanza would benefit sellers here, the bonanza sellers who are YOUR customers.
Also, last comment that is currently posted on the blog, comparing bonz sellers only paying 3.5% vs 15% on Amazon. If sellers are paying for Google ads, then they may be paying more than 3.5%. I know I paid 11-13% for items sold during the holiday season. Still a bit less than 15%, yes, but still a bit of a shock after paying 3.5% before. Can’t reduce prices too much when fees are higher because of Google Shopping.
Anyway, I think I have rambled on enough. It’s your site, and you have your perspective. I am sure there is a lot more in play here behind the scenes. Just wanted to give you a little of my perspective.
Thanks for sharing you perspective, we appreciate it. I don’t think I’ll be able to address all of your many points, but let me get to as many as I can:
WRT the user registration, I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive that we should want to make registration seamless and transparent, but we should also want people to come back afterwards. This is in fact exactly how our checkout is implemented: no registration is necessary, BUT if the buyer wants to come back later, we send them login information that, when used, can help them get access to more features and discounts than they could as an unregistered user. Hopefully the best of both worlds.
The reason we can’t advertise Google Checkout in our header is that they are indeed the only payment provider of the three that doens’t have a buyer satisfaction guarantee. To some buyers this matters, to some it doesn’t, but we can’t group it together with PP and Amazon in that regard.
Less than 20 results is where we are starting. We’ll be continuing to monitor the performance of these auxilary results and adjust if we see that a 10 item result set is enough to give a buyer confidence that they’re getting a good representation of the variety of items that exist. Also, as I mentioned to some of the comments above, we do plan to increasingly build technology that lets us showcase related Bonanza items when we don’t have many items that directly match the query that the user made.
I’m confused. You say that Bonz sellers are paying only 3.5 percent, but aren’t we paying more than that if we are in the pay-per-click Google program?
I would have to question how reliable it is that the Amazon search happens only when few listings are available on Bonz.
If you are a Bonz seller and you see that you’re about to list something that will be one of few such items listed here, with Amazon search being added, you might not list unless there are already a lot of same type of item listed. When you have items that are “out of the ordinary” it seems that there usually will be few of that type of listing on Bonz.
Also wondering if you’ve been able to buy any ads yet with the revenue being raised by the ads that were added to booths?
We’ve actually only had the item ads up for around 4-5 days total since we launched the program, so it hasn’t generated any revenue to speak of as yet. We want to ensure that these ads don’t affect the rankings of Bonanza results within Google or Google Shopping before we commit to them whole hog and start earning the money that we can channel into advertising. Once we prove that these ads don’t affect sales or rankings, the next step (the one we’re excited for) will be to go ad shopping
Bill, after sleeping on my thoughts about this venture you have going, I have come to the conclusion that,it doesn’t really matter what the sellers think of it. This is your site and you are doing what you feel is best. I know you won’t want to put this on the blog and I understand. I just wanted you to know that I do understand your side and why you have chosen to do it. I won’t cause any problems with this. I spoke too soon. Please accept my appologies.
Hey alli, we appreciate your willingness to work with us. That said, the opinions of our sellers matters very much (they’ve already compelled us to priotize looking into how we can get Bonanza related items showing more highly in search). We post blogs like this both to help educate our community on the thought process that goes into making a decision like this, and to get ideas that take the best of what we can think up, and what all of you can think up. It’s by working together that we always seem to make the best experience for all involved.
Bill, I’ve read this multiple times and am still trying to understand how this will benefit (not hurt) Bonz Sellers. But with all due respect; I can see where Sellers are concerned.
First a comment, followed by a question.
If a Bonz Seller has an item priced higher than the item listed on Amazon (not for the purpose of inflating their profit margin; rather make a decent profit margin while not undercutting themselves); of course, the Customer will choose Amazon, after comparing the two in Search.
Yes, we know that can happen anyway when a potential Buyer is doing a Search on the Net. However, within Bonz Search is entirely different, in my opinion. Many Sellers simply cannot compete with mass produced low priced items.
