Ecommercebytes 2013 Results Announced, Plus New Features
The results are in for the 2013 edition of the Ecommercebytes Sellers Choice awards, and with more than 11,000 sellers voting (!), Bonanza has won the "Ease of Use" category for the second consecutive year! We could not be more thrilled with this result, and we deeply appreciate those in our community that took the time to vote for us. Bonanza again had a very strong showing in all categories, ranking 3rd in "overall recommendation" and 4th in "communication," "seller support," and "profitability." These results are all the more encouraging when one considers that more than 40% of all survey respondents had experience using Bonanza, which indicates that our appeal isn't only limited to a small number of niche sellers, as is the case with some of the other marketplaces that ranked highly on the list.
Lessons Learned
One of our favorite things about the Sellers Choice awards is that it gives us the opportunity to get honest (sometimes brutally honest) feedback about what we are doing well and what we need to improve. This year, there were two primary themes amongst those that offered ideas for improvement: (1) Bonanza should try to do more to raise brand awareness amongst buyers ("do more advertising") and (2) Bonanza must remain mindful of the balance between adding new functionality and improving existing functionality.
I'm excited to announce that as of today we are updating Bonanza to improve our performance in both of these areas.
Advertising for Advertising
One of the themes that we saw often in the survey (and we hear frequently in our forums) is that Bonanza needs to raise its brand profile through more advertising. We couldn't agree more. The challenge to executing this idea has always been the high cost involved in doing any high-scale advertising campaign. In reviewing how other marketplaces accomplish this goal, we were intrigued by Ruby Lane's mandatory $30 monthly fee to subsidize advertising. This seems like a very effective way to raise the money to cover the high cost of buying ads, but the idea of forcing all sellers to pay $30 monthly simply to keep a store open was... less exciting. So instead, we've decided to take a page out of Amazon's book, and subsidize our advertising costs through a contextual ad on our product detail page.
We expect that this ad will generate a new stream of revenue that should be sufficient for us to finally break into print advertising (particularly in magazines), while having a relatively minimal impact on the buyer experience, judging by the presence of similar ads that have been user-tested and are currently present on both Amazon and eBay. And, as is the case on the other marketplaces, we will actively filter out any potential ads that could be competitive with Bonanza or reflect poorly on the Bonanza brand. If you see any ads that you think don't belong on Bonanza, please take a screenshot of them and email support -- we will address them immediately.
Of course, this being Bonanza, we still didn't want these ads to be mandatory. So for our subscribing members, we are offering the opportunity to either disable ads (for silver members) or to use the advertising box to display items from their store (for gold members). The contents of this box can be adjusted by visiting the edit booth page, then selecting "Edit Booth Options" -> "Booth Appearance". It is the last option on the page.
For users that choose to advertise their own items, we will automatically select a similar item from their booth to show, but there is also a link on each item page that allows the seller to manually choose which item they want to appear in the box. It can even be an item from another seller's booth if you want to collaborate between yourself and your selling friends.
That said, we hope that even our gold/platinum sellers will consider the possibility of leaving the default Google Adsense ads enabled -- this revenue will be our main source of funds used to buy advertising, and we have plans in the pipeline to begin documenting the various places in which we have purchased advertising, so that we can be as transparent as possible in how we're using our ad revenue to buy more exposure for the Bonanza marketplace as a whole.
Balancing New Features and Improvements to Old
The other new update we're launching today is a feedback section where our users can submit ideas to us and vote on the ideas that are most important to them. Old timers may recognize this idea as being very similar to the "Next Up Improvements" list we used to feature on our help pages. Some of the key differences between our new feedback section and the old one:
- Users can now directly submit their own ideas for voting, rather than submitting the idea to support and waiting for support to get around to posting the idea for vote
- Users can now cast between 1 and 3 votes for a given idea, depending on how important it is to them
- Much easier for Bonanza staff to give progress updates on the ideas that we will be implementing, and/or explain why a given idea would be difficult to implement
- Easy to sort to see the features that have are currently the most popular amongst voters
Our inspiration for the implementation was Zendesk's feature request area, which does a supremely good job of providing a tool for Zendesk to gauge which potential features or bugfixes would have the biggest positive impact on their community.
