Do's 'n Don'ts for an Effective Bonanza

"Bonanza? I thought this site was named Bonanzle."

Yea, it is. A Bonanza is what you can do on Bonanzle. Here's a brief description from the Bonanza topic page:  "What's a Bonanza? Only the greatest invention since the electric toothbrush. A Bonanzas is a brief (1-3 hour) sale on some or all of your items, where you wheel and deal (in real time, if the seller is logged in) to sell as many items as possible in the least time possible.

Setup a Bonanza and we'll drive as much customer traffic as we can (through the home page and buy page) to your booth for the period of time your Bonanza is running. It's the quickest way on the Internet to rid yourself of old iPods, handblown glass candleholders, and Gibson guitars. It's like holding a garage sale in Central Park on a July weekend."

So, a Bonanza can help market your items? Oh, yea! A Bonanza is a great sales tool for Bonanzle sellers, but just like any other sales tool, there are tips and tricks to using it effectively. Simply scheduling your Bonanza, sitting back and waiting for buyers to come is truly not the most effective way to ensure success. However, there are many things you can do to increase your chances for a successful Bonanza. Here are a few do's and don'ts for an effective Bonanza.

Don’t... schedule your bonanza in your booth settings too early. Why? Buyer mentality comes into play. Here’s the scenario: a potential buyer may be browsing your booth, and might see that “must have, can’t live without, must have it now” item. The sale is about to happen…YES! Then, the buyer sees that you have a Bonanza scheduled for Wednesday of next week. Of course, the potential buyer wants to wait and get the discount!  Two things can happen – (1) Wednesday comes along, the buyer is busy, doesn’t get to your booth during the Bonanza and you miss out on a possible sale. Basically, you lost out because the buyer didn’t click on the “Buy Now” button while he was in your Booth browsing.  (2)  Your seller sees the Bonanza and decides to wait until the sale where you have offered 40% off on that $100 item. Maybe you still make the sale, but if the item was reasonably priced, maybe it might have been purchased any other day of the week by somebody for $60.

Do... use people power. The Bonanzle Forums are a great way to market your sale. Starting a promotion thread in the Promote Your Booth section of the forums about 20 – 40 minutes or so before your Bonanza starts is a great way to get the word out to the Bonanzle community.

Don’t... miss your own Bonanza. With the hectic lives that everybody has these days, it would be understandable if you forgot your own Bonanza date. But, it would not be a good thing. You don't necessarily have to interact with everybody who enters your booth, but when a buyer has a question and asks it, they rather expect you to be there. You would not want to miss that great offer on one of your items, would you?

Do... market your Bonanza. How many email addresses do you have? Past clients from all of your selling venues, friends, family, etc provide you with a great marketing opportunity. Send out an email the night before or the morning of your Bonanza touting the wonderful items and awesome sale you are about to have. Include the date, time, and link to your booth. You may want to add a note at the bottom of the email allowing recipients to “opt out” of any future mailings. Change your email signature the evening before to include this information and a link to your booth. Ask them to forward your email to some of their friends.

Do... use Twitter effectively. Tweet your Bonanza an hour or so before it is to happen and ask your friends to “re-tweet” it for you. A great strategy is to team up with “twitter buddies” and have them wait about 20 minutes until they re-tweet, and keep going in that manner having other people re-tweet your sale for you. This way you can keep reaching a variety of people throughout the time period of your Bonanza. If you include “X% off” or “sale”, and you are following cheaptweet on twitter, it will pick up your tweet, and list it on the main cheaptweet page.

Put a notice as a listing in your Booth

Do... be in your booth ready and willing to answer questions, help with the checkout process, and give shipping quotes where needed. Be sure you have been through the checkout process yourself and understand it completely.

Once you are ready to have your own Bonanza, start by going to your My Bonanzle settings and clicking on Edit Bonanza (under Booth Management). From there, you can pick the items you want to place on sale (or pick your entire booth), pick a date/time, and pick a discount level to schedule your sale. Weekends are recommended, but you can pick any day of the week by entering the date directly into the calendar.

Be creative! Think of ways you can let others know you are having a sale. Think outside the box, and with just a little extra work, you can increase your chances immensely of having a profitable and fun Bonanza!

Submitted by Phaedra Stockstill (

Edited by Tom

Don't forget to check out the other BOP articles at www.bonanzle.com/bop