Bonanzle voted best eBay alternative, hits a million listings at 6 months

January 29, 3:25 AMAuctions and Antiques ExaminerWalt AuctionWally

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                             I say!

Whatever "it" is, it would appear that Bonanzle has it and it would seem the spunky start-from-nothing has been asked to the big show, as they say in Baseball talk.

I've weighed in several times about Bonanzle, once very early on, stating that I thought the sites' chances at success were very high.

Rather than pour it on, I'll leave that to a couple of  excerpts from other articles I've posted in blue later on the page. 

Before we get to those though, here are the reasons I think the company has passed the milestones it has in such a short time, and why I think it has a very bright future.

• The site has realtime chat rooms for each seller which encourages people to communicate live in a very unrestricted manner.
• The openness of the site, allows for  cross promotion, networking and a very fun,  friendly atmosphere. If you don't know something on Bonanzle, just ask and you'll have help in minutes.
• The fees to sell on the site are very reasonable, it's free to list, Bonanzle get's it's money when you make a sale. Those fees are among the lowest of any selling platform.
• It's super simple to post a listing, you can do it in 60 seconds. Really.
• The founders, Bill Harding and Mark Dorsey, have kept in close contact with it's community.
• It has made it's users feel respected and empowered, which has turned them into evangelists. That kind of momentum is  hard to stop.
• Bill and Mark do things that are unusual and very interesting to the buying and selling  community. The site is kind of wacky!  For example, the site does not have any kind of an auction format, yet I just held a REAL live online auction! It was very successful.
• Once you start buying and selling on the site, even if you wish to use other sites, there's really no need or incentive to stop using Bonanzle, which should mean a high percentage of user loyalty. 
• The site encourages and in many ways, demands that you run your business your  way.

If that sounds a bit like cheer leading from someone who has a vested interest in Bonanzle, maybe so, but I call 'em as I see 'em,  (I sell on Bonanzle, and host an online radio show called Brainstroming Bonanzle) and if you'll click here to check out this article, I wrote in Bonanzles' "Jurassic age of September 08, you'll see that I'm singing the same tune now as I did back them, and I gotta say, it's a pretty catchy song.

From the Bonanzle braggin board:

Bonanzle Voted Best eBay Alternative (again)

In what SmallBusinessComputing called "a runaway,"

Bonanzle was named the "Best eBay Alternative" of 2008. Now let's just hope that they don't get wind of the fact that Bonanzle didn't even exist for more than half of 2008..!

Big thanks to everyone that voted and told their friends to do the same. Beating out esteemed sites like Wigix, eCrater and even Etsy is a tremendous honor that ought to put Bonanzle on the radar of more buyers.

Bonanzle Hits 1m Items (repeatedly)

Well, folks, here we are. I still remember rooting around my tiny condo for electronics I didn't need, so I could post them to billabooth and inch Bonanzle's listing count closer to 1,000 items. I also distinctly remember the day, shortly after Mark came onboard, when he somehow convinced

Mooniebrn

to post her 1,000 stamps to the site, more than doubling our overall item count to 2,000 items. Thanks, Moonie!

But that isn't some long ago story of years past. That was half a year ago. From such modest beginnings, our sellers have done an [insert your incredulous adjective here] job of getting the word out about Bonanzle to their fellow sellers. In January, we've averaged anywhere from 10k-30k new items created per day, even with a strict duplicate item filter that can cut down a seller's inventory significantly when imported from other places.

Now, if everyone would make sure their items are on Google Base, then we'd reeeeally be cookin! :)

If you your a skeptic,  Bonanzle welcomes critics and anything goes in it's forums as long as you are not vulgar or threatening. There's even a special forum for heated threads that turn into quarrels.

Auctions on Bonanzle:

I just had my first REAL online auction on Bonanzle last Saturday where I called the bids live as folks bid in the chat room. I sold 17 for 17 lots and it was a blast!  The auction was a mix of antiques, collectibles, ad spots for my online radio shows and more. I was VERY happy with the results and will be posting a full essay on it soon.

I plan to run these no reserve, live, audio auctions on the first Saturday of every month and I hope you'll stop by to take a look at what's going on. Click here to find a page that explains it all.

I'll also be working with Bill and Mark to help devolop the REAL online auction idea so that other Bonanzlers can take advantage of it.

Thanks for reading,

AW 

Find out more about Bonanzle.com

Click here to find the Brainstorming Bonanzle Show

Click here to find  the

AuctionWally Show

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