The hope with this new feedback area (now linked prominently in the footer of every page on the site) is that if there is some bug fix or new feature that would be very useful to our community, that we will be aware of it as soon as possible. Of course, this doesn't change the reality that all potential features and fixes still need to be balanced with our business' overall objectives. Some improvements are fast & easy, but many are very time consuming, so we need to balance that amongst our objectives. But my hunch is that if a feature is overwhelmingly popular, more often than not we'll find the time to address it.
With this new feedback area, I predict that we will be able to better align our users' goals with our own, and extend Bonanza's lead on the competition when it comes to great ease-of-use.
Suggestions are now open
It has been a week or two since our last site update, and as regulars know, stuff gets done fast at Bonanza. Do let us know if you see any peculiarities in our newly available offerings, and we'll get them addressed as quickly as possible. Thanks for continuing to vote Bonanza as your favorite marketplace, we couldn't be more excited about the new advertising and user-requested improvements that are in store for us in 2013!
<< Back
Recent Posts
Father's Day promo
Jun 3, 2025
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, 2024Most Popular
Share
72 responses to Ecommercebytes 2013 Results Announced, Plus New Features
I do appreciate that you are giving silver/gold/plat members the option to opt out of the ads in our listings
1.Please tell me how to opt of of the GIANT ADS under my name, when an item is clicked on to view? The ads are re-directing prospective buyers to another selling site, with similar items.
2. How would a prospective buyer ’view other items in sellers booth". There was a link for that under by booth name, shipping time, and email response time, but now there is a HUGE advertisement suggesting the prospective buyer check out a fashion site which will sell for 90% off of retail, or that ’3 people unfriended you" and to click to see why. (this one is as if I have spy software on my site)
1. "for our subscribing members, we are offering the opportunity to either disable ads (for silver members) or to use the advertising box to display items from their store (for gold members). The contents of this box can be adjusted by visiting the edit booth page, then selecting “Edit Booth Options” → “Booth Appearance”. It is the last option on the page."
“For users that choose to advertise their own items, we will automatically select a similar item from their booth to show, but there is also a link on each item page that allows the seller to manually choose which item they want to appear in the box. It can even be an item from another seller’s booth if you want to collaborate between yourself and your selling friends.”
2. At the bottom of your item detail page you can see additional items from your booth.
If you are seeing ads that conflict with your own items, please report them to [email protected]. As mentioned in the blog, the ads shown should not be in competition with our sellers, if they are, then that’s a bug we’ll fix.
I’ve also added the “See more items in my store” link to your seller badge at the top of the page.
one issue when I go to my listing after opting out of the ad in my listing it shows an item that was sold and no longer available, so I am going to have to go thru 1600 items and put item numbers in the box ugh this will be very time consuming
@CritterCreekRanch, could you send an example to support? As Bill mentioned above, if you do not add an item number to be viewed, we will choose the most relevant item from your booth for that space. So if you are seeing a sold item in that spot then that is something that we want to address.
…looks like everything is squished over to the side…the ads would look better at bottom…and leave the same format as before..not nice looking now
If your browser window is resized/minimized, etc, the ad may view differently. If you continue to have concerns, please send a screen shot over to support so we can help.
If a seller opts out, will the links to their booth items be shown again?
I think it is fair that paying members can opt out, but if there is no link to the main booth page, this is very depressing. There is already the “see similar items” button to encourage buyers to leave our booths.
I have paid a membership ever since I began making sales, and have never used tokens to pay the final fees. Because I want to support Bonanza as a place to sell. They can’t operate without any fees being paid.
Thank you for continuing to support Bonanza, we sincerely appreciate that.
The link to your main booth page and also other items from your booth can be viewed towards the bottom of the item detail page.
Thanks Redbird, that is great feedback. As I mentioned above, in response to this feedback from others, I’ve just added a more prominent link to see more items from your booth. it’s right next to your avatar at the top of the page.
“So for our subscribing members, we are offering the opportunity to either disable ads (for silver members) or to use the advertising box to display items from their store (for gold members).”
Wonder why an option couldn’t be to “NOT disable the ads and still have the opportunity to display items from their store”? I wouldn’t mind sharing the space. If it’s an option between an outside ad and my own, I’m going to choose my own.
Hmm, that’s an interesting idea. So are you saying that you would show an ad if we couldn’t find a similar item within your own store to show?
