JCK Show Announces Extended Dates and Enhanced Features

By JCK Staff
Posted on January 7, 2011

As JCK Las Vegas 2011 finds its new home at Mandalay Bay this June, attendees can expect extended show days, new exhibitors, and new product focus areas, JCK Events announced Jan. 6.

The show will feature a redesigned show floor organized by product category to aid buyers in efficiently shopping the JCK show floor. More than 80 percent of the floor will occupy product location “destinations” with the introduction of silver, bridal, fashion jewelry, and pearls.

A growing number of new exhibitors have signed up for this year’s show, including Temple St. Clair, Rio Tinto Diamonds, Lagos, Alex Sepkus, and Breitling (at Swiss Watch at JCK), among others.

In addition, extended dates for LUXURY, Equipment Technology & Supplies, and AGTA will allow additional opportunities for buyers to source key areas of the show floor. LUXURY, typically a three-day event, will expand to seven: May 31–June 6 (May 31–June 2 by invitation only). AGTA will run June 2–7, and Equipment, Technology & Supplies runs June 3–7.

We're Back & We Found Poop In The Sandbox, Again

As far back as I can remember, it has been said in various ways that we shouldn't poop in our sandbox or a sandbox that we frequent. Even an animal will not poop in their bed. You likely know the old saying - you made your bed, now you have to lie in it. The same holds true for sandboxes.

Well, some reading this will say that I am pooping in a sandbox I frequent but that is not the case. What I am going to do in the next several posts is to out some of those who are doing the pooping and point out some of the poop that is just so deep, it can't escape being written about.

We have been gone awhile do to a recent move and health issues so the following will not necessarily be in the proper chronological order, date wise of the event, but I will try to include when it happened in the posts.

Please remember, when your sandbox or one you frequent is being polluted and no one is doing any poop scooping or they scoop in a discriminating way, it is not wrong to warn others to be aware of the poop so they can try not to get any on their shoes. I, for one, can not remain quiet any longer.

And by the way, Bonanza thinks that they can gain buyer trust with logos from PayPal, VeriSign, Truste and etc. Well, until they clean up the riff raff on the site and run the forums consistently without prejudice, trust will be an issue. Logos do not instill trust. A well run site with honest sellers who list items as what they are (not what they are not) is what it takes. The site needs to build trust in the usual way, not off the backs of other websites. Those are some examples of removing the poop.

We Will No Longer Post On The Bonanza Forums

Due to an incident on 11-04-10, we have had enough. Seems that Bonanza wants their members to think that they are able to express themselves but that is clearly not the case.

Here is a post from Bonanza forums written by Mark that states, in part:

"Hey everyone,

Each day one of the first things that we do is browse the forums to get a sense of how the community is doing, what is new, how everyone is, etc. The past couple of days we have seen a couple of posters that stated that they were “afraid to post” or “hesitant to discuss sensitive matters” in the forums for fear of being DMV’d (Disemvoweled, suspended, etc, see definitions below). So that everyone in the community is clear, that is not how we roll. We totally want you to talk, discuss, and have constructive conversations and carry on as you always have. The idea that we do not want you to disagree or the be “only cheery” is not true and not realistic. That being said, we are very intent on having one of the most friendliest and empowering communities online, which we are. Does that mean that you cannot disagree with someone? Not even. Bill and I disagree all the time (mostly about Racquetball rules and the best Nachos in Seattle). But when you do disagree (on Bonanza), you need to disagree constructively and in a professional manner. We want to make sure that we are fostering a community that is welcoming to all, buyers and sellers, because lets face it, there is enough dreariness in this world to go around."

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/4/topics/136442

We got disemvoweled and a forum violation on page four in this thread:

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/9/topics/138465?page=4

If you don't like clicking on links, you can click on the below screenshot to enlarge it to see the missing vowels:

This is what was written before the disemvoweling:

>>Why does the Rush banner show up in my booth? We hope that Rushes are going to become one of the differentiating features of Bonanza — so we don’t want these to be an event that is buried where it won’t be seen. We will be closely monitoring if and how the Rush announcement affects buying behavior, but given how many buyers visit from search and click away after one page, we figure it can’t be a bad thing to give them a second place to glance at if the original item they came to see didn’t meet their buying criteria.

And of course, any buyer, whether logged in or not, can hide the Rush notification with a single click.<<

If Bonz is going to leave that banner in our booth and take no consideration that we work hard to bring buyers to OUR booth (our time and effort with no help from Bonz to bring them to our booth) then we will NOT be renewing our premiere membership.

Bonz has no right to put that banner in our booth to take our customers out of our booth. We don't want our visitors/buyers seeing that banner in our booth! We can NOT hide that banner from our visitors/buyers by clicking anything.

We don't want that banner in our booth and nothing is going to change our opinion.

To keep taking away our control of our booths and business is wrong on every level.

Bummin' more and more about the so-called upgrades of the site because they are not considering what is best for the sellers but seem to be only concerned about bells, whistles and taking more choices away from the sellers.

I am sorry - I thought the Rush could be a great opportunity for Bonz and the sellers but if the above statement is the case, that means Rushs will only be good for some sellers at the expense of the rest of us sellers.

Here is a screen shot of the post to prove the above is what was written. Please click on the graphic to enlarge it:

After we got the violation email we sent this to support:

Just thought I'd say how childish that was to violate me and DMV me for my opinion on Bonz destroying our businesses with their bells and whistles.

It's ok, I won't post in your stupid forums no more but you can bet my blog will be busy being filled with posts this weekend when I have more time...

And just for the record, I won't DMV Bonz management but don't be surprised if I call out any spin you may post.

I am angry that you are taking our businesses out from under us and you should have expected some of us would speak out.... But of course, you probably did and kept that nasty violation button hot and ready.

Have a great night!
---

Then Mark waits 3 days to respond with:

Mark, Nov 07 23:21 (PST):

Really sorry for any trouble in the forums. We really enjoy having you in the community and sincerely appreciate your support in the forums. We hope that you reconsider your position and that we see you participating soon.