Sellers work hard to optimize their Listings for visibility. And many are having a difficult time making sales as it is; now in Bonz Search, they will be competing with mass produced items sold at rock bottom prices on Amazon (many Amazon Sellers can afford to sell at rock bottom prices; and there will be Bonz Sellers who simply cannot compete).
Amazon items appearing within Bonz Search (because of low search results for a particular item); I honestly can’t wrap my head around this concept. The Bonz Seller is struggling for visibility while at the same time, cannot afford to further reduce their item price in order to compete with Amazon.
Finally, my question. Does Bonanza still intend to partner with ebay (as they’ve been doing, publishing Listings for “Advertising” purposes)? Reason I ask; we know Amazon is ebay’s biggest competitor. Also, this Blog comes very shortly after ebay announced recent changes to their User Agreement.
I appreciate your consideration should you choose to comment. Thank you in advance.
Cheryl
I’m hoping that some of the responses we’ve posted since your comment was posted help to shed some light on how this benefits all parties involved. The short version: by showing buyers a snippet of what Amazon offers when we have few results, we instill confidence that they can shop here even when we return few items, and we earn loyalty because it shows that we’re working in the buyer’s best interests.
WRT partnering with eBay, we don’t have any plans to extend the partnership beyond where we are today (publishing items to eBay if the seller so desires). I think showing Amazon listings is a much better synergy than showing eBay items would be, because eBay listings tend to have a lot more overlap.
If the amazon items must be shown in search why show the prices without the shipping cost?? When our items show in search it shows both. I don’t think this is fair, people will click on the cheapest one and not knowing what the shipping charge is for amazon. The seller leaves goes to Amazon and does not want to try to find there way back to Bonanza. Yes you may get $$ for the click thru to Amazon but we as sellers lose a sale, this really makes no sense to me. The buyer will not see the “fair deal” as you stated without being able to see Amazons shipping fees. I do buy alot via Amazon when I cant find an item here, I get free shipping when buying $25 worth of DVD’s or Books (new) .. Why direct traffic to another site? Work on our sub catagories and maybe this will help our traffic (please)
Showing the shipping is a good idea, we’ll research the extend to which that is possible (since Amazon shipping varies per region, whether the user has prime, etc). The more we can make it apples-to-apples, the better.
Funny you should mention working on our categories since we have in fact been doing a ton of work lately to bring our categories and traits hierarchy more up-to-date. The more sellers we can get to sign up for these categories, the more we can give the buyer the sense that they are seeing variety+selection without looking elsewhere.
But I like living in a walled garden. It keeps trespassers out (that would be potential Amazon buyers).
Thank you Bill!!
I am on the happy side of this feature. I accept Amazon Payments and have had great success with the fly-bys from Amazon over the last several months. If someone does a search with your item, (very basic keywords) and the word Amazon, that Amazon doesn’t carry, it refers to Bonanza as available. Check this out with Amazon El Fin Half Reale & you will see the item in my booth. Nice!
I would feel better about it if you would install a button and let the shopper ASK to see comparisions from another site, instead of automatically doing it. That way I would feel like the customer was making the decision, and by all means, give the customer what they want.
But to do it automatically without being asked by the shopper feels too much like diverting our potential customers away from us. Honestly, I don’t have a problem with letting the customer use our search results to find stuff elsewhere, but I do have trouble with greeting them at the door with evidence of other deals elsewhere. Just a suggestion that feels a little better to me personally.
The Amazon links make sense to me, for all the reasons mentioned. However, I am bit nervous about an expansion to include “related” items because the taxonomic relationship among products often has nothing to do with the buyer’s actual agenda. If I am looking for a pickle fork, the appearance of salad bowls and butter knives will be more of an annoyance than anything else. It would be better for the buyer to have the OPTION to “see related items.” Make sense?
Makes perfect sense. On the flip side, there could be a buyer who would benefit from seeing related items too. As Bill mentioned above, we will be monitoring this feature and fine tuning/adjusting so that it is working as intended.
If the idea is to get repeat, return buyers why would you offer the gold members only, the ability to offer coupons? Would think you would want every seller doing this.
