Spring Wonderland

Deck the halls! It’s been a jolly first quarter for Bonanza sellers, with average GMV per seller matching the recently ended holiday season. The focus of our business now becomes how to steer this sleigh ride through Q3, so we hit the next holiday season in stride. To this end, I’m delighted to announce our "Spring Wonderland" program, which launches today!

The idea behind the program is actually pretty simple. Compare our sellers’ typical conversion rate last April (red) vs. December (blue):

The difference is stark, and the implication clear. If we could bottle up that December magic and uncork it in April, we could have a very merry little Spring indeed.

With this context, the question for our product team became “what exactly makes December so special for sales?” There are the obvious reasons, like "seasonal discounts" and "more time indoors." These we can't translate to the current season.

The holiday spirit? That we can bring to April. So we have. For sellers randomly selected to participate in our Spring Wonderland beta, this year's holiday magic arrives 8 months early. In the program, we let it snow -- you watch sales grow. But not just snow (currently falling a homepage near you). We've got plenty more underneath the tree:

• Classic holiday jukebox [1]

• Festive holiday header

• Cheerful homepage baubles

If this program succeeds in doubling conversion rate, the long-term plan is to cycle festive months (one on, one off) throughout the year. We would mix our jingle bells with our silent nights. This should keep the holiday season fresh over the course of several years to come.

We don't claim to have yet unearthed the exact formula that makes Q4 so special to ecommerce conversion. It's surely a combination of factors, and discovering them all will take both time, and feedback from our community. It's worth the effort. To the extent we can succeed in reverse-engineering the holiday cheer that leads to increased conversion, we can have our merchants dancing like the sugar plum fairy. 

If you have any additional insights into what helps you feel the spirit of the holidays, please drop us a line below. With the right inspiration, there's no reason we can't help buyers [2] savor the holiday spirit from now until Santa comes to town.

[1] Don't want to hear what we hear? You can silence the jingles by clicking the music icon:

[2] During beta, Spring Wonderland is only available for logged in sellers. Following the completion of our beta, we can roll it out to our broader audience.