Regards,
Mark
The Bonanza Team
---

Who the heck is he kidding? Why would anyone post just to have him or other Bonz management humiliate them in the forums?

This wasn't the first time they slapped me/us around in the forums but you can bet your bottom dollar that it won't happen again.

Those forums are a joke.
The rules they use are a bigger joke.
Their rule enforcement is not consistent and causes further issues. (If you aren't a favorite with management, you best look out!)

Just simply stated, the post that Mark made that states we shouldn't be hesitant to post in the forums is a bold faced lie! We know all too well - how they "roll," as Mark put it.

Some forum members have not only been told that "Bonanza may not be right for them" (basically a suggestion to leave the site) due to issues they have had in the forums and others have been threatened in private emails. We can promise you, you can not speak freely there.

Things have gotten even worse than ever before since Bonanza got the money from the investors. It seems that any member is now expendable. We are not needed.

If you use Bonanza forums, be aware that you may find trouble lurking for you.

For those that don't know, what we write on our blogs can also get us into trouble with Bonanza management. If they happen to read anything negative about them or the site, sometimes they respond in a manner that is not so kind. Yes friends, Hitler and his cohorts may have been reincarnated so please be careful.

Unprofessional, Irresponsible Post By Bonanza Management In Their "Roundtable Questions"

Management of a venue with forums should lead by example. Whatever the site rules are, management should be the first to follow those rules. Horseplay and/or "testing" (whatever they want to call it) should not be done where potential buyers may see it when they visit the site. The first impression is what buyers remember and when something questionable or unprofessional is seen, buyers will notice. Many will run fast and furious from a site that appears less than business-like.

Bonanza's rules regarding the use of the roundtable question area states, in part:

Bonanza's Roundtable is a place you can get general questions about items answered from the community. Any user can ask a question, and any user can post an answer. Keep in mind when answering that accuracy counts; the community votes for the best answer. If your response gets the most votes, Bonanza's system remembers you as an excellent reference for a particular category of items. As a trusted resource, your response will get priority over others when a similar question arises.

The rest of the info about roundtable questions can be found at:
http://www.bonanza.com/site_help/general/roundtable?layout=&title=What+are+%27Roundtable+Questions%3F%27

Bonanza also states in their forum rules, in part, the following which believe is to somewhat govern the whole site:

•Other conduct unbecoming a good community member: expressing polictical or religious viewpoints, asking for donations, using foul language, engaging in threads of adult nature (drugs, drinking, etc.), threatening to talk to lawyers or file lawsuits, stalking, booth chat hijacking, starting topics about topics that have been reclassified, unnecessarily assuming the worst in others or Bonanza, spam.

The forum guidelines can be found here:
http://www.bonanza.com/site_help/general/forum_rules?layout=&title=What+are+the+forum+rules+and+guidelines%3F

Bonanza's own, Mark Dorsey posted a roundtable question on December 22, 2010, that should not have ever been posted. It was fairly early in the evening and remaining up to read for several hours, during prime shopping time. This should not have been posted at all - Not by Bonanza members - Not by management - Not by anyone!

We figured that the post and subsequent posts would not last long because someone with some sense was bound to see what was going and complain so we took the following screenshots so we had proof of what was said. Click the below graphics below to enlarge them.


There you have it. Bonanza management talking about drinking as if it was to be expected of Bonanza members and visitors through the holiday season. What was he thinking?

Here are some of the responses to Mark's roundtable question - click on the graphics to enlarge them:






Mark sent an apology and an explanation to at least one person for his irresponsible post to the roundtable. Mark said:

"The roundtable had been stagnant for over a week and I was trying to think of something to post just to test to make sure it was working properly."

While we don't believe that excuse, we have to give him credit for admitting that he made an error in judgment and aplogizing.
---

And if that wasn't enough, 2 days later, someone brought up the above mentioned roundtable question in their own roundtable question. Click the graphics below to enlarge them.


The above new post to the roundtable didn't last too awfully long but it should not have happened and was caused by the unprofessional behavior in the original post.

Forum Guideline Implementation Inconsistencies Create Issues Amongst Bonanza Users

There has not been a time that we can remember that one of the threads which originated from us has ever been allowed to stay in the forums. For whatever reason, they have been sent to drama and deleted shortly after, just simply deleted and now with the new Bonanza management toy, threads that we have started have ended up in purgatory. Bonanza purgatory is where a thread does not get deleted or moved to drama but it is set in limbo where only those that have bookmarked it can find it again. You can still post to it if you can find it but it does not show up on the people page of the forums.

Well, one time we confronted Mark at Bonanza support and here is what he said as to why one thread went to purgatory:

I can understand how you may think that you are being targeted, as I know there have been a couple of posts from you that were taken off of the front page rotation. Let me explain why, that will help so that in the future you can continue to post such topics but word them differently so they do not wind up the same fate.

Using your title as a first example:

"Threatening OBO Message -Is it necessary & in sellers/sites best interest?"

It is a very strongly worded title that may invoke drama, which we try to steer clear of. Instead, try wording it something like this:

"I think we should word the OBO message differently, what do you think?

The second title is more inviting of constructive feedback and is less likely to be cast off of the home page.

If you have a quick look at the description of the OP, you will also see words that are inviting of drama:

"so Bay-like"

"so what!"

"why the threatening message?"

"nasty message."

Your posts are very strong and opinionated. They serve only to fire people up and invite dramatic responses. We are not unreasonable and have always responded to constructive feedback from all. But it needs to be constructive and not delivered so strongly so that it delivers the wrong message to us and also invites dramatic posts from others.

Hope this helps you understand the process. Just in case, here are some links to our guidelines that will also assist:

http://www.bonanzle.com/site_help/general/topic_tags?layout=&title=What+are+the+forum+topic+tags%3F

http://www.bonanzle.com/site_help/general/forum_rules?layout=&title=What+are+the+forum+rules+and+guidelines%3F

http://www.bonanzle.com/site_help/general/disemvowel?layout=&title=What+does+it+mean+to+become+%22disemvoweled%3F%22
---
Funny how as adults, we are being told what to write and how to express it. After all, we are not smart enough to get our message across without censorship and or coaching.

