If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
About a year ago, I set up a booth on Bonanza.com.
I import my eBay items to it almost every week so the new items that I listed will be added and the items that have sold on eBay will be deleted.
In the last year, I have sold exactly 24 items on bonanza. An average of 2 items per month
I’m grateful for these sales, the lower final value fees on this site, and the fact that there’s no listing fees. I can’t help but feel that I have the potential to make more sales on this site, especially since I have an average over 900 items on any given day.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to do to get more sales on this site. I’ve been told to “play” with the site a little bit.
So, I started adding favorite sellers and favorite items. I’ve also been making “Hand Picked Lists” of items. This increased my traffic a little bit. After creating my first hand picked list, I sold an item on the site the next day, so I thought I’d try to make more lists and play with the site a little more.
In the mean time, I got an email from Twitter telling me that they missed me……apparently I hadn’t logged in there in awhile, so when I had a few minutes later that week, I logged in. I saw several tweets from my friend
Brieanna of items for sale on bonanza. I asked her if she tweets everything that she lists on Bonanza.
She said that some of them are her listings, but that people also pay her to tweet for them. Hmmm………I wasn’t sure how that would work, so I thought about it for awhile and then talked to her again.
She said that she would stop by my
Bonanza booth and tweet a few of my listings so I could see how what it did for my site views.
She tweeted six items for me that weekend. When I logged in on Monday, I could see that my views were much higher for the tweeted items. Exposure was up, but no sales.
Oh well, it didn’t hurt anything to try, right?
The next morning, I woke up to find a $117 sale purchased and paid for on Bonanza!!!! Someone had stopped by and purchased four items.
I was HOOKED!!!
I logged in and favorited some more items. I made another hand picked list and tweeted a few of my items on my own Twitter account. I emailed Brieanna and asked her if she had any room in her schedule to tweet for me.
The next afternoon………..another Bonanza sale!!!!
I’ve made more money on Bonanza this week, than I’ve made in the last six months. I didn’t spend an extra cent on new inventory, just spent a little bit of time promoting my current items.
In my conversation with Brienna, I found out that tweeting your Bonanza inventory is essential because sites like eBay send your listings to Google for you, so while you can promote your eBay listings yourself, promoting your items from sites that don’t do as much promotion for you is where you should spend more of your effort. Also, the fees are lower on Bonanza, so you might as well encourage buyers to buy from you there
I’ve learned a lot about using Bonanza and Twitter successfully from Brienna, she’s been a HUGE help.
I purchased Twitter advertising from her the next day. I chose for her to tweet 5 of my Bonanza items on her Twitter account for a week.
The cost is extremely affordable. She has over 44,000 followers on Twitter (whew………) and a lot of her tweets get re-tweeted. While she can’t guarantee that you will get sales from tweeting your Bonanza items, she can promise that your links will be exposed to her enormous Twitter audience.
Not only does she know what she’s doing on Twitter, she also knows what she’s doing on Bonanza, Brieanna has a Bonanza.com badge in her booth for her 500th bonanza sale (that’s right, 500 sales!)
I’ll keep you posted on what happens from this week’s Twitter exposure of my Bonanza items…….finger’s crossed……..I’m optimistic that it’s going to be a GREAT week!
Tags: bonanza, cross promoting, etc), facebook, increasing sales, online sales, promoting online business, promoting your listings, selling on bonanza, selling online, Social Media (Twitter, social networking, Working At Home
The short answer is yes of course you should.
The more lengthy answer is it depends.
Blogs are another tool in promoting your business and can be a great way to share your story.
The best blogs I’ve read from online sellers are a nice mix of personal life and business. I don’t care to read a blog that only posts items for sale.
I also don’t care for blogs that only post photos of their children. I know we all think our babies are the best and the cutest and the smartest (and they are!) but everyone else doesn’t want to see every thing your child does every day. Please don’t post photos of dirty food faces and tantrum throwing children all the time!
A well placed personal story or photo is appropriate although you may want to establish boundaries for what you will share online with your business contacts.
Feel free to share a tutorial, a recipe, a link to something you enjoyed, or your thoughts for the day. Mix in the items you are selling and information about your business and you’ve got an easy way to put a more personal spin on your business.
To Start a Blog:
1. Think of a name that represents you or your business well.
2. Sign up for a free account at Wordpress or Blogger. Both of my blogs happen to be domains that I paid for. I didn’t start out paying for a blog and it’s not necessary to buy a domain unless you have a specific need to do so.
3. Start posting and sharing your link.
4. Realize that building a blog takes time and promotion. Share your links, leave comments on other blogs, put a link in your email signature…
5. Choose how many times a week you will post and establish a routine.
6. Remember copyright rules. Don’t copy a post from someone else–instead post a link and send people to the author’s blog or article.
Stealing photos is a big no no too.
7. Find blogging help online. Blogging Basics 101 is one of my favorites.
If you already blog, please share your blog in a comment. If you decide to start one someday, please come back and leave a comment then.
