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Bonanzle.com Reaches 1M Item Milestone

Fastest Growing eBay Alternative Ever?  Bonanzle Climbs to 1,000,000 Items in 4 Months

Site succeeds by making people relevant to the transaction process

Startup Bonanzle.com announced this week that its one millionth unique item had been posted to the site, just four months after the online marketplace was officially launched.  Over the same period, Bonanzle’s grassroots growth tactics have catapulted it into third place amongst eBay alternatives, passing eBid.net and Blujay during the month of December, according to Compete.com. 

Bonanzle’s rapid ascent has been the source of recent stories by both Ecommerce Guide and Auctionbytes, with Vangie Beal of Ecommerce Guide citing Bonanzle’s interactivity as a key to the site’s unprecedented growth:  “The Bonanzle platform provides a social atmosphere for its community of buyers and sellers, letting all members instantly connect right from a Bonanzle store window to discuss items and transaction details — something no other online marketplace has been able to do quite so well.” 

Bonanzle founder Bill Harding agrees that this emphasis on a creating a highly social marketplace has been the key factor driving Bonanzle’s growth.  Harding points out that, prior to eBay’s arrival in the mid-90’s, a buyer would see a seller’s face and know their name when buying an item from them.  For collectibles and memorabilia, buyer and seller may even trade stories about the item’s history and origins.

Says Harding, “But when the Internet came out, people suddenly became paranoid about revealing their identity, and meaningful communication between buyers and sellers basically ceased to exist for many years.   People were almost irrelevant:   you’d just post an item, check back to see if it sold, and if so, ship it to some unknown person’s address.” 

Harding goes on to point an emerging trend, driven by sites like Facebook, where Internet users have become more comfortable showing their character online.   “I think that people want to feel free to be themselves.  People want to share and listen to stories.  Creating a pervasively open marketplace means that users tend to have a high level of trust in each other, and everybody is working together to help each other succeed. “Harding concludes, “Our first priority is obviously to put sellers in a position to make as many sales as possible.  But I think it’s really the optimism and positivity, which is driven by less anonymity, that gives Bonanzle its addictive edge.”

 

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