We don't know when it happened or why but the thread eventually was completely removed:
http://www.bonanza.com/forums/1/topics/127219?page=1

Oh, and here is another thread that we started only to have it land in purgatory without an explanation:

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/1/topics/124288?page=1

When questioned, all Mark said was:

"The post is still live and can be seen by all. Thank you for your support of our community and for the helpful information you are providing.

Regards,
Mark
The Bonanzle Team"

That was so untrue! It was only able to be seen by those who saved the link.

And one time, I got a message from Mark, can't find it right now but I know I have it somewhere, where he stated that the message I was trying to convey in a post I had made is one similar to posts that they have seen posted by others that led to discord, or something like that, so he removed a post that I had made. (The post I had written was not causing any issues but because someone at some other time had posted a "similar" post that caused a stink, mine had to go!)

---

Then when you look at the forum guidelines, they state in part:

•Other conduct unbecoming a good community member: expressing polictical or religious viewpoints, asking for donations, using foul language, engaging in threads of adult nature (drugs, drinking, etc.), threatening to talk to lawyers or file lawsuits, stalking, booth chat hijacking, starting topics about topics that have been reclassified, unnecessarily assuming the worst in others or Bonanza, spam.

http://www.bonanza.com/site_help/general/forum_rules?layout=&title=What+are+the+forum+rules+and+guidelines%3F

There have been posts on this blog where we have talked about how Bonanza management have favorite members on the site and that those members are treated differently than others. That's not saying anything bad about these particular members because management is making the choice to treat those members better than others.

Anyway, with all that I have said above, I can not for the life of me understand why this post is still on the forums! It was started in drama but threads get obliterated there also. So what gives?

Here is the thread: http://www.bonanza.com/forums/10/topics/146141

The thread is bringing up a topic that has been reclassified which is against forum policies;

And the thread is talking about religion which is agaist forum policies.

Besides that, people have been a bit snippy in that thread and yet it remains.

Why the favortism? Who knows but it is clearly obvious on Bonanza, no one can ever convince me otherwise.

What else is funny about this, since this drama thread has started, the prayer request threads have popped up quite a bit and no one is doing anything to enforce the forum policies. Funny how that works!

What I don't get is Bonanza is a selling venue. These kinds of threads offering support or whatever can be done on any of tons of sites that are available on the internet for that sole purpose. There are private emails, Bonz emails (Bmail,) there is a chatbox in each sellers booth and there are QT's. So why does this kind of thing show up in a selling venues forums?

Some say get rid of Christmas, Easter and etc if they enforce the religious policy. That would be silly because while many people associate those holidays with religion, many others do not. In all honesty, those titles are so commercial that the true name of the holidays and meanings of them have been lost for the most part.

But back to the message of this post, it does matter who you are on Bonanza when it comes to posting in the forums.

Bonanza.com Blatantly Diverts Traffic Away From Sellers Booths

Without any consideration for sellers feelings, Bonanza placed a huge banner on their booth to the sites new Bonanza Rush's, effectively creating a diversion to potential buyers who may visit a particular sellers booth.

At first, the banner in each individual booth was as big as the banner on the home page. Click the graphic to enlarge the screenshot:

Many sellers complained on the Bonanza blog and in one instance, where we asked to have the banner removed from our booth, we were told they would look into. Once again, to enlarge the screenshots below, click on each of them.


Then a short while later, Bonanza founder, Bill Harding wrote the following post:

When I saw what Bill wrote, which was completely contrary to the message Alex wrote on the blog, I was miffed.

The reasoning for these ridiculous banners in our booth is not as stated but we believe it is because they are not going to advertise the rushes BUT they are going to suck off sellers efforts at promoting their booth to draw buyers into their booths. Rather than advertising outside of Facebook, Twitter and emails (which go to a great number of people that are already Bonz members and know about the Rushs,) they are forcing sellers to do the work for them indirectly.

Bill's post was a page before I got disemvoweled on the same thread:

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/9/topics/138465?page=3

At some point, Bonanza did finally reduce the size of the leaching banner but it is still in every sellers booth, just waiting for one of the buyers that that seller worked so hard to draw in to click on that thing and be pulled away from that sellers listings.

Seems to me that Bonanza is forgetting that many sellers left eBay because they were being told how to run their businesses and their choices of how or what was going on with their stores and/or listings were being taken away.

Just how long does Bonanza think they can continue on this course of - do what we want / to hell with the sellers and their thoughts and feelings - before they start leaving Bonz for places that value and respect them?

PayPal Gets Free Advertising On Bonanza Sellers Listings

Crazy at it may seem, sellers at Bonanza were forced to give up prime real estate on their product listings without an ounce of choice in the matter.

Bonanza decided on their own without any consideration to how their sellers may feel about adding a badge on their listings to simply add a badge but even worse, there is a link to learn more about using Paypal on Bonanza.

Here is what it looks like. You can click the graphic to enlarge the screenshot we took:

Here is the link to the learn more part of the PayPal banner - http://www.bonanza.com/site_help/offers/pp_buyer_protection?layout=false&title=Paypal+Buyer+Protection

In the infomation provided at the above link, Bonanza is USING PayPal's buyer protection in an attempt to instill buyer trust BUT they are diverting trust from all Bonanza sellers, especially those who do not accept PayPal with the following statement:

Purchases made with PayPal as the payment method. Purchases made through Google Checkout or with a money order or other payment method won't be covered.

Nothing like using the sellers listings to promote PayPal for free and then throw a large majority of sellers (some who have paid Bonanza memberships) under the bus.

If Bonanza was truly interested in buyer trust, they would market the Bonanza name broadly - TV, radio, newspaper, magazines and etc so that buyers know that it is not interested in being a fly by night site.

