How to maximize traffic and sales using Bonanza feed partners

Introduction to Feed Partners

When you sell products online, traffic is everything. Shoppers are out there, just itching to buy something you might be selling. But if they can’t find you, then you’ll never get a chance to make the sale. On the other hand, the more places buyers can find you, the faster your products will sell.

Visit Selling> Advertise Items to choose where your listings appear.

When you sell on Bonanza, we work hard to make sure your merchandise can be discovered by shoppers everywhere - not just on Bonanza.com, but all over the Internet. We do that by “feeding" your listings to several popular product-search websites such as Google Shopping, Affiliate partners, and others.

Combined, these partners cater to millions of online shoppers every day, many of them looking for the very products that you might be selling right now. If you want to be part of the action, set the desired advertising commission level (Selling> Advertise Items) and we'll start bidding on behalf of your items in all selected feed partners.

Sounds great - but what's the catch?

Okay, yes, there’s a catch: Each of these partners requires your item listings to be formatted in a particular way, and they'll reject any items that don't comply. To make things worse, each partner has different expectations and preferences. And they change the rules occasionally, so it can be hard to keep up.

Luckily, here at Bonanza, we've built some fancy technology that optimizes your listings for you behind the scenes. Often times you won’t have to do anything - we’ll just optimize your listings and feed them to our partners while you kick back and munch on some gluten-free cookies. (Or whatever floats your boat.)

However, if you’re the kind of seller who isn’t afraid of a doing a little extra work to maximize your sales, then there are some things you can do to make sure your products get accepted into the feeds - and that they rank higher in our partners’ search results. If that sounds interesting, then keep reading.

How To Maximize Your Products Visibility

When it comes to getting the most traffic from our feed partners into your booth, there are two areas you should pay attention to:

1. How to prevent your products from being rejected from the feeds
2. How to maximize your product rankings in the partner search results

The first is clearly the most important, because if your product gets rejected from a feed then buyers won't see it on the partner’s website. But the second is also important - the higher your product ranks in the search results, the more likely shoppers will see it and buy it. 

Prevent Disapproval

Maybe because the word “rejection” sounds a bit harsh, the word that’s used when a product gets rejected from a feed is “disapproval.” Most partners have very specific (and strict) rules for what will cause an item to be disapproved, so it’s relatively easy to create product listings that will be approved.

Here are some general guidelines that apply to nearly every feed partner. If your listings follow these rules, then you can avoid being rejec... I mean, avoid being disapproved.

“Hard” requirements: Will cause disapproval in all feeds

• Title: Your item must have a Title, or it will be disapproved.
• Title: Do not include promotional text, for example "new", "authentic", “best price,” “free shipping,” etc. 
• Category: Your item must have a Category. Use the deepest category possible, at least 3 levels deep when possible.
• MPN/UPC: If your item is in a category that normally has some type of unique product identifier such as an ISBN (for books) or MPN (manufacturer part number), then you must specify at least one of them for your listing. A UPC is required by Google Shopping for all new, brand-name items.
• Product Image: All feed partners require that your listing has a product photo.
• Product Photo: Don’t include any watermarks or promotional text (“buy it now,” “lowest price,” etc.)
• Condition: All feed partners require that you specify a Condition (e.g. New, Used)

“Soft” requirements: Will cause disapproval in some feeds

• Description: Some feed partners require a Description for some categories. Cover your bases by always including a description. This will also increase the likelihood of conversion (most buyers want to know about the product before they purchase it). 
• Gender: For applicable categories, this is required by some feed partners. Use it whenever it makes sense.
• Color: For applicable categories, this is required by some feed partners. Especially for clothing and apparel.
• Size: For applicable categories, this is required by some feed partners. Especially for clothing and apparel.

Strong recommendations: May increase rank and visibility

• Title: Follow the “Brand, Gender, Product, Color, Size" format when naming your listing. 
• Title: Do not include special characters like $!@%^&~*
• Title: Do not include any HTML.
• Title: Do not write in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.
• Gender: Highly recommended for clothing and apparel items.
• Age Group: Highly recommended for clothing and apparel items.
• Color: Highly recommended for clothing and apparel items.
• Size: Highly recommended for clothing and apparel items.

What happens if my listing doesn’t follow these rules?

Whenever possible, you should try to follow the above rules and guidelines. It’s the best way to make sure your products are found by shoppers all across the Internet. 

But we know you’re busy - and if you have a lot of listings, it could take a while before you get them whipped into shape. If you have some listings that don’t comply with these rules and guidelines, all is not lost. Here’s how we can help you out until you have time to improve your listings.

1. We’ll patch up the holes for you whenever possible. Remember that fancy tech we mentioned earlier? It’s pretty good at making guesses on your behalf, and fixing up your listings before we submit them. For example, if you didn’t specify a MPN or a Condition, we’ll make our best guess.
2. We’ll submit the rest of your items, even if a few of them (or a lot of them) are disapproved.
3. Even if one feed partner rejects your item, others might accept it. They all have their own rules, and some are more lenient than others. So you may still get a broad exposure for your listings.
4. Hot Tip! Be sure to check out our Batch Editor. It’s an extremely powerful tool for fixing up lots of items, all at once. You can find it under the menu “Selling > Batch edit items”

It’s a journey, not a destination

Whew! That’s a lot of rules and regulations to get through - good thing you fueled up with those gluten-free cookies. The good news is that even if your listings are a hot mess right now, they’ll still get found by millions of shoppers right here on Bonanza.com.

Of course, it's better to be found in even more places via the feed partners. So, think of this as an ongoing project - work on it a little bit here and there, whenever you have the motivation. Before you know it, you’ll have all your listings cleaned up and approved by all our feed partners all across the Internet. And when it comes to selling online, nothing’s more motivating than seeing new traffic roll into your booth.