Forum

Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Anybody had success on other platforms like Rakuten or Bonanza?

In the range of $5,000+ per month?

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Have you?

Share what you have done too.

:boink:

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

In the past year or so I think I have only sold 2-3 items on Bonanza with well over 5,000 listed.

Rakuten has been a hair better and I only probably have 100 or so on there. I get maybe 1 a month on Rakuten. The problem with Rakuten is the quality of a lot of the product pages is bad and I figure it isn't worth my time to create better traffic for them especially when it doesn't just benefit me and will benefit all the sellers of that item.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

If you have listed 'well over 5,000 listed' on Bonanza and only sold 2-3 items looks like you have answered your own question, although there are a couple of other postings in this forum from people who have had more success on that platform which you will be able to see if you use the search box, nothing compares to ebay and Amazon for results though and that is a well proven fact

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

I may be an outlier but I have been able to sell a good amount on bonanza (about 300-350 items per month). I've done more on bonanza then I have ever done on eBay or my own site and the fees (including paying extra fees to google/Bing for advertising) is right around what I pay eBay in fees.

Consider increasing the amount you spend for advertising on bonanza which should help.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Traffic is slowly building but those sites are still very very slow for sales

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

that is truly amazing. good for you. I wasn't able to sell much on bonanza.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

I kind of was hesitant to spend more on advertising, just because I didn't want to compete with my listings on Google Shopping for example that I do with my website, but maybe it couldn't hurt.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

My sales are great. An inventory of 5,000+ items and that's all you sell? You really need to reevaluate your business. Buying @ssloads of items doesn't mean you will have instant sales if every single item you sell is worthless.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Wow trav that sounds like a great result from your Bonanza dealings, haven't read anything else on here of people being that successful, tell us a little more, maybe what area you sell in, gave never even visited that site myself because of poor results mentioned on here by others who have tried it

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

I'll post here what I've posted to others who message me I am by no means an expert on bonanza but this is what I've learned from MY personal experiences on the site.

If you're in a tough product market it will be tough. Almost all traffic comes from google shopping. I think one reason for my success has been that my items don't have too much competition on "Google/Bing shopping" consider that before using bonanza.

If you go to the "sell on bonanza" tap and click advertise items, the best way to sell is by doing "standard" advertising or even superior if your margins are good.

next click on feed diagnostics and make sure your items are being uploaded to google shopping in the countries you want to sell in (USA, UK) a couple of my friends who were selling weren't uploading products to google for some reason, which is a big issue obviously.

Last thing I would suggest is to make sure you upload a ton of items with a ton of pictures for every item (I have something like 600 items on my page after 3-4 months of adding consistently) the reason is that you want people drawn to your page and more items = more overall page views. Make sure your item descriptions are good as well, I've noticed that can sway buyers.

Most important is to get feedback. You can import feedback to your page from ebay which is huge, if you don't have ebay have a relative(s) pretend purchase items from you (have them buy it and just give them the money back in cash) and have them leave a nice review for you so you can at least get some feedback. People won't buy from you if you have little to no feedback.

I'm sorry I can't give more advice but I'm hoping this can help a few of you guys out.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Rakuten is the worrrrstttt. So clunky to list items. Just save yourself the headache. Batch uploading on there is an absolutely awful process. Seriously don't put yourself through it.

Unless you have a small amount of big priced niche items, its just not worth it. Same goes with Sears marketplace. Never tried Bonanaza though.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

It is the same stuff I do very well on with other platforms, so it isn't the products.

It could be how I am doing it though

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Rakuten is a Chinese website that might explain a lot about why it difficult to get things listed on it that are from the west, seems to have an owner who is similar to the guy who own ali express as well

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Again, Rakuten/Buy.com is Japanese and my sales are great there. I sell far less product variety than most too.

I have no problem with people hating it though. Stick to EB and AZ like the rest. I'll dominate every other site. Thanks.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Bonanza sales increasing slightly, BUt they are very very far from what you need.
Myself selling around 500+ items on EB a month and around 5 items Bonanza
Bonanza buyers 95% are from US while EB is worldwide

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Bonanza was ridiculously good for me. I was actually a top 3 seller on the entire site until things went awry late last year.

To give an idea, I was pulling in $1000-$5000 or 30-100 orders a DAY in sales in November and December.

I need to get back to that point with my new account.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Wow that's awesome! What happened to your account if you don't mind me asking. I've been doing pretty well there and I am hoping to avoid any kind of suspension.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

I had an issue with one of my suppliers uploading tracking but not shipping out items. Had a huge headache on my hands around Christmas time with customer complaints. An absolute nightmare!

Getting that many sales can be a double edged sword because for one person, it was a lot to handle. Just kind of exploded late November.

Anyway, looks like due to all the problems with customers not getting their stuff (I refunded them of course) I lost my eligibility to sell on their various other marketplaces.

I tried creating a new account and, even though none of my Bonanza accounts were suspended at the time, they all got linked and flushed down the toilet just like that.

I's a little difficult for me to go incognito when I was such a strong presence on the site, that somebody showing up and doing the same things is a dead giveaway regardless of account information. I'm trying to figured out how to recapture my now former glory on the site : (

Basically, the way things were going there was no need or even time for Ebay and/or Amazon.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

Were you selling in a specific category where there aren't many competitors and they can easily find you?

I ask because Bonan really doesn't care about spamming and in one of my categories there are dozens of sellers who post the same sh*t hundreds of times.

Unless you are selling cop.yright/trad.emarked products, there is almost no regulation. I'm surprised you can't list again just by changing the looks of your listings and descriptions a bit.

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

My category is pretty popular and not exactly obscure. It's just probably easy to spot some new account selling the same exact things. Of course I try and throw them some red herrings with irrelevant things too, but I'm sure it's harder to get lost in the shuffle as compared to say Ebay or Amazon.

My current account is active, but I have not seen nearly the same activity as last year. Reason being is because when I checked my google feed, it read something about the feed being suspended or something. Anyone know what that is all about? Is it on Google Shopping's end?

I am currently emailing a rep to get some answers.

Overall, I think Bonanza, if using the proper strategy, can be the best site of all. The limitations aren't nearly as strict and it allows for more innovative strategies that would fall flat on it's face on the aforementioned sites. I basically failed because things were TOO busy on there.

Trying to get back on the proverbial horse again...

Re: Success on other selling platforms like Bonanza & Rakuten?
 

I made 2419 transactions from October to basically December. Just shows it is an underrated site!