I have a question? Are these ads being checked before they are being put on our pages? I mean, If a buyer were to click on one, are they being taken somewhere else safely? Without Spyware, Without Virus, Without ending up on someones porn page? I’m sure you’ve probably already thought of this, but if you need us to report any ads that are not acceptable, it leads me to wonder what the process is for determining who can advertise on our pages. Fortunately, I have suggestion links in my ads that most need them, so that will over ride the loss of the associated listings on the side…still I hate to say it but I’m feeling a little bit sacrificed in Bonz’s effort to share links or whatever it is your doing to get advertising here. So I’m not sure how I feel about this. I do agree the listing page seems to be all pushed to the left side, with the right side blank, especially for those of us who have lengthy listings. I want to say I support it, but right now, I’m just not sure about how it will effect us. There are pro’s and cons to everything. And I would hate to see anything become detrimental to our personal efforts to get sales…you know what I mean guys?
So level with us, tell us exactly how this is going to improve our position on advertising, and also how it could possibly hurt us, if you’ve also considered that. As I see it now, Bonz wins either way because those who don’t like it will take up a membership to have it removed. Will those fee’s go towards gaining advertising then? I’m a little cloudy on all this. Thank you~
Great detailed questions, as always MP!
The ads being served come through Google Adsense, so they are fully checked by Google to verify they won’t install Spyware or do any other nasty stuff. What is less certain is the specific content of the ads. Google allows us to block certain domains (we’ve blocked quite a few already from our experience with ads on the search pages), and to block certain categories of ads. The part that we’re still perfecting is figuring out the extent of every possible category and domain we might want to block. For instance, a post was recently made in the forums that showed an ad with a graphic picture of acne, which doesn’t compete with items and technically isn’t a “bad” ad, but it isn’t really the image we want random buyers to associate with Bonanza. We’ve since blocked that category of ad, but there may be other categories of ads that we still need to blacklist before we get an appropriate tone for the ads.
As far as improving our position on advertising, I love your spirit of wanting specific details. That level of transparency is what I want us to be able to achieve in our forthcoming advertising, but it isn’t something we can provide as yet because we really don’t know what level of revenue is going to amount from these ads. If they make $100 a day that will allow us a much different (lower) level of advertising than if they earn $10,000 per day. Once we have a better idea of what sort of revenue these ads generate, then we can and will make a more specific plan on how to use that money wisely. Broadly speaking, I want to find our way into more print advertising, but we still have a lot of learning to do in that realm when it comes to figuring out where we’ll get the most bang for our buck. This will certainly be the topic of a future blog post.
When you view the “Similar Items” page, why does it not show Free Shipping like it does on the search pages or booth pages?
Free Shipping helps sell the item.
That’s a good suggestion. Our “similar items” page is one that we’re still putting a lot of work into improving. I’ll add that to our list of potential improvements. Feel free to also use the new feedback site to suggest it to us officially
I went in through Bill’s f/b section link in the blog post. I typed a comment, had to sign in again, and was told it would be moderated (it passed).
After I typed out my suggestion, I had to sign in again, and my request disappeared.
That’s certainly weird. The good news is that we received both your suggestion and you follow up comment — both have been approved and should now be visible. If you continue seeing weirdnesses with the site, please email support with as many specific details as possible and we’ll get it fixed.
Thanks for using the feedback site also! Really looking forward to seeing what sort of suggestions we’ll get.
And a different take on what irishonebac said. I would have no problems with the ads being shown on my pages if they came second to my own items on the right side. Maybe moving the ads to the bottom of our pages? Just a thought…. or even under our coordinating listings on the right….
Love that idea, and really appreciate your willingness to help Bonanza generate the revenue we need to advertise. Will brainstorm on how we might be able to implement something like this for our sellers like you that are intent on making us successful
yes yes I agree with momspennies I would consider leaving the ad on my listing if it was at the bottom of my listing and moving my items back up as they were before on the right hand side of page.
The “See more items from this Seller” is way too small and hard to find. This needs to be in a much more prominent place.
I’ll just say that I absolutely do NOT want others’ products being advertised in my listings. I’d much rather pay $5 or $10 extra a month solely for an advertising fund. However, I cannot accept any attempt to draw business away from my store when I don’t get enough as it is.
So, they need to come up with a much better idea. Simple as that.
Hey PI,
To be clear, it is not others’ products that are going to be advertised on the listings pages — it is ads that will usually be related to other websites you’ve visited lately. In my case, most of the ads I see are for broadband Internet and Spanish lessons
We will be paying close attention to what, if any, adverse effects may result from this advertising. But given that the two largest ecommerce sites in the US both have similarly placed and similarly sized ads on all of their product pages, my hunch is that if there is any sales detriment to these ads it should be negligible.