Instead, they are running on the coat tails of PayPal's buyer protection program.

Why doesn't Bonanza do the same thing with Google Checkout? They too have a buyer protection program. Why make one payment service sound so much better over the other when they both provid excellent buyer protection? It can be found here: http://checkout.google.com/support/?hl=en

It makes us think that they are getting some kind of kickback for advertising PayPal. We can't think of any reason Bonanza would give up such a highly visible space on sellers listings and risk angering sellers doing so without something inticing them to do so.

Here is what Bonanza sellers had to say about the PayPal badge:

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/1/topics/140746

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/1/topics/140753

At some point along the way, Bonanza made that huge badge an option and sellers were eventually able to turn the thing off.

Use Caution Buying Jewelry On Bonanza.com

We feel a bit bad about not posting this sooner, especially since the Christmas shopping season is over but we hope it will still help those who buy or intend to buy jewelry on Bonanza.com.

As we wrote in a September 2010 post - http://thereevesreport.blogspot.com/2010/09/everything-that-glitters-gold-is-it.html - there are issues on Bonanza with sellers misrepresenting their jewelry products as being gold when they are gold plate or other lesser valued jewelry.

We reported to Bonanza management about a seller. They must have gotten ahold of the seller and said something because the listing titles were changed a bit but for the worse. Seems the titles were shortened up to look even more like the items are really karated gold.

So, we reported the situation and demanded something be done, pointed out the issues and etc.

We got this note back from support:

Mark, Sep 23 10:49 (PDT):

We have addressed this. Additionally, this seller has 100% feedback and has always shown a willingness to do the right thing. So while we can understand your concerns, we would encourage you to let Bonanza handle the situation as we have always done.

Thanks,
Mark
The Bonanza Team
---

The buyer that contacted me about the seller in question also got a less than helpful response from support that was shared with us. It states (we took the buyers name out):

Hello,
I did check out her listings, her past practices, and sales. I also did some research on the gold-layering process, and she appears to be following the letter of the law when describing her jewelry. I know that you didn't get what you thought you were buying, but I don't believe that the seller was intentionally deceptive about the items. However, I'm glad to hear that everything worked out for you with the refund.

Tom
The Bonanza Team
---

Okay, so we have allowed Bonanza to handle the situation but guess what? They haven't done a thing about the situation. The seller is still listing gold plated (so-called layered gold according to the seller) as if it is karated gold and on top of that, making comments about other sellers not being honest when they say their karated gold is solid karated gold.

Bonanza management is allowing sellers to list improperly and against the FTC rules, guidelines and laws that all jewelry sellers must follow. They know it, we have sent them the FTC information. There is no excuse for this to be happening except for the fact that Bonanza makes money each time there is a sale. I am sure that they are counting on buyers of this cheap jewelry will not notice in time to get their money back thus, Bonanza gets their cut even if the buyer got ripped off.

Before buying jewelry on Bonanza:
Know the product you intend to buy.
If you don't know the product well, research it with Google search.
Ask tons of questions.
Try to buy from sellers you know.
Make your purchase with a credit card so you have solid recourse if you get taken.

Here are some screenshots of the deception - click them to enlarge them so they are easier to read.

The insult to other gold jewelry sellers.

Untrue titles stating the items are karated gold.





Clearly deceptive listings!





This seller requires buyers of items that are not as described to return the item back to them on the buyers dime. I suppose to divert returns but a buyer should never have to pay postage to return an item that was sold deceptively.

Now remember, these are just examples of some of the deceptive listings by this seller. They have many more listings than are reported here.

Allowing this seller to list like this is unbelievable. Not only is it deceptive to buyers but it is unfair to sellers of true karated gold. After all, their prices can never be as low as those offered by this seller so this seller will likely get the sale before an ethical seller who lists their products properly.
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The other night, 12-30-10, we were snooping around Bonanza and saw someone Tweet (a paid tweeting service on the site) for a seller who had an 18K gold ring for sale. For whatever reason, we clicked on the link to open the listing only to find it was not 18K but it was 18K gold plated! So, this paid Tweeting service is spreading the deceptive listing all over Twitter BUT they don't even realize they are doing anything wrong.

To make matters worse, this same item turned up on a handpicked list that was on Bonanza's home page. We took a screenshot with the mouseover pop up showing how the ring was listed as 18K. Click the below screenshot to enlarge it.

The seller of this item must know very little about jewelry as an 18K gold ring would not be listed as "fashion jewelry" by a reputable jeweler.
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The sad part is, most sellers know that many buyers see a title, a picture they like and then make a purchase. Many do not completely read the listing so this kind of marketing is very effective.

Until this changes, please use caution purchasing jewelry on Bonanza.

With all of that said, you can find all of what the FTC says about jewelry and the proper way to mark and market it here: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/jewel-gd.shtm

The FTC also offers the following info about buying gold jewelry here:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/products/pro02.shtm

Not So Nice Hand Picked List On Bonanza's Home Page

The other night 12-31-10, I was snooping around and went to Bonanza's home page. I rarely, if ever, go there so imagine my surprise when I saw the following handpicked list inhabiting this prime real estate.

It is called, Find Your Woody Here.

Please click the below graphic to enlarge it.
It all seems innocent enough until you see the note about what the item in the right, lower corner says when you mouse over it. At first it appears to simply say My Woody with a picture but when you mouse over it, it says - My Woody Got Me A Lei. If you decide to click on the image instead of simply mouse over it and get the large version of the picture in the listing.

I don't know about you but I don't think that item should be on the home page of any selling venue that considers themselves to be family friendly. What must buyers think when they see that? Sure, some will think it is funny but many will not.

Just the term "woody" is bad enough since it means something sexual to some.

And to think that Bonanza management is responsible for picking the lists that hit the home page just blows me away! What were they thinking?! Don't they know that something like that on the home page may reflect badly on all sellers of the site?!Where was their common sense in choosing this HPL?

