The Bonanzle Affiliates Program
The General Idea
At long last, it has arrived! The Bonanzle Affiliates Program (aka the Bonanzle "Syndicated Seller" Program) will provide our sellers a golden opportunity to leverage Bonanzle's ridiculously low fees to boost buyer traffic to their items. Here's how it works:
Let's say you have a set of golf clubs you want to sell for $100. Normally, Bonanzle would charge you $5 when you sell your golf clubs. But let's say you're willing to pay $10 to see them sold. The Syndicated Seller program can take that extra $5 use it to tempt blogs and web sites to send new buyers to your items.
Who could forget the fabulous prizes from our last contest? Sign up for our newsletter now and don't miss out.
If a buyer finds the item while browsing through Bonanzle, you still pay just $5. But if a third-party web site or blog (aka an "affiliate") sends the buyer who buys your golf clubs, you pay the full $10 that you bid.
Put another way, Syndicated Sellers get all of the benefits of selling their items at one of the best priced marketplaces online, but they also get the benefits of selling at a more expensive mainstream marketplace, where the 10-15% fees charged are used to pay third parties to refer traffic to their sites. But when you start earning return buyers, should you really have to pay a 15% fee to a marketplace for those buyers? We think not. And that's why we think becoming a Syndicated Seller is a great opportunity for sellers (who only pay when an affiliate helps them) and affiliates (who get paid more per transaction, because Bonanzle isn't hogging all the moolah).
Ready to learn more and sign up? Here's where to go.
The Contest
One of the litmus tests we use when gauging where to prioritize the assortment of Bonanzle-first features we could implement is "How long might it be until this idea starts getting copied?" If it's likely to get copied quickly, we want to get it into our seller's hands as quickly as possible. So how long do you suppose it will take until a "name your referral fee" model begins to proliferate amongst other marketplaces? In the next couple days, we're planning to start a contest to see who can guess which site will be the first to copy "name your own referral fee" item syndication, and how long it will take them to copy it. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter if you'd like to participate -- the prize is sure to be fabulous.
I Like to Read Long Blog Posts, Can You Please Blabber Away Some More?
You bet! Here are some more Q&A details about the Syndicated Seller and Bonanzle Affiliates program.
What's the difference between a "Syndicated Seller" and a "Bonanzle Affiliate?" A "Syndicated Seller" is a Bonanzle seller who has signed up to offer referral fees when their items sell to a buyer who was referred via a Bonanzle Affiliate. A "Bonanzle Affiliate" is a web site or blog that has signed up to receive commissions when they refer paying buyers to Bonanzle items. You can sign up as a Syndicated Seller here or as a Bonanzle Affiliate here.
Can a Syndicated Seller also be a Bonanzle Affiliate? Technically, yes, but do you really want to pay commission fees to yourself? The only circumstances under which you, as a seller, would benefit from being a Bonanzle Affiliate is if you have a web site and you plan to refer your visitors to the items of other Bonanzle sellers. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, you can sign up at our Affiliates site.
Does the Bonanzle Affiliates Program affect anything about my shopping experience on Bonanzle? No. Whether you are a Syndicated Seller or not has no bearing on search results or any aspect of the experience people will have when they're shopping at your Bonanzle store. The only difference is that our affiliates will send more buyers directly to your items.
When I sign up as a Syndicated Seller, how many more sales will I make? At first, probably not very many, because it will take time for us to build our network of Affiliate Partners. But in the long run, depending on what you offer as a referral fee, the sky's the limit for how this might affect your buyer traffic.
I Have More Questions. What Do I Do? Try reading our Syndicated Seller FAQ. That ought to set you straight.
And In Other News...
Thank you to everyone who applied for our Twitterer and Newsletter positions. We've gotten a great response and a number of excellent applications for both positions. After days of careful evaluation, we have chosen Bonanzle old-timer attheboutique to be our official Twitterer. Everyone who has had the fortune to cross Phaedra's path since she's been here knows that she's the embodiment of professionalism. But what you might not know is that she's also an entertaining Tweetaholic that ought to give a real jolt to the crusty ol' Bonanzle Twitter feed. Let's give the lady a hand! And if you haven't already, follow the Bonanzle Twitter account, it's about to get interesting. For reals this time.
We still have yet to settle on our newsletter writer yet, but expect to hear more news on that in the next few days.
<< Back
Recent Posts
An Important Announcement from Our Team
May 13, 2025
Cleaning House: How We're Cracking Down on Fraud to Protect the Bonanza Community
Mar 26, 2025
The Power of Optimized Listing Titles & Keywords
Mar 20, 2025
Spring Cleaning for Summer Sales
Mar 11, 2025
It's TIME! Bonanza's Annual Holiday Sale is coming up!
Nov 13, 2024
Veteran's Day: Honoring Service and Sacrifice
Nov 11, 2024Most Popular
Share
40 responses to The Bonanzle Affiliates Program
Do you ever sleep? I mean you are ALWAYS up to the minute on everything you do. A tip of the hat to you!