Just a joke but for the old timers
keep this for posterity Bill said “I want to find our way into more print advertising”..get the fainting couch lol
Hey now!
In fairness, I’ve always wanted us to be able to advertise, it’s just been a finding the revenue to afford it. Contrary to popular belief, it ain’t cheap to put an ad in Oprah magazine. At all. But if sellers keep these ads on their pages and if buyers occasionally click them, I would love to live in a world where we can afford such luxuries.
LOL I feel like the odd woman out here. I have checked listings of mine from each category and have no large ads on them that detract from what I am selling, not by size or subject matter.
I have a link in every item will take you to my booth. I see many of you that are far more advanced that I am in making templates and the one I use is very simple.
I am also in favor of tasteful ads if they do not detract from the sellers item, if this generates income to advertise this sight.
I have a gold membership but for right now I am not going to exercise the opt out. Critter I see what you mean, because we have no items on the right side any longer.
Thank you for the ability to remove the ads for members.
I do see why you are doing the ads, can’t complain about wanting to increase revenue for advertising!
Personally, I would rather pay bonanza for a membership than have ads from other sites on my listings.
I am sure you remember that not too long ago, the link to other items was missing from the right side of our booths, and you know many sellers were not happy about that.
We were very glad when the link and the “see other seller items” returned to that right hand spot below our profile and feedback information.
I do think it would make more sense to see the ads at the bottom of the page and the link to my other items moved back up as they were before on the right hand side of page.
As it is now, if a person has adblock, they only see empty white space on the right hand side, which seems a waste of that space.
My question is about how these ads will generate income…. (unless it’s a secret)
Just by having these ads show on our listings, does bonz get paid, or does someone have to actually click through on an ad before bonz sees any revenue from one.
It is a secret Keno but if you promise not to tell anyone (hehe)….
“With AdSense for content, these ads you display on your site can be either cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand-impression (CPM) ads. For CPC ads, you’ll generate earnings when your users click on the ads. For CPM ads, you’ll generate earnings every time the ad appears to a user viewing your site.”
I just pulled that quote from Google’s main adsense page. I am not sure which one we are using or if it is a combo of both.
Thanks for the reply Mark, but of course it created another question….
So, someone comes along and clicks on the ad. Do they have to make a purchase from the ad site in order for bonz to get paid or just by clicking it will bonz get a little bit. If all they have to do is click, what’s to keep all of us from going on a clicking spree and racking in bucks for bonz.
Leave it up to me to create more questions with my answers
I think it would depend on the type of advertising we have. There is a CPC (cost per click) model and also an impressions (CPM) model. As for clicking on ads repeatedly, I am sure that Google has a way to prevent such things.
I’m with MP on this last thought. I have seriously been thinking about renewing my silver membership. I let it lapse last fall when the economy was so rough. This ad made me decide today that I will do so to avoid having the AD boldly outshining my item. However, if the ad were to move to the bottom where it is not so much in competition with my listing I would go ahead and renew my membership and NOT DISABLE the ad. After all, I know this can’t be the best site ever on
0income and I am willing to help see that you find the AD revenue you need!Yay Bonanza!!!
Why does it say ‘Tell us which item to show’ under the my picture (You might also like) when it’s already showing one? Surely you don’t expect us to spend weeks selecting an item to show on every listing do you?
Hey Shars — Picking the specific item to show is optional. As you can see, it will automatically select the item if you don’t pick it yourself.
I noticed that when I click on one of these ads it takes me to that site in the same browser tab. Wouldn’t it be better if when clicking on these ads it would open a new tab?
If the user wants to open the ad in a new tab, they can do that in the same manner they normally would (right click and open in new tab, or middle click to do it automatically). Google controls the actual ad’s link (which determines whether it will open in a new tab by default), and they don’t yet offer an option to open in a new tab.
So it is clear.. the funds generated by the ads will go for advertising. However any subscribing member that blocks the ad does not help the cause correct? And taking out a membership to solely block the ads does not mean that the membership fee is going toward the advertising fund correct? So if we could get the ad moved to the bottom of our listings then perhaps the majority of sellers would leave them be. Was that clear as mud?
Correct on all counts sofy. This is why we intend to offer the option to move the ads to the bottom for subscribing members. I imagine we will get this online in the next week or so.
would non-paying members have them moved to the bottom also?