Bonanza Touts A Review That May Be Unintentionally Deceptive

On Bonanza's blog, they wrote and article dated Dec. 3, 2010 about a review they received by 'The Budget Fashionista'. You can see the blog post at http://www.bonanza.com/blog/main/Bags_Bonanza_Reviewed

While the author may have had good intentions, they obviously did not know about all of the fake bags that were reported to Bonanza management by members of The Purse Forum. They also must not have known about the mess with a Bonanza seller selling the same person to about 9 or 10 different buyers from The Purse Forum just a couple of weeks before the review was written.

Here is a link to a thread in The Purse Forum about the issue - http://forum.purseblog.com/ebay-forum/warning-bonanza-glitch-641492.html

If you are going to buy bags on Bonanza, know the product you are considering and if you are unsure, run the listing info past the members at The Purse Forum to see what their take is on the item, don't just make the purchase and find out later that you have been taken.

Yes, there are fakes on all sites but not all sites are as green at detecting them.

Since Bonanza upset the owners and members of The Purse Forum, it is even more difficult now for them to know which bags are fake as they counted on TPF to tell them which items were fake and needed to be removed.

Sales Up Across The Board For Ecommerce Businesses Except For Bonanza

All over the internet there are reports quoted by Comscore.com stating that online holiday sales rose 13% through December 26, reaching $30.81 billion.

Click the below link to read a complete AuctionBytes report on the topic:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y10/m12/i30/s04

All you have to do is Google for the information and thousands of reports say that this holdiay season was quite the success.

So why on Bonanza.com are there few sellers stating that sales were good or better than last year?

Here are some links on the topic from Bonanza forums:

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/4/topics/144497

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/1/topics/143797

We think that Bonanza changing their name at the end of September 2010 played a role in the lack of sales but more than that, the lack of advertising is probably the culprit.

Bonanza did absolutely no advertising but on Facebook, Twitter and their site newsletter BUT that advertising was far too late to help get the site name out there to help anyone this holiday shopping season.

Here is just one of the links from the Bonanza forum that show how their sellers felt about the late or lack of advertising:

http://www.bonanza.com/forums/1/topics/142810

Here is the late Bonanza newsletter which was emailed out 12-06-2010. By this time, most buyers had gotten much of their shopping done.

http://bonanza.cmail5.com/T/ViewEmail/r/A1A6ACEB85FF1638/57ED3B42B82DBC56D9767B6002735221

Also on December 06, 2010 - Bonanza was bragging on their site blog that they were mentioned in Lucky magazine. Well, since the mention was written in a way to draw more sellers to Bonanza, we question what there really was to brag about since what Bonanza needs is a stream of buyers, not sellers. This is not to mention that the magazine did not hit newsstands until AFTER the holiday shopping season.

Here's the link: http://www.bonanza.com/blog/main/Bonanza_in_Lucky_Magazine

What's really a sad note is that at least one top seller on Bonanza has been a seller of a Tweeting service to promote sellers booths instead of sellers with a physical product for sale (see the below graphic.) That says a lot about the lack of sales on the site!

Unless Bonanza gets serious about helping their sellers draw buyers to the site, it's hard to believe that things will be getting any better for sellers. From what Bonanza has said up to this point, paid advertising of any real value is not in their near future plans. Until Bonanza is a name that is recognized by shoppers, we believe that sales will continue to be dismal for most sellers.

It's not just the lack of holiday sales, all year long sellers scream about the lack of sales on Bonanza. Sellers can only do so much to draw buyers in - it is time for Bonanza to step up to the plate.

ClickTale Shows Where Consumers Go After Leaving Your Site

ClickTale is releasing their Drill Down Funnel today. Marketed to help brands understand where consumers go after they enter a website. This information could be helpful in improving landing pages, sales & advertising campaigns and product information to help keep visitors on site and to convert them into consumers.

How does ClickTale work?

ClickTale captures every mouse move, click, scroll and keystroke that a visitor makes inside a webpage, and then sends this information back to the ClickTale servers in a highly compressed package. Our servers take a snapshot of the webpage as experienced by the visitor, and combine it with the visitor actions to recreate the original browsing session. When you then login to your ClickTale account you can see your visitor recordings, visual heatmaps and other behavioral reports.

Will ClickTale affect visitors’ browsing experience or page loading times?

Website visitors don’t notice any difference in their browsing experience since ClickTale is optimized for minimal use of CPU and bandwidth resources. In addition: Only about 5K of highly compressed data per recording is sent back to our servers, which has no noticeable impact on site performance. The ClickTale tracking code is small and compressed, and is delivered via a Content Delivery Network that is extremely fast and reliable. Customers usually choose to record only a small fraction of their total traffic, and the extra load is not noticeable on the servers. The ClickTale code is loaded at the end of the page, and therefore does not affect page load times at all.

---

ClickTale offers several tutorials, click this link to view:

http://www.clicktale.com/resources/video_tutorials

About ClickTale (from their website):

ClickTale is the industry leader in Customer Experience Analytics (CEA), providing businesses with revolutionary insights into their customers’ online behavior. Over 50,000 businesses rely on ClickTale to optimize website performance, improve usability and dramatically increase conversion rates. ClickTale tracks every mouse move, click and scroll, creating playable videos of customers’ entire browsing sessions as well as powerful visual heatmaps and behavioral reports that perfectly complement traditional web analytics. As a fully hosted subscription service, ClickTale is cost-effective and quick to set up.

Company History
Founded in June 2006 by Dr. Tal Schwartz (CEO) and Arik Yavilevich (CTO), ClickTale is based in Ramat Gan, Israel and funded by leading venture capital firm YL Ventures and angel investors.

ClickTale has won much acclaim and has been written up in numerous media outlets. You can read some of the stories about us in the Media Mentions page. We are proud to have been named one of Red Herring's Top 100 Most Promising Companies in Europe, Middle East and Africa in 2008 as well as one of the 15 Hottest Israeli Internet Companies in 2008 by the California Israel Chamber of Commerce.

