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.