All members have the ability to offer coupons to buyers. So that will not change. However we have added an enhanced way to offer coupons to buyers for Gold and Platinum members. When creating a coupon, gold members will see a checkbox that says “send this coupon as a gift to sellers who leave feedback”
If a gold member has a coupon in their booth with that checkbox checked: when a buyer leaves positive feedback for an item they bought, the buyer will automatically be sent the coupon. So it is an additional way to promote your business.
Watching all this with interest- my postings tend to get disallowed- I don’t think our items will be strongly affected by this because we tend to be lower than our competitors- but I’ve been in business for a long time and never recall a time when it was advisable to send your customers elsewhere-
ok Cheesy comment one more time if I may. I ask every buyer where they found me. I get maybe 10 percent from the twitter and facebook ads I put in. 90 percent come from google search. I guess everyone should do a survey when making a sale and see if the Amazon idea is really that bad. If I have only 3 widgets and they are the wrong color, it is nothing but good business to offer the buyer another venue to find them if I am unable to do so.
I have to agree with a lot of the other people on here. This is not a good option. When you go in walmart and shop or any other store they dont have there price listed and underneath it say you can get it cheaper at Target. Dont see any good that can come of this for sellers over here on Bonanza.
This reminds me of the scene out of Miracle on 34th Street where Santa sends someone to the competition because Macy’s did not have an item. Hope it works out for all here
@toys I dont see it as telling them to go to lets say Target. It is giving a buyer an option to see even more items because Bonz did not have a lot of that certain item.
Hmmmm…. a couple of thoughts…. One, I guess maybe we should move our items elsewhere when there are less than 20 of them on the site, and maybe you are trying to get rid of these so called commodities from Bonanza?
My next thought is that maybe people will think that Bonanza is somehow connected with Amazon, like a sister company or something. If I were a stranger to the site, that’s probably what I would think, and then I’d feel more comfortable to continue to look around Bonanza since I know Amazon already. So, I guess it could help to keep people here too. Maybe.
Indy, I think so also but it is our own choice to agree or not. As I said before, we only rent here, we do not own the site so I guess we are not the ones to make final decisions. I plan to just watch views and sales and if they change for the worse then I will rethink my plan of action.
I realize this is a done deal and understand if you choose not to print this. But I’d like to add something if
I may.
I guess I could understand this if a particular Bonz Search Query pulled up Zero items. Then, sure; direct the potential Buyer to Amazon.
But if there are even 1 or 2 (or any number under 20) existing items available for purchase right here on Bonz, the Bonz Seller/s at least have a chance of making that sale, rather than gaining the potential of losing the sale to Amazon.
Only time will tell if this is a good idea or not.
My opinion is that this latest move will reduce already low traffic and exposure to our sellers and items. I hope I am proved wrong but I don’t think I will be. At the end of the day, time will tell if we are making more or less $$$ – and if less than I think many of us will be moving elsewhere. If this happens then Bonz will be generating less revenue from the Amazon clicks because there will be less items listed on the site. That will just perpetuate a downward cycle all around.
Personally I agree with a previous comment made here that it would have been more beneficial if Bonanza had improved it’s listing traits. I sell mostly vintage jewelery, I am often frustrated when I list an item that the item traits and or categories do not include many of the traits that should be there, such as colors, sizes, etc. etc. and I end up having to leave many of the traits blank – which probably results in no traffic to my booth for that and many other items that cannot be listed completely or accurately. Categories is another avenue that needs to be improved upon.
I would have liked to have seen these problems addressed before throwing in the towel and sending what few potential customers we get and direcing them over to a competitor website.
I have almost 1,000 items listed in my booth, I barely ever get any visits to my items, my last sale was in January. Yet I am able to sell my items on other websites with no problem and now find that I visit Bonanza to constantly delete items that have sold elsewhere.
I say problems should have been fixed within THIS website first.
Thank you for your feedback. We just completed our category and trait update today (Blog forthcoming), so what you see is the latest greatest. We do have an automatic trait tool that will add your suggested trait immediately to your item. Just type the trait into the trait field. If one does not exist then you have have the option to immediately add it.
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