Civil suit charges Overstock with misrepresenting prices

A civil lawsuit filed in Superior Court of California in Alameda County yesterday charges Overstock.com Inc. with making “untrue and misleading” claims about its prices. The suit, which was filed by seven Northern California district attorneys, alleges that Overstock’s comparison prices, which the web retailer uses as a basis for setting discounts, are consistently inaccurate.

The suit states that since January 1, 2006, “Overstock routinely and systematically made untrue and misleading comparative advertising claims about the prices of its products.” The complaint charges that prices presented under the labels “List Price” and “Compare At (Overstock) Price” were not prevailing market prices and that Overstock “used various misleading measures to inflate the comparative prices, and thus artificially increase the discounts it claimed to be offering customers.”

The suit also charges that Overstock.com’s misleading pricing applied to “virtually every product listing” since January 2006, and seeks at least $15 million in fines and restitution for misleading pricing information published on Overstock.com.

To read the rest of the article, click HERE.

BBB Advises Online Shoppers This Holiday Season

The BBB is offering advice to holdiay shoppers. Actually, it's good advice to follow all of the time.

Protect your computer: Install a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Check for and install the latest updates.

Shop trustworthy websites: Look for the BBB seal and other widely-recognized "trustmarks" on retail websites. Click on the seals to confirm they're valid.

Protect personal information: Read a site's privacy policy and understand what personal information is being requested and how it will be used. If no policy is posted, that's a red flag that they may sell your information without your permission.

Beware of too-good-to-be-true deals: Offers on websites and in unsolicited e-mails may offer extremely low prices on hard-to-get items. There may be hidden costs - or your purchase may sign you up for a monthly charge. Look for and read the fine print.

Beware of phishing: Legitimate businesses do not send e-mails claiming problems with an order or account to lure the buyer into revealing financial information. If you receive such an e-mail, the BBB recommends picking up the phone and calling the contact number on the website where the purchase was made to confirm any problem with the transaction.

Confirm that your online purchase is secure: Look at the website address or URL in the box at the top of your browser screen. There should be an "s" after "http" or a lock symbol in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. If you have doubts about security, right-click anywhere on the page, and select "Properties" to see the real URL. The dialog box should say whether the site is encrypted.

Pay with a credit card: Under federal law, you can dispute the charges if you don't receive the item. Shoppers also have dispute rights if there are unauthorized charges on the card, and many card issuers have "zero liability" policies if someone steals your card number and uses it. Never wire money.

Keep documentation of your order: Save a copy of the confirmation page or e-mails confirming the order until you receive the item and are satisfied.

Check your credit card statements often: The BBB recommends that you check your account regularly for suspicious activity by going online or calling your credit card company. Make sure statements match up with purchases you know you made.

Know your rights: Federal law requires that orders made by phone, mail or online be shipped by the date promised, or within 30 days if no delivery time was stated. If goods aren't shipped on time, shoppers can cancel and demand a refund. Consumers also may reject merchandise if it is defective or if it was misrepresented.

Boocoo Auctions Institutes Site Fees

New site, Boocoo was free since opening up in Beta. Things have changed and it appears that the fees they have in place are rather high for a new, unproven site.

According to the site:

Boocoo auctions charges a required final value fee of 6%. This means if you post an item for sale and find a buyer your fee is 6% of the final price, including handling. There are no required listing fees and no fees for bidders/buyers.

The 6% final value fee applies only to the first $1,000. If you sell an item for over $1,000 you pay 6% of $1,000, and everything above that is pure profit, with no fee!

Beginning November 1st boocoo will also charge for some optional listing enhancements (Bold, Highlighted, and Category Featured). We’re adding these charges based on customer feedback. It was brought to our attention that too many listings were enhanced because it’s free - in some categories it was difficult to find normal listings! Give you an example, of roughly 7,900 listings in ‘collectibles’ 7,400 were “category featured” you finally reached “all listings” on page 298. Here’s one more, on the first 3 pages of ‘Antiques’ only 3 listings were not using bold titles. It’s truly a case of free destroying the value.

Here’s how we’re going to transition: on November 1 we’ll remove the enhancements from all listings, the next time you list or relist an item you will have to add the optional enhancements if you want them, otherwise continue listing for free and pay only if you sell. This should be good for everyone; Sellers will be able to draw attention to special items and we’re still in no danger of moving up any tax brackets.

All listing enhancements are optional:

Bold - 50 cents
Highlight Listing - 75 cents
Category Featured - $2.00

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We are registered on Boocoo but have never listed anything. With these fees, it is highly unlikely that we ever will.

What's All The Buzz About Addoway?

Everyone we have talked to lately is talking about moving or at least spreading their inventory out to Addoway. Some very long time, loyal sellers of various sites have been talking about Addoway and encouraging other sellers to join them on the site. So, we just had to go snooping to see what we could see.

It appears to be a rather well put together site. We decided to check out the press info. There it states:

Addoway is an online marketplace for all things fashion, collectibles and much, much more. Our mission is to bring the next generation of "social commerce" to the masses, where shoppers can buy from their friends and the merchants they trust. While other notable marketplaces use stranger's experiences to create reputation, Addoway integrates directly with Facebook, giving users recommendations to reputable sellers through people they already know.

Addoway recommends independent merchants that friends have purchased from in the past, merchants that friends know personally and others who are upfront about their identity and reputation.

Shop for everything from designer clothing and jewelry to unique crafts and collectibles, all at up to 70% off!

---

That last paragraph turns us off since we are not interested in selling on a site that offers that kind of discount. It gives the impression of a bargain basement or a site that was intitially overpriced just to offer such discounts.

We looked further at the press info and it states:

FREE online storefront with built-in marketing, inventory and order management tools;

Listing importing from eBay and Etsy - List new items in seconds or import inventory from eBay and Etsy. Even sync inventory so you never run out of stock on Addoway;

Social Marketing - Grow your business using our automated Social Marketing tools and Referral Incentives to keep the buyers coming back.

