Bonanza is adding a new 25-cent transaction fee for all sales at the end of August. Sellers can continue to post items to Bonanza for free – the new transaction fee will be assessed on completed sales. Sellers who have a membership subscription are exempt from paying the fee.
In a blog post announcement on Tuesday, the company cited inflation as a factor in its decision, noting it had not raised its fees since 2016. eBay and Etsy have both raised fees as recently as this year, though Bonanza didn’t mention the marketplaces by name:
“As sellers are well aware, marketplaces have continually raised their fees over the years. Bonanza has not made any changes to our fee structure since 2016, despite increasing inflation. As we evaluate the changes to the current economic market, we realize we need to make an adjustment to our pricing policy in order to counter the rise in operational costs. To minimize the impact on our selling community, Bonanza has made the decision to add a flat-rate transaction fee of 25¢ on all completed sales as of the end of August 2022.”
Sarah Tranum, General Manager of Bonanza, told EcommerceBytes that as a small business itself, Bonanza understands the impact that fee adjustments can have on the small businesses that sell on its platform. “That is why we are mindful to make this adjustment with the least impact possible,” she said.
“Sellers can still list items on Bonanza and our advertising partners risk-free, since no fees are assessed until after a sale is made,” she said. “We chose a small, flat-rate transaction fee over adding an insertion fee or increasing the final value fee percentages, which would have had a bigger impact on our sellers’ profit margins.”
Tranum said many sellers had already adjusted their prices to accommodate the rising fees on other platforms.
“We continue to offer our sellers ways for generating commission-free sales,” she said, pointing to the Bonanza Rewards tokens program.
“One of the rewards options is a credit to pay final value fees,” Tranum said. “There are multiple ways to earn tokens; it can be as simple as signing in and claiming the daily tokens each day, so I urge our sellers to make use of this benefit!”
“Sellers are aware that other marketplaces have continually raised their fees over the years,” and Tranum said sellers have told Bonanza they would understand the need to make the same business considerations that they themselves were making.
You can find the post on the Bonanza blog – the few comments that had been left soon after the posting went live indicates sellers may be resigned to rising costs. “Just don’t ever get rid of rewards tokens,” wrote one seller.
I would be disappointed by this, but I have Yet to Sell a Single Item on Bonanza.
ask me if I care ? I tried Bonanza many times, opened and closed, opened and closed..sold few items.
My wife’s jewelry is even worse. I don’t understand how B. is getting on the list of popular marketplaces ???
Useless website, only for those who resell items from eBay and aliexpress/alibaba. It is not even comparable to anything. Lowest of all. If Etsy is 10, then Bonanza is -10.
I didn’t know they still existed
I hope these marketplaces realize the more they raise prices for sellers the more sellers will respond by incorporating higher selling costs in the form of higher prices offered to buyers.
I literally sell one thing there every three years. If they worked on increasing traffic to their site overall, they could increase their revenue. The large majority of their sellers are there only because the integration of listings from eBay to Bonanza is seamless.
I have ONE item listed at Bonanza and I’m testing “Want not waste not” with one item. But I have never ever sold anything on Bonanza. No one knows it exists.
I understand completely the need for Bonanza to add the .25 transaction fee, not bad, and only when the item sells. BUT here’s the problem: like BatmanofOz, I also have experienced zero sales despite having the store open for several months. I don’t even understand how Bonanza ranked top place in marketplaces a couple of years ago. I have revised my booth over and over again and still, no sales.
I think the only thing that does well on Bonanza is Bonanza itself selling the turbo lister, the memberships, etc, all those add ons that really make the marketplace totally unaffordable if you buy into all that.
If Bonanza advertised and promoted its site better to the public, maybe it would not have needed to add the transaction fee. In any event, .25 cents is not bad at all, after all, zero % of zero is still zero. No sales, no fees. No commission either for Bonanza.
Bonanza has the tools to make it a really great marketplace, but not if the sales are not there, not if they don’t work harder at promoting themselves.
They still exist?? We had 7,000 items listed for three years and we probably sold 6 during this time.
I have had a lot of success with selling on Bonanza. A few hundred sales over the years. Since their fees are lower that eBay, I discount the price by 3% from the eBay import price. In addition I have also signed up as a Gold member but any level of membership helps. About half of the sales are to buyers in Europe and Australia as well.