Bonanza Rebrands To bMarketplace; Sellers Report Technical Problems Due to Site Changes
After 2 years under new ownership, Bonanza is getting a new name as CEO Quincy Faison announces rebranding to bMarketplace.
Dear Valued Seller,
As I am writing this announcement, I just got off stage at the 2025 Marketplace Risk conference in San Francisco. The energy and innovation in the e-commerce space is inspiring, and I'm thrilled to share some exciting news with you today: Bonanza is becoming bMarketplace.
While our name is changing, our commitment to you remains the same. This transition is simply a new chapter in our journey together, one that we believe will better position all of us for continued success in the competitive e-commerce landscape...
...What This Means For You
This is simply a DBA (Doing Business As) name change. The company structure, ownership, and team you've come to trust remain unchanged. Your store, listings, sales history, and account details will transition seamlessly to bMarketplace.You'll still be able to access our platform through bonanza.com as always, and now additionally through our new domain at bMarketplace.co. Both addresses will take you to the same marketplace you know and trust.
No action is required on your part. Your seller dashboard, payment methods, and all existing integrations will continue to function exactly as they have before.
Looking Forward
We believe this new name better reflects who we are today and where we're headed tomorrow. The marketplace landscape continues to evolve, and with bMarketplace, we're positioning ourselves—and you—to thrive in this environment.We're grateful for your trust and partnership. Together, let's embrace this new chapter and continue to grow.
Here's to helping you b everything you aspire to be as a seller! We can now be reached at www.bonanza.com or www.bmarketplace.co (co not com)
While Faison assured sellers that the transition would be seamless, a post in the Bonanza community shows some users reporting experiencing technical issues in the last 24 hours, including warnings about the site not being secure and problems with updating payment methods for selling fees - all of which could be related to making domain or DNS changes necessary for setting up bmarketplace.co (which currently just redirects to bonanza.com).
I have a support email sent but wondering if anyone else has this issue.
First, when visiting the site homepage, the first thing that happens is either a warning that the site is not secure, or cannot be reached, then it refreshes and it’s normal. This happens on both Chrome and Edge.Second, I had an email saying I missed a sale because I didn’t have a valid payment method to charge the fee and the site canceled it. I went to update, tried 4 cards, 2 debit and 2 credit, all of them gave multiple errors trying to authorize.
The .co (rather than .com) URL could also be confusing for many users - apparently bmarket.com was already taken and it would seem that Faison wasn't willing to spend ~$95K to secure it.
According to Google AI Overview, bMarketplace is also the name of an online classified ads marketplace for The Daily Star out of Oneonta, NY.
URL confusion could also pose security risks for Bonanza if bad actors seize on the rebrand as an opportunity to step up phishing and other security attacks that have plagued users of the site in recent months.
Liz Morton
While Bonanza is a smaller marketplace that doesn't have the name recognition of larger competitors like Poshmark, Mercari, Depop, or eBay, it seems like a significant risk and odd move to throw away whatever brand capital the site does have for a generic, uninspiring and easily forgettable new name like bMarketplace.
The rebrand particularly doesn't make sense if Faison's explanation about it being a DBA name change only is true - if bMarketplace is still going to be owned by Bonanza Worldwide LLC and nothing else is changing, why bother?
Sellers were also recently informed that fees would be going up on May 1st, with Bonanza leaning heavily on the increasing costs of advertising to bring more traffic to the site as their justification for the money grab.
Liz Morton
Starting from scratch to build recognition around a new name and brand identity is significantly more expensive and difficult than increasing awareness of an established company - which means if those increased fees are put into marketing and advertising as promised, they'll likely struggle to provide a decent return on investment for quite some time.
The name change comes ~2 years after Faison bought Bonanza from Founder Bill Harding in 2023 in a not entirely smooth acquisition that saw sue the new owner for failure to make payments on a promissory note that was issued as part of the sale of the company.
Liz Morton
In addition to the recent fee updates, Faison has made other unpopular changes like introducing a controversial shipping fee (which was later removed after seller backlash) and launching pay per click ads across the site.
Liz Morton
So far there is only a single comment on Faison's blog post announcement, with the user expressing positive sentiment about the rebrand.
However, that's not surprising given Faison's past history of heavy-handed moderation, scrubbing or blocking negative or critical comments on the Bonanza blog.
That being said, the comments section at Value Added Resource is open - let us know what you think of Bonanza rebranding to bMarketplace below!
