Bonanzle: An exciting eBay alternative
Its traffic chart on Alexa shows a 182% increase over the last three months and looks like the trajectory of an aircraft taking off, an image that would excite the most jaded seller. It’s got a rabid, extremely loyal core of sellers, and it gets great coverage in both the press and social media networks. So is Bonanzle the eBay killer we have been clamouring for?
Bonanzle lists ten and a half reasons why you should take your business there, and we’ve analysed each and every one to see whether they deliver!
- See one item, see ‘em all. Bonanzle says buyers can see up to eight other items prominently featured when they click into a listing. This is inaccurate. Bonanzle actually cross-promotes 10 of your items, giving the visitor more opportunities to make a purchase (or perhaps even two!).
- Offers on your terms. Bonanzle allows users to communicate directly to sellers to haggle terms and prices. This social-networking paradigm departs from eBay’s auction model, and encourages a more community-centric feel to the Bonanzle experience. There is an internal messaging facility so that buyers can chat with sellers when they are online, and the system now interfaces with external messaging platforms such as Gmail Chat, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN. This demonstrates Bonanzle’s understanding that commerce is a social activity, and buyers and sellers ought to be able to communicate with each other freely and directly. It’s a new paradigm, and sellers used to eBay’s “big brother” administration may still be getting used to the idea.
- Cheap, cheap, cheap! Bonanzle charges absolutely nothing for starting up a booth and listing items and they collect only a tiny commission on sales. If I sold at shirt for $30 Buy it Now on eBay, I’d end up paying $3.95 in fees. But if I sold that same shirt for $30 on Bonanzle I’d pay just $1 in fees. That’s a pretty significant saving!
- Importers. You can easily import your items from eBay and Craigslist. No-brainer here!
- Price Guesser. This tool means you’ll never make listing price mistakes again. When adding items to your booth, you can use it to grab product descriptions and the prices of three similar items on Amazon.
- Picture Cropper. Another time-saving device, the built-in image cropper lets you edit photos on the fly to speed up your listings. It’s a simple tool that offers a simple, specific benefit. But its impact is significant enough to have some users wondering why no one else thought of this before.
- Go from “want it” to “possess it” in minutes. A small but significant innovation is that sellers can specify pick-up times in their listings to add more certainty to the transaction process.
- The miraculous one page, one minute item post. The listing process is easy to use, painless, and the output is clean, easy to read, easy to navigate, and visually appealing. And when you’re done, you get all the standard niceties like online chat thrown in, without any added cost or effort.
- Chat while shopping. The internal chat system means it’s absolutely impossible not to build relationships with your buyers. As one blogger puts it, the difference between Bonanzle and eBay is that on eBay, customers purchase items from eBay. On Bonanzle, buyers buy directly from you!
- Bonanza! This is the online equivalent of big sale events used by traditional bricks-and-mortar shops to generate buzz and traffic. Bonanzle understands the hype value of a good old fashioned sale and made it a prominent feature in its ecommerce platform.
Here’s the half point: Simple is beautiful! Bonanzle has worked hard to keep everything simple and transparent. Sellers definitely appreciate this, as it allows them to focus on selling, rather than on having to deal with complex issues that have nothing to do with their business.
There’s a reason Bonanzle is experiencing tremendous growth. Well, ten and a half reasons, actually. But it all boils down to a simple business model that promotes communication and builds trust among members, a simple interface that’s easy on the eyes and even easier to use, tools that make simple things even easier, and reasonable rates. So far, people are happy – and it shows.
