Bonanza Wins EcommerceBytes Sellers Choice 2014

Bonanza: Celebrating success,
but still workin' like a dog!

Its been about 5 short years since Bonanza opened its doors to our very first customers. If you were around back then, you might have thought we were a little crazy. Why would this young and inexperienced upstart of a marketplace think they could go up against the massive, heavily-funded, heavily-entrenched incumbents like eBay and Amazon?

And you might have been right. It was brazen to think we could compete with the Big Boys, armed only with a handful of quaint principles like "relentless simplicity," "listen to your community," and "maximize value for your customers."

But here we are, so many years later, and still growing in bounds. It seems like the strategy is working.

Having said that, it's still nice to get external validation that we're building something that users love to use. That's why we're super thrilled about being voted #1 Overall Best Marketplace in this year's EcommerceBytes 2014 Sellers Choice survey!

Winner: #1 Best Marketplace, #1 Communication, #1 Recommend to a Friend

Over 12,000 sellers participated in this year's survey, and you made yourselves heard. You voted Bonanza as the top overall marketplace, "Most Recommended" marketplace, and "Best Communication" amongst marketplaces. You also staked us to #2 finishes in "Ease of Use" and "Customer Support."

Thank you to everybody who participated! We're truly honored!

Upon hearing of this victory, we immediately contacted the City of Seattle to ask if they wanted to throw a parade. "Let's bill it as a 'Seahawks Victory Parade' just to get people to show up," we told them. It seems to have worked, with more than 50,000 expected to show up to the "Seahawks" parade this Wednesday. No word yet on the specifics of how we'll transition the parade from "Seahawks Victory" to "Bonanza Ecommercebytes Victory," but it'll work itself out, no doubt.

Following the parade, we'll have some serious work left to do. Since "Communication" is apparently "our thing," we wanted to communicate some of the lessons that we've taken from the feedback we heard in this survey.

Customer Service (#2 of 16)

We came in 2nd on Customer Service, a hair behind Amazon. We put a lot of importance behind great customer service, and we think that commitment shows. Late last year, our support tickets provider contacted Mark to try to understand how we are able to process so many tickets with such a high level of satisfaction. The answer is boring & predictactable: we listen. This listening has helped us figure out where we can cut out automated responses and how we can improve our help search (expect to see more on this in the next couple months). 

Ease of Use (#2 of 16)

We came in 2nd on Ease of Use, 0.8 points behind Etsy, those crafty old dogs. This has always been a strong category for us. We know that if a marketplace isn't super easy to use - and, dare we say, fun to use - then the act of buying or selling just becomes a chore. We've hired extra programmers and have amped up our QA initiative in 2014 to streamline some of the tools you use every day, as well as hammer down some of the technical glitches that respondents mentioned in the survey.

Profitability (#6 of 16)

Historically, this category has been an achilles heel for us. Compared to a self-hosted ecommerce solution, Bonanza has performed remarkably well for sellers at no upfront cost. But compared to the marketplace gorillas, who charge listing fees, 15%+ final value fees, and mandatory store fees, it has been difficult to match the level of traffic they can buy.  

We are on the cusp of some breakthroughs on this front. Already, our connections to Pricegrabber, Yahoo Shopping, and Nextag are driving buyers to our beta group of sellers (those with Titan memberships). We'll be expanding the advertising platform rapidly throughout 2014. TheFind will be online in the next few weeks, and laser-targeted email campaigns to give sellers' exposure will all drive traffic here in novel ways.

We are proud of the progress we've already made to get our sellers profitable. The reputation of our Google Shopping Feed technology was a top reason sellers joined Bonanza in 2013. But the $1m+ we're going to pour into advertising this year should continue to drive us in the right direction on this most critical metric.

For the Future

In short, we've still got work to do. But this is certainly a time to celebrate! We're very proud of what we've built, together with our amazing community of buyers and sellers. With your continued patronage and support, we'll continue to grow, improve, and most importantly, listen.

Thank you! Here's to a successful, profitable, and fun 2014!