Hey Bill, will the merchants of the 109frontstreet.com Mall be able to sign up individually using the same URL cause all their widgets are there? We should probably sign up as affiliates I would imagine. And as a side note, we’re kinda having some problem with the new widget maker any hope it will get a looksee from you soon
thanks
On my way to sign up and see how this works.
okay, signed up! to me this idea is like paying for advertising, which is a great way to drive traffic directly to the booths that are willing to pay for it.
we have sold on amazon, and have been willing to pay their % because they do bring decent sales to high dollar books priced competitively.
i really think this is a great idea! glad to sign up
Is this something Like Amazon Format
You guys are always coming up with new reasons for me to love you
I really like the notion that I’m in control of how much comes off the top of each sale. I’ve signed up and can’t wait to see how it affects my traffic and sales in the months to come.
Thank you!
I’ve signed up. But, I can’t get the batch editor to accept all items checked. It seems to be randomly choosing 7-8 items and applying the percent. So, I tried the all items option, same thing happened.
I’ll go play with it some more. If all else fails, I guess I can do them individually.
Cool feature and thank you!
This is WONDERFUL – I have signed up for BOTH! Whatever I can do to help other Bonanzler’s is a GREAT idea! Thanks for mak’n this happen!
OH! quick question – will there be any emblems to display on our profile???
OH! OH! Another quick question – how will we know when we come across an Syndicated Seller’s booth?
Awesome! And just in time for holiday planning.
I will sign up this evening.
Also wondering if you will make a click-able banner available to sellers?
Thank you for being so responsive Bill! We all heart ya
Very groovy. I signed up as a syndicated seller, but am having trouble setting it up for my second booth, won’t progress beyond the sign-up page. Hmmmmm. I guess I’ll try back later.
PS congrats to Phaedra! I’m sure we’ll all be delighted with her Twitter updates.
great work you guys are the best
hugs to you and mark and the rest of your team
I have signed up. Can’t get the batch editor to work for the commission on all items though. As pennipete says it only saves some of the items.
@fashion & @pennipete: The batch editor will only show a commission if the amount that you are trying to apply is greater than 0%. That is, if you were trying to set your commission to be “45% less than eBay” on an item, it might not get a commission percentage because 45% less than eBay might not be a discount for certain items. I will look at how we can make this more clear in the UI, I can see why you’d be confused.
@jamiro: Yes, multiple merchants can sign up from the same URL, but as the blog mentions, there isn’t any reason for a seller to sign up as an affiliate UNLESS that seller is going to be referring visitors to booths other than their own. (Because what’s the point of a seller paying a commission to themselves?)
In regards to other questions…
Yes, there will be affiliate banners created some time soon. You can do with them what you will.
As far as seeing who is syndicated when browsing the site, we’re probably going to keep that hidden for the sake of simplicity (since it isn’t relevant unless you are an affiliate), except for registered affiliates. If you’re a registered affiliate, then we’ll show the commission rate when you visit an item. We’ll also add the ability to search the site by the amount of commission that can be made (for instance, if you want to sell all items that will earn you $5.00, you can search for those)
Thanks to all who have signed up so far! In the long run, we think that every serious seller should strongly consider becoming syndicated. This is a far better way to advertise than Pay-Per Click, because you only have to pay when you make money.
Going off to read more about this right now!
yea Bill thanks – well the Mall does have my widgets but it has lots of other people’s too and so I’d see it as we should all sign up anyway
nothing ventured nothing gained…
Fantastic!! I will definitely check it out!! GO BONANZLE!
I have one item that will not take a commission. No problem on the others I set it on, but this one, I tried 3 times.
I would love to sign up for the affliate program and promote other sellers. But I dont use paypal as I know many others dont either.
Are you going to in the future add other methods of payouts like direct deposit or check?
Your Affiliates agreement pays an affiliate my commission when all they have done is made a general link to the Bonanzle Homepage.
It would be one thing to pay fees to an affiliate who is promoting and linking to one of my pages, but it is quite another, much less valuable thing for me to pay the same commission rate to someone who is just driving traffic to the site as a whole through a link to the Bonanzle homepage.
Have Charles Sagona write it, and Peter Leeflang spell-check it!
Thanks Bill
But I wasn’t using the Less Than @Bay option. I used the percent option with 5%. As of this evening, only one item is showing the commission.
Tonight I tried again, using 5% commission and selected a couple of more items. This time nothing took. Oops
It returned the dreaded message:
“No items affected by that operation.”
I’m going to sleep on it and attack with a clear head tomorrow.
I asked this in the forum
But ask again here
from affiliates info:
Any Page Link: You may provide a link on your site that will link to any particular page on the Bonanzle Site, provided that you properly use the special link formats provided on the B Site as part of the Program to create such link.
What about all the links already out there—blogs, squiddo, web sites, etc
how will they be affected?? Does the above statement apply??
I don’t have a credit card, as I’ve been using PayPal for all of my Bonanzle fees and such. Is there any way I can still be a Syndicated Seller even if I don’t have plastic?
