Leveling the playing field for your brand

Today we're excited to be launching a new feature that will empower small seller brands to compete on the same playing field as the big guys.  In this blog, we'll be referring to "brands" specifically in the context of who created/manufacturer the product in question.

As part of Bonanza's new product catalog (aka "kaleidoguide"), we have been inventorying every brand that exists across our 5 million products past and present.  We now have catalog pages for tens of thousands of different brands, with customer ratings in place for more and more brands every day.  

Who does this update matter for?

Any merchant who creates their own products (i.e., handmade vendors) or those who have created their own supply chain to get products created on their behalf (i.e., many of our custom t-shirt sellers) can benefit from building their own brand identity.  The benefits of owning a brand will no longer be limited to corporations with factories and warehouses.  What are those benefits?  Glad you asked.

Benefits of building a brand

• Build a reputation for quality that leads to positive customer reviews, higher sellthrough, and more sales
• Get customers hooked on your brand, charge a premium price for your product 
• Opportunity for positive word of mouth as your buyers talk to their friends about your brand
• Can offer your brand on multiple selling platforms and have it universally recognized 

In many ways, the benefits of building a reputation for your brand are similar to the benefits of building a reputation for your store.  But whereas a store is usually constained to just a single marketplace, a brand can span many marketplaces and add value to all of them.  Look at what you're wearing right now and it's probably an assortment of brands you will purchase again and again... whether from their own store or from a third party merchant.  Having a popular, respected brand is the most powerful means to grow your business into a juggernaut.

Setting up your brand gets you listed in Bonanza's kaleidoguide (product catalog), with equal billing alongside the mega-brands

How do I setup my brand on Bonanza?  Where does it show up?

There is now a link from the left side of "My Bonanza" to "Manage seller brand."  Clicking this link allows you to either setup your brand or disable it.  Disabling a brand will hide the link from the side of the "My Bonanza" page.  Setting up your brand allows you to upload a logo for your brand, give us the name for it brand, and give buyers a taste of what your brand is, where it comes from, what inspires it, etc. (in the brand description). 

After setting up your brand, you can also specify which categories your brand's items fall into.  We will then use this information to match up your Bonanza inventory to your brand identity, so when buyers browse kaleidoguide, they'll see your brand, its items, and whatever reviews customers have left for it.  Note that it may take several days for our catalog processor to fully map your items into the appropriate catalog entry, but as you add new items to your store, they will be cataloged automatically.

Setting up your brand on Bonanza

Beyond Bonanza

Sellers that manufacture their own products tend to be ferociously entrepreneurial, and as a company built by entrepreneurs, we are pulling for the little brand, big time.  As such, if we get enough sellers setting up their own brands, we'll be investigating the possibility of letting sellers export their brand reputation (customer reviews) into their own website, or onto the other sites at which they sell.  After all -- the point of having a brand is being able to bring it with you and grow its reputation to be larger than any single store.  We'd love to see our handmade sellers grow to a scale where Bonanza, Etsy, and their own site are all part of a comprehensive strategy to conquer their slice of the world.