Plus free distribution to the most popular product search portals reaching millions of shoppers - Bing, Google Shopping, Oodle, The Find and Shop Wiki.

There are no fees to sell and it takes seconds to sign up.

---

We went to the area on their site - what users are saying - and found some familiar sellers (several from Bonanza and some from Etsy and eBay). It is always interesting when sellers who have been loyal to other marketplaces show up on newer sites. It's a bit of a sign that the site may have potential and/or a disenchantment with the site(s) that they had previously been so loyal to.

---

We checked out the "Share and Save" link. It states:

What are Addo Bucks?

Addo Bucks is a special currency you can earn on Addoway for sharing with your friends. Every Addoway member is given 25 Addo Bucks to start with, and can earn Addo Bucks for referring friends, submitting new listings, placing orders, rating sellers and more. Addo Bucks can be redeemed for discounts on Addoway purchases, Prizes & Rewards and more.

---

Finally, I clicked on the "Sell" tab:

This is where they offer sellers to become "Pro members" for $8.95 a month or $75 per year. Not too bad compared to other sites. Even on Bonanza, another "free" marketplace, their paid memberships start at $10 up to $24 per month plus final value fees.

You can check out the Pro Member features at http://www.addoway.com/promembership

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All in all, it appears to be a very clean and efficient site with an experienced staff. It will be fun to watch how the site does over the next few years.

eCrater Expands Sevices To The UK

eCrater has launched their online selling venue in the UK, http://www.ecrater.co.uk .

A post by eCrater adminisitration in the eCrater forums (we believe authored by Dimitri) on 11-04-2010 states:

As you all probably know we recently announced that we launched a UK version of our marketplace.

http://www.ecrater.co.uk

If you would like to list your products in the new marketplace:

1) you must maintain prices on both USD and GBP
2) you must ship to United Kingdom

We encourage all US merchants to start selling in GBP as well which will bring more buyers to their stores. The main advantage is that your products will be listed in both our US and UK marketplaces. They will also be posted to both Google Product Search and Google Product Search UK. In addition all merchants will receive their own store under the ecrater.co.uk domain.

It is very easy to convert your prices to GBP. One can use the global editor to do this. Select "set UK price", choose "Price in USD" as base, choose the * operator and fill out the user value: 0.624 (1 USD = 0.624 GBP)

Please note that your prices in USD will remain unaffected, the operation merely adds prices in GBP as well.

If you want to get rid of the GBP prices then just use the global editor and select action "set UK price" and select operator "delete"

To set the shipping rates to UK please fill out the shipping matrix rates for United Kingdom. If you already use the USPS calculator you don't have to do anything because we convert the shipping rates to GBP automatically.

Please note that fixed shipping rates are not available for shipping to the UK at this time. Only the fixed rates for US-Mainland, Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada will convert to GBP automatically.

There is also an option called "Enable GBP currency" in the Options menu. This will add another price field in the following pages: add products, edit product and copy product. It will also enable you to fill out the Google Checkout UK merchant ID and key in the Payment Options menu.

US and UK stores will share the same name, just the domain will be different so no need to reserve a name if you already have a store with eCRATER.

It is currently not possible to have a UK store without a US store.

If the conversion rate considerably changes, the prices can be easily updated with the global editor. However in reality this will happen rarely because USD is a stable currency.

If offline payments are accepted in the US store, these will display and be accepted in the UK store. At this time, these can't be removed from just the UK store. However these may change in future.

To sell only part of the items in the UK store, set the price in GBP for only the items that are to be sold in the UK store. This can be done in both global-editor and add product menu. If the item has a price in GBP you will see it in ecrater.co.uk. If the item does not have a price in GBP, the item will be only available in ecrater.com

If you want to accept Google Checkout in your UK store you need a bank account in GBP and then you have to sign up for Google Checkout UK. The bank account in British pound is requirement of Google Checkout.

If you want to set up Google Analytics for your UK store please fill out the "UK Google Analytics ID" in menu options. To get the UK analytics ID you need to add your UK store URL in Google Analytics first.

Did You Get Permission To Do That?

When a site wishes to integrate with another site, there are usually talks between the sites and permissions to be granted before such an activity takes place.

Seems that there has been an issue of not asking permission to ask ThePurseForum's members for their log in information - including their TPF password at Bags.Bonanza.com.

ThePurseForum put up a banner across their forum, below their header but above where you can read the threads for those Bonanza users who also use ThePurseForum. Bonanza is the parent company of Bags.Bonanza.com. Below is a copy of the banner (click it to enlarge it.)

Vlad & Megs of ThePurseForum acted quickly when they found Bags.Bonanza.com presenting its users with an option on their profile page to verify their PurseForum membership by providing Bonanza with their PurseForum username and password.

According to Vlad's original post, "This function on Bags.Bonanza.com is not authorized, sanctioned or supported by the PurseForum, its parent company and its owners."

Read more here: http://forum.purseblog.com/ebay-forum/attn-bonanza-users-635298.html

Below is a graphic of the link that users were seeing and the form where users would input their information.

Click the graphic to enlarge.They also advised their members about internet security in general.

Vlad & Megs are looking out for their members and the integrity of their site.
--

Bill Harding, the founder of Bonanza, posted this into ThePurseForum alert thread in post 64 of the thread:

"Hey all,

So exciting to see our name in lights, if not under the exact circumstances I would have chosen! :)

Given the tremendous overlap between TPF users and Bonanza users, we had hoped that increased integration between the sites could provide a win-win where we sent new traffic and new registrations to TPF, and our TPF users could get to re-meet each other on our site.

That said, we certainly understand if Vlad would rather not incorporate such functionality at this time, so we've taken down the site linker until such time that we are told Vlad is cool with it coming back into existence (if ever).

For the record, we never save users' password or sensitive information on our system longer than absolutely necessary. Like our imports from other sites, we have safeguards in place to ensure that all personal information is encrypted while we have it, and purged from our servers as soon as we have verified an established identity.

