What The Heck is Bonanzle?
In recent years, the online selling field has virtually exploded with start-up ventures. Some years ago, if you wanted to sell online your choices were fairly limited. There were the giants, eBay and Amazon and a handful of niche markets for specialty sellers like antiques, but other than that, you were on your own.
Now, things are different and it seems every month brings another round of Davids ready to take on Goliath. The reasons for this are myriad, but the major one is the disenfranchisement of the small seller by eBay in recent years.
As an online seller, I have tried many of the various platforms with limited to no success. Bleu Moon’s Attic found Bonanzle in early December of 2008 and decided to give it a whirl, as we were ready to give up on eBay.
Bonanzle’s goal is to be the simplest marketplace online, with an upbeat community that makes buying and selling online fun again. ~ Bill Harding, Founder Bonanzle~
Bonanzle was started by a pair of entrepernuers from the Pacific Northwest, Bill Harding and Mark Dorsey. The project reportedly began in February of 2008, went into live beta mode in June 2008 and went into full swing in September 2008.
From these beginnings, they are currently at 45,000 members and over 1.5 million items listed.
Their ‘tagline’ is “everything but the ordinary” and we have certainly found that to be true!
Right away we noticed some major differences from some of the other so-called ‘eBay alternative’ sites we had tried and visited.
For one, this is a very straight forward, fixed price only venue. There are no listing fees, even 4 pictures are included for free, and the final value fees are structured in a readily understood formula. All sellers list their items in ‘booths’. An item remains listed until it either sells or is removed by the seller.
Sellers may take payment in pretty much any manner they chose to allow. Cash for local pick-up, which does not incur any final value fees for the seller! Money order, PayPal, Google Checkout, Revolution Money Exchange and more. The options are as varied as the sellers themselves.
Each seller’s booth has a ‘chat’ window. This basically combines the features of social networking via an interface similar to an instant messenger system with an online selling venue. It shows you if the seller is online at this time or not. Often you will find messages from sellers posted in their chat window, even if they aren’t there. Many times it will tell you about specials they have, such as a coupon code to enter for a discount at checkout! You can leave a message there for the seller if you have a question, or you can send them a message via Bonanzles internal email system, often referred to by members as Bmail, or you can send them a ‘quick-text’ message if they have that option enabled.
As you may be realizing about now, Bonanzle is all about ease of open communication between the buyer and seller. You can negotiate prices in real time and much, much more.
Of course, no modern online market place would be complete without a community forum and Bonanzle is no exception. The forums are populated with a lively and vibrant community of sellers & buyers and there is always something going on.
Another unique feature of Bonanzle is the ability to schedule and hold a Bonanza once a month. A Bonanza is basically a 1 to 3 hour virtual ‘garage sale’ with the seller putting some or all of their items on Sale at a discount they determine. A robot shows up and music plays, community members show up and a good ol’ yard party is on. A new community venture is ‘block Bonanza’s’ with groups of sellers scheduling concurrent Bonanzas and supporting each other.
Whether you are a buyer, a seller or a bit of both, I encourage you to stop in and check out Bonanzle. You’ll be glad you did, just check out what some of the press is saying.
Small Business Computing says:
The runaway winner in the eBay Alternative category is Bonanzle. This startup combines an easy listing process with cutting-edge features such as on-the-fly image cropping and live chat and an avid seller community. The founders are scaling up to meet increasing traffic, and we can only hope it continues to thrive. 02/2009
and from WebPro News:
While I have seen a lot of sites mentioned as possible alternatives to eBay. I have not seen any mentioned nearly as often as I have seen Bonanzle mentioned. 01/2009
So head over and check out what all the racket is about. And please! See what we have on special in the attic and leave a note on the wall for me!
Add A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.