TBD, since we haven’t even designed the feature for paying members yet. Like I said, probably at least a week out. There is even the possibility it could be more profitable at the bottom…
YAY!!! I went and subscribed right after posting my comment. I will not block the ad! I will wait for you to update so I can move it to the bottom! Smart move Bill!!!
At Bill, I was referring to any ads that lead my customers away from my store. So, moving them to the bottom isn’t a solution and I’m not the only one who feels that way. Plus, making the opt-out or ability to move the ads available only to paying members isn’t at all fair. They simply shouldn’t be there.
I appreciate that gold members like me can replace the ad with another item from our own booth. However, I really miss the more than one item that used to be there. I doubt most buyers will scroll all the way down to the bottom. Most of my profit is from multiple item sales, so the extra items on the side really helped me and bonanza bring in additional revenue. More than one item link, like there appeared before, would be very much appreciated.
Point taken, feel free to suggest it in the feedback section. That said, keep in mind that every time a user adds an item to their cart, we show them many more items from your store at that point. We see many more clicks from that popup than we ever did from the related items on the side.
AMOF, when we used to have related items at the bottom of the items#show page, our average items per cart was higher than it has been since we moved it to the right side, so there is evidence that the related items may actually be more effective at the bottom of the page.
I don’t mind the ads as long as they are not related to my items. (I just looked for something on another site and when the item came up there were three ads of the same item at half the price.) I especially hate ads that pop up or float all over the page when you are trying to look.
Would like to see the, “See more items from this seller” larger with maybe a border around it.
The ads at the bottom of the page look good and seem to relate to the items for the most part.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks! If there are any ads that are competitive with your items, drop us a line and we’ll get them removed asap.
@Bill, if those statistics are correct it would be a win/win to place the Ads at the bottom of the page, and the sellers items to the right, under the booth information. You would generate revenue and sellers would be happy. And for uniformity of the site, all the ads at the bottom, not just for paying members.
Thanks for the opt-out for paid membership and I like the page layout
Another jewelry site, outside of Bonanza, Evesaddiction . com on my jewelry is upsetting to me…
So what can I do about that… ?
Report ‘em to support, we’ll get them removed for you
Bill, the feedback section is not working. The ring just turns and turns. I sent you an email instead. Thanks~
Strange, since we’ve actually gotten quite a few comments submitted on it already. Send support whatever details you have and we’ll see if we can figure it out. First question they’ll ask: Does it spin consistently for you, or just once?
Thanks for building up on the E-Commerce SCA’s comments. I love the new (old!) suggestion box idea and the easy access to it via the Feedback link on the bottom of every page.
In terms of advertising, I too wish Bonanza.com was a household name, and I know that day will come. But I’m also in approval of your fiscal conservation and support the on-site ad sales approach as a way to build our own advertising funds. Slow and steady, like Aesop’s tortoise, wins the race!
A few years back, I remember thinking how great it was that BooCoo spent ad money on our local newspapers’ home pages every day. In March of 2012, they had over a million listings, and in December, they went out of business forever. Let’s not go crazy and do exactly that! Slow and steady wins the race.
That is very wise advice. In the time we’ve been around we’ve already seen at least two marketplaces get funded with $5 million and go out of business a year or two thereafter (most recently, Yardsellr). Boocoo and the video site that AuctionWally endorsed didn’t raise money and went out of business as well.
It’s definitely a business where you have to grow slow and steady. Luckily we’ve been doing both consistently with every single year, thanks to support of sellers like you.
Okay I have read through most of the comments above after reading the blog post so forgive me if I enter the realm of “redundancy” lol But here’s where I’m at on this. I have always been a huge supporter of the great atmosphere, ease and (what I firmly believe) is the integrity of Bonanza, so I don’t have a problem being a paid member. I have been a free member off and on and a paid member off and on over the years; I prefer paid member because I like the perks and I like the idea that my membership fee goes towards improvements on a site I love to be a member of. Now this new “feature”: like most I am questionable on how I feel about but if it helps bring in new revenue for Bonanza and our sellers I am certainly willing to give it a go. HOWEVER, I really really do not like the idea that we are possibly sending traffic “away” from Bonanza with these ads. I like that as a paid member I can disable them….. I can’t afford the gold membership at this time so of course I find it a bummer that I have to pay more to distinctly “advertise” my own other items in my own booth; REALLY dislike my other items at the bottom, but I also understand that these adsense ads will be (possibly)pointless if THEY are at the bottom so what about this…..can we have our “other” items back on the side AND keep the adsense ads on the side BUT under our items? I would be willing to keep the adsense in my booth if that were an option.
