Hello Bonanza Sellers,
We’ve heard your feedback regarding the recent adjustments to our fee structure, and we want to be transparent about the reasons behind these changes and how they are vital for the long-term health and growth of our marketplace, ultimately benefiting all sellers. We understand that any fee increase raises questions, and we appreciate you giving us the opportunity to explain.

Why the Fee Structure Changed

For over a decade, Bonanza’s core fee structure remained largely unchanged. In that same period, the cost and complexity of effectively advertising online to bring active shoppers to your listings have increased dramatically. As a platform, a significant part of our effort and expense goes into investing upfront to advertise your items across various online channels. However, maintaining fee levels that were set over ten years ago meant our ability to effectively compete for shopper attention in today’s environment diminished. This directly impacted our capacity to drive traffic and maximize sales potential for the entire marketplace.
This necessary adjustment to our percentage fees allows us to make a significantly greater investment in advertising and platform improvements, ensuring we can actively work to bring more engaged buyers to Bonanza and, in turn, to your booths. We remain committed to being an affordable and seller-friendly alternative compared to other major marketplaces, and even with these changes, we are still positioned competitively to offer great value.

Introducing a Nominal Listing Fee

In addition to adjusting our percentage fees, we are also introducing a nominal listing fee. There are significant operational costs involved in hosting all of the listing data, images, and managing every item in the marketplace database, regardless of whether it sells. We found that for years, we have been incurring substantial costs hosting items that were not leading to sales.
Implementing a listing fee helps cover these essential operational costs associated with storing and managing listings. This is crucial because it allows us to better utilize the revenue generated from Final Value Fees specifically for what they are [URL removed] investing in advertising and platform features that bring in more traffic and ultimately drive sales for you.
We understand these changes require adjustment, but we believe these are necessary steps working together to ensure a vibrant, growing, and effective marketplace where sellers have a better opportunity to reach motivated buyers.

Common Questions & Clear Answers

We’ve heard some common questions from the community regarding recent updates to fees, listing management, and imports. We want to provide clear answers to help you manage your booth effectively and feel confident selling on Bonanza.

Regarding Listing Status and [URL removed]

A frequent question is about what happens when you use “Vacation Mode” or manually set listings to “Reserved” status. When you put your booth in Vacation Mode, all your listings are automatically set to “Reserved.” Similarly, you can manually change the status of individual listings to “Reserved” at any time.
The key thing to remember is that only items listed with a “For Sale” status are charged the listing fee. Items set to “Reserved” are not charged. This applies whether they were set to Reserved via Vacation Mode or manually.

About Advertising [URL removed]

If you are currently utilizing the higher 19% or 30% advertising levels, rest assured that you will not automatically be dropped down to 11%. We will continue to offer these higher levels for sellers who wish to invest in additional promotion. The change moving the base level to 11% is simply to help cover the rising costs of advertising across all channels.
The 11% advertising level will include all the same advertising channels that are currently available to sellers at the 9% level.

Understanding the Active Listing [URL removed]

You asked when the active listing fee is charged and how it appears on your bill. This fee is calculated on the 1st of each month for any items that were active (“For Sale” status) at any point during the previous month.
[URL removed] The active listing fee is capped at $20 per month, regardless of how many items you have listed. This ensures that sellers with larger inventories can continue to list their full catalog without excessive fees.
It is not charged like a separate, automatic membership fee. Instead, it is added directly to your current balance due, just like Final Value Fees (FVF) are.
Good news! Yes, you can use your tokens to help pay for the active listing fee.
You can read more about billing on Bonanza [URL removed] All About Billing On Bonanza

Tips for eBay/Amazon [URL removed]

We know managing your listings is important. Currently, there isn’t a feature to limit the number of listings imported from eBay or Amazon or to select specific listings during the initial import process itself. The importer will pull all eligible items.
However, you have control over whether imported items immediately go live in your booth. By default, they post for sale automatically. If you prefer to review them first, you can update your import settings. On the “Selling > Import from eBay” page, look for “eBay import settings,” click “Show more import options,” and change the setting for when items are posted for sale to require manual approval.
If you find items in your booth after importing that you don’t wish to sell on Bonanza, we recommend setting them to the “Reserved” status instead of deleting them. This not only keeps them hidden from buyers but also prevents them from being identified as “new” items and potentially re-importing repeatedly.