I just quit Bonanza

[treetop]

I joined last September, and since then have had 25 sales.  Thanks to advice received here from Highendbuys, I have my items set up that I have to approve purchases before a buyer can buy an item (to make sure the item hasn't already sold on eBay).  On Monday morning, a buyer ordered 4 items.  I made sure the items were in stock, I deleted them from eBay and went into Bonanza and adjusted the invoice to give a shipping discount.  But when I tried to approve the sale and send the invoice, I kept getting an error message.  Unless you have a paid subscription, you can't call Bonanza, so I sent an email.  They say they will respond within 24 hours, but they didn't.  I emailed again.  No response.  Emailed again...no response.  I put a message on their FB page.  They responded that they would look into it.  I got an email with a synopsis of the problem and that they were looking into it.  Another 30 hours passed, by now it was Friday night, still no resolution.  I closed my account.  I had hoped they would be my Plan B, but they ended up just making eBay look a whole helluvalot better. 

[jellybeanscloset412]

Thanks for the warning. I was wondering how they work and now I see they don't!

[Pantlandia]

Unfortunately, they had a chance to actually be decent and they blew it. I don't know the specifics, but I've read it in their forums. I have been on there with many different items. I've sold like 3 things.

[val2525]

I think what hurt is when they got the venture capital and didn't do any advertising.

Do they even do web advertising? I see click ads for Tradesy all the time.

[val2525]

Did Bonanza do away with their forum?

[treetop]

They do have a forum. I never really participated there.

[val2525]

I found it, but it's pretty lame. Appears they completely revamped their forums in 2013 and removed the most useful parts. Figures.

[frakinfashion]

I sell something there once in a blue moon. I don't even check it much anymore.

[staytuned]

I sold over 500 items the first 2 years (mid-2010 to mid-2012). I forget exactly the reason(s), but they blew it big time pissing off their biggest cheerleaders. I was livid when they revamped and not only destroyed what was a happy, supportive forum, but I had over 1000 items that I had to go through item by item to re-do specifics and sometimes had to re-do the re-do 3 times before it took. Then they took out shipping options like padded flat rate (or even flat rate) envelope. Then they decided to sort of join ebay to transfer items so once again screwed up item specifics and categories. I went from decent sales per month to nada along with many sellers who's sales went right in the toilet. Worst part, seems like nobody there cares anymore, especially if you search and if there aren't enough items listed, the space is filled with Amazon listings.
Shame, they could have easily been the new "old" ebay. I only have around 40 items and will probably shut down my booth by end of year since I haven't had a sale in 1 1/2 years.

[treetop]

My potential buyer sent me a message a couple days ago asking if I could just invoice her and she could buy directly, but she didn't send her email address. I replied with the eBay auction numbers for the items and she ended up buying them through eBay. Way to go, Bonanza.

[staytuned]

I've had items listed on Bonanza for over 2 years that, as soon as I said the heck with it, I raised the price, listed on ebay and sold stuff. One was a rare Harry Potter watch I jacked up the price $50 for the fun of it on FP and it sold 15 minutes after I listed and buyer was thrilled.

*Thud* I just sold something. First sale since early 2014.