Cheers,
Derek M
DLM Entertainment
This is farout and groooooovy even! ♥
What a fantabulous way of growing Bonanzle to the next amazing level!
I’m floored at the seemingly endless opportunities this venue offers.
Here’s a quad-mocha and a huge high five,
Reen
And this morning, everything worked as it should! YAY!
Again, thanks for another great feature.
Penni
I reported yesterday, that several items didn’t take. These items were all in the 50 – 60 dollar range. It turns out that I was trying to set 5% commission on the items, yet because between 50 – 100., the FVF changes to 3.00; there was no money left for a commission to the affiliate. On Mark’s advice, I upped the commission a bit, and it took.
Quote:
Spartacus says:
07/22/09 at 15:47:02
Your Affiliates agreement pays an affiliate my commission when all they have done is made a general link to the Bonanzle Homepage.
It would be one thing to pay fees to an affiliate who is promoting and linking to one of my pages, but it is quite another, much less valuable thing for me to pay the same commission rate to someone who is just driving traffic to the site as a whole through a link to the Bonanzle homepage.
Un-quote
This has come to my mind also. Does an affiliate promote Bonanzle? or YOUR item Your Booth?
That is the question I would like answered.
Thanks. Jessie
@Wholesale: Yes, we plan to offer checks for payment after we get the program running with some momentum.
@Griffen & @spartacus: We don’t plan to restrict where an affiliate could link to on the site, however, I can’t understand what motivation an affiliate would have to do something like link to the home page. Seeing as how only a fraction of Bonanzle’s items will be sold by syndicated seller, I would imagine that 99% of our affiliates are going to do all they can to ensure they link directly to the sellers that can get them the commission rate they’re after. And we’re going to give them tools to make that as easy as possible.
@Cindybear: For a link to be eligible for referral fees, it needs to have the referral ID of the affiliate. So existing links won’t apply. As mentioned above, there probably isn’t much of a point to setting up general purpose links with affiliate codes anyhow; topical widgets are the way to go for those looking to be affiliates.
P.S. The batch editor has now been updated so it gives more informative messages when an affiliate commission isn’t set. This ought to help clear up some of the earlier confusion about why sometimes applying commissions seemed to work, and sometimes not.
I have signed up for both and set commissions. Thank you for this opportunity to promote
Saw the info, read it, signed up, got all my commissions where I want them and can’t wait til launch! A totally grand plan! Will there be some sort of logo, sign, mark, skull & crossbones, etc. to let buyers/blog owners know that this is a paid item?
I ask because I do some advisory work with a local charity and they have some paid links for income. This would be a great thing for the members if there was a way to know which items would net them some needed cash.
Also, if somebody follows a link from a site to my item but buys another item that is in the program will the site owner get paid or is it only to the one item for which there is a link?
Thanks for the wonderful idea – it’s truely top drawer!
Betsy
Where do I post my vote of who will be – or perhaps already is – the first copycat?
attheboutique was here like a month before I arrived originally and I thought at that time she already worked for you, as she knew EVERYTHING there was. I would post a question and she would pop up with the answer, then again there were less than 3,000 people when I originally signed up under Wicked_Scents, but attheboutique was a amazingly gracious and helpful person! Good choice!
Excellent choice having attheboutique as our official Twitterer! Phaedra is the best, and I’m proud to say I’m a follower!
Is this available to all sellers or only those with subscription accounts? Would love to help increase sales here by promoting specific items and get them sold, thus increasing my income so I can afford an account upgrade in the first place. Maybe this will help with that, I hope?
I’m wondering if someone from Bonz might clarify this.
I read in another forum here, re: affiliates, that affiliates can place links on approved sites only — the one they signed up with.
I don’t remember, but I think I used two of my sites on signup. No way to revisit my registration info, so I’ll guess.
I see others here have mentioned previous links on squidoo, blogs, and other sites. These old links do not contain new affiliate code, so I am sure they would want to swap out some.
Can I get a statement as to exactly WHERE an affiliate can place their syndicated seller item LINKS IN?
1. only on sites which are submitted for pre-approval to bonz?
OR
2. Anywhere they wish, (within limitations of that site’s policies)
OR
3. Anywhere within sites over which they have DIRECT control? (like say, 7 blogs, 3 websites, and 5 nings? which I own/administer directly) without having to pre-approve them?
signed: still a little confused.
BTW, the “name your own commission” had already been done, see www.dealersmarketusa.com as one example.
Wonderful, great, superway to get traffic and I think you are doing a fantastic job promoting Bonanzle and all the booths. I am excited about promoting Bonanzle too!
Thanks again for your great work!
yahoo
signed up as a syndicated seller, but how can I know everything is fine? and if it is running I’m little bit confused! will I receive an email? need help.
love Bonazle
signed up as a syndicated seller, but how can I know everything is fine? and if it is running I’m little bit confused! will I receive an email? need help.
love Bonanzle
Login to see more comments