Thanks for the feedback, we’ll definitely consider it in designing the ads at the bottom.
Also FYI to all: we’ve disabled the ads for the time being while we process some of the reports that there are ads showing up that are competitive. We’ll probably re-enable in a couple days after we’re confident that we’ve addressed all reports of ads that compete with items. We want to make sure we get this implemented right!
Wish you would put the seller’s other items right under the ads, there is all that white blank space. I do believe this helps with selling multiple items (bringing in more fees) or having the buyer find an item they might want to purchase other than the one the first clicked on.
As Bill mentions above, we are working many different angles on how to make this the best for all. Thank you for your suggestions!
Thanks so much Bill. I do believe many of us want to get behind you on this as long as the integrity of our listings and hard work are preserved so that they can still work for us, while also offering Bonanza the opportunity to do what it has to do to succeed. I just heard another site is going down today and that would be Tophatter. We surely don’t want Bonz to whither away and die. Too many of us have a vested interest here. Just to be clear, I didn’t see your comment about Competitive Listings when I last posted, that came up after I had already emailed you. And the circle just goes around and around and never updates. Could just be my computer.
Thanks again for taking our concerns seriously. That means alot.
In its original form, the program displayed a three-inch-square picture of MARK’S HEAD under each item.
The sellers BEGGED for ads instead!
Yeah, only cause they were scared that they would get too many sales
I don’t like that our other items have moved to the bottom again. It looks so much nicer on the right side and is far more noticeable too. Please put our other listings back on the right side instead of at the bottom… or put them in both places! That way if somebody actually scrolls all the way to the bottom they will have something else to see too. But if it’s an either/or then please put them back on the right side for us.
I’m really not at all clear here – I’m getting very old and perhaps my comprehension is going, but – if I do not have a paid membership, can I get rid of those ads or not?
Carolyn
We have temporarily removed the ads so that we can revamp that area. The previous version of the ads showing required that you be a paid member to remove them and that will probably remain but we have yet to see the final version yet. Stay tuned.
“In its original form, the program displayed a three-inch-square picture of MARK’S HEAD under each item.
The sellers BEGGED for ads instead! "
I’m sorry, I could not stop laughing at that!
On a serious note- thanks so much for listening to what we all have to say…. that says a lot about Bonanza and it’s creators/staff!
Whatever it takes to get this show on the road, I’m for it!
Well I applaud you guys for this effort. I’m a gold member and opted in at the 13% rate for google ads, so while I COULD opt out of this….if it’ll help give you guys get an even bigger leg up I welcome you to use these ads.
Every site out there does this in one way or another now. The only time it bugs ME is when “certain” (cough….) sites place DIRECT competitor ads on pages.
OH…..or when “certain” (cough…) sites go even a step FURTHER …..and place ads for MY buyer to see AFTER they’ve ALREADY checked out and paid ME…..showing them where they COULD have gotten it even “cheaper” (usually from some new member selling for pennies that hasn’t yet figured out the concept of final value….and listing….and payment processing fees)….but I digress….LOL
I’m so glad I made it here before comments came to an end.
First, thank you so much in being conscientious in wanting to keep our costs down by finding a way to advertise without it coming out of our pockets so to speak.
Next, I’m sure you all are well on your way with coming to a different type of layout for the ads on our individual listings. But I’d still like to give my opinion.
For myself, I first want a shopper that comes to my listing to see a sample of my items first rather than seeing a sample of the ads. This is very important to me and totally aside as to whether shoppers actually click on them or not. It is the first impression that the shopper gets of “me,” sort of a branding impression.
I very much would still like to see at least 3 of my listings off to the right but would really like the 4 that we had before (one sample just does not seem good enough).
I’m fine with the ads being underneath my sample listings off to the right, as long as they are clearly defined as being separate from “me” like a strong borderline.
This here is a little off topic, but I’d like to share. Whenever I go to a new site (or website) the layouts look so foreign simply because I am not used to the layout. It’s hard to tell many times where to click to go see the seller’s store. As we know, people have a tendency of losing interest pretty quickly. Is it possible to somehow make the area to enter our booths more prominent, one that cannot be missed for the greater majority of shoppers entering our listings?
I am excited to hear the word advertising being talked about!!!!
Login to see more comments