Our plan is to continue to build the most functionality and widest inventory of bags available online, at prices far lower for sellers than other marketplaces. We have already personally reached out to the big V&M to offer to discuss whether this functionality would be beneficial to our sites' mutual users. And we plan to continue to have a presence on tPf to the extent we're able.

Bill Harding
CEO
Bonanza.com"
--
Then, in response to some PurseForum members questions in post 75, he responded with:

"@AuntFlo: As pointed out by some others, tPf is not the first site that we let our users link their accounts to; generally speaking, we think that being able to connect accounts between the different sites you use is a useful idea for our mutual users. And we had hoped the traffic we hope to drive to tPf through the feature would make it a win-win. But again, we're fine taking the feature down, it certainly isn't a major aspect of the overall site, just a nicety we had hoped would make for a better experience.

@MissMollie: The tracking number showing up is an issue we only heard about recently; we will be looking into it today and it will likely be fixed by tomorrow.

@iluv: It's probably fairly clear at this point, but our primary rationale was user convenience. And the fact that we had already built out similar functionality to link with other sites meant that we already had the technology to temporarily store user info in a secure fashion. But we certainly don't want to step on toes for sites that aren't comfortable with such features, which is why we've taken it down.

Bill Harding
CEO
Bonanza"
--

It has always been a PurseForum rule that users can not have more than one user ID. Also, about a year ago, ThePurseForum decided not to allow company representatives to utilize their forums as means to interact with their customers. So, they "Sofa King Banned" Bill, Mark and Tom (of Bonanza) from using their site any longer.

While they were at it, they closed the Bonanzle/Bonanza thread where Bonanza staff would interact with their users. Bonanza was using information from the thread to detect conterfeit handbags and other designer items listed on Bonanza and their new handbag site.

Here is the link to that thread:

http://forum.purseblog.com/ebay-forum/bonanzle-fakes-421522.html

Now the question is, what kind of damage to Bonanza and their handbag site was caused by management simply doing what they wanted and not asking for the proper permissions first?

While we do not believe that Bonanza had any mailicious intentions, we applaud ThePurseForum staff for acting swiftly to protect their site and members.

More Unprofessional Antics At OLA

It is easy for people interested in shopping or selling on the internet to find out about the unsavory behaviors displayed by OLA administration - onlineauction.com - and/or its members.

One good place to check is on PSU. They have a whole section available to read more about OLA - click here to be enlightened.

You can also read through the list of Google search results about OLA "ripoffs" by clicking here.

And, more about onlineauction.com by clicking here and here.

The latest reported antic takes the cake. It is probably the craziest thing we have seen an online selling venue do.

Betty Lou, of seewhatimsellingnow, has reported that she cancelled her founding membership last spring to allow OLA time to do the necessary steps to cancel her account and not charge her credit card again (the final date of her membership would be 08-10). When she checked her account the other day, it stated that her account was not to expire until 08-11 which means they did not cancel her account. Betty Lou sent an email to support to make sure that her account was cancelled and to let them know not to charge her credit card again.

On 08-11-10, Betty Lou was going to check on her account and was greeted with this when trying to log into her account:

Click The Graphic To EnlargeAmazing!

Betty Lou never received an email response to her email about her membership but instead, found her link was changed to (or redirected to) a link to the above fake Internet Explorer page. Here's the link that her OLA log in was changed to: http://www.onlineauction.com/End.htm

What kind of site does this kind of thing?

So, Betty Lou has cancelled her credit card associated with her OLA account to ensure that they do not bill her card again. While that is a major inconvenience, we believe that she had no other choice due to the above response and the sites track record of charging credit cards of members who have previously cancelled their memberships.

If you want to read more about Betty Lou's story or other experiences of various people who have dealt with OLA, just go to the links above in this post. It's a lot to take in since some of OLA's members actually show their true colors in the PSU forums. Maybe you should have your coffee and a sack lunch with you as you start to read. lol

We do not recommend using OLA due to what we feel is unethical behavior of the site administration and some of their members. A serious seller should also protect the reputation of their business. As with anything, people might feel your reputation is not so hot if you hang out with others with questionable reputations. You know, the guilt by association thing. We give OLA 2 thumbs down. If we had more thumbs, they would all be down.

No Zing In Bling

Posted: Sep 30, 2010 08:40 AM by Eugene Bukoveczky



Fewer Now Saying It with Diamonds

Judging by the recent sales data emerging from the jewelry industry, it now appears that the persistence of tough times for a sizable swath of middle America is continuing to force many to forgo those small relatively inexpensive items of "bling" that would normally be a natural purchase for anyone in a relationship. And that trend appears to be taking its toll on a once thriving industry.

Sales Slump Still Hurting Zales

Among the major casualties of this spending slowdown on jewelry is Zales (NYSE:ZLC), a jewelry retailer who's business targeting the "middle" jewelry market continues to suffer due to a combination of shrinking overall demand and intensifying competition over what remains. While the company managed to pare back its losses from horrendous to slightly better than expected in its latest quarter, the company's same store sales, a key measure of retail health, continue to head lower.

New CEO Pulls Company Back from Brink

Coming up with a new strategy to turn sales around will no doubt be uppermost on the mind of newly installed Zales' CEO, Theo Killion. His move into the top executive's seat comes after a several months of holding the reins on an interim basis during which time he navigated the company through a funding crisis and kept alive a critical relationship with Citigroup (NYSE:C), who arranges the issuance of the retailer's branded credit card. Roughly 40% of Zale's U.S. sales are made using those cards.

Sales Slowdown Industry Wide

But while Killion's recent efforts may have pulled the company back from the brink, turning it into a profitable operation won't be easy. The slump in "mid-market" jewelry sales looks to be broad and deep. Rivals such as Signet Jewelers (NYSE:SIG) and Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF), whose overall sales numbers have been buoyed by recovery in sales to high-end customers, have nevertheless reported soft sales of lower priced items.

To read the rest of the article, click the below link:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/No-Zing-In-Bling...