So.. I sold 2 things on Benable in less than a week

[mgdesigns]

I was not expecting to get any sales. I still think no one knows about Benable but I think I might be wrong and this is one of the biggest opportunities for us Zazzle creators to make extra income and promote our stores!

Pics and more info below

I just learned about the page here 10 days ago. Opened an account and created 2 lists on April 2nd. My gifts one was optimized in a few hours (which I guess is what they always do if you follow the first instructions), then the mermaid one was optimized when it had about 30 items but once I added more my "list optimized" badge was removed and I have not been able to bring it back. The tune-up page says everything is correct. The thing is, I forgot about it until today and when I checked I  got 2 affiliate sales from this not optimized list! Once 4 days and one 6 days after creating the list. Woah!!

So yes, it works!!! If you were doubting about using it, I say do it. People actually check them out and see your products, even if they end up buying something else you also add to the list. Just wanted to share because I'm still in shock and it can help all of us.

If you don't have an account, you can skip the waiting list with my invitation here: https://benable.com/i/MHB53
or here: https://benable.com/i/5K7C1

[mgdesigns]

Just followed you. Good luck!

[mgdesigns]

If anyone is curious if it works. After 1 month I've sold 6 products totalling $16 in one account. And 2 products in another one for $4. I didn't get anyone to buy my Zazzle products, unless they didn't count as a self-referral for some reason. So yes, it works, but it's slow. At least for me. Maybe I have to create more lists and promote them. 

[Danny_t]

More listings increases traffic to your page and give you the opportunity to earn the optimized badge on your profile. Keep it up. 

[Barbara]

More listings should increase traffic, but getting an optimized badge seems unrelated. Within a few minutes of completing any list to Benable's specs, I get the optimized badge for it. I think the badge and amount of traffic are completely unrelated.

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[Barbara]

Benable keeps nagging about two things: One is to use the mobile app and the other is to install the Chrome extension. I do no work whatsoever on my phone because the screen is too small, the environment is too claustrophobic, and wandering on the internet is impacted negatively by both. As for the Chrome extension, why on earth would I use a browser I've never liked? Yes, Chrome is at the top of the list for browsers used worldwide, but this can't impact the quality of our lists.

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[mgdesigns]

I just click on it but don't install anything and it marks it as complete. But yes, it's annoying that they want to force us to use these.

[Barbara]

I've never clicked on it for fear of some sort of automated installation. I'll have to give your method a try.

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[happyprints897]

thank you so much for this tip, i just just created an account and followed u and here is my acc link in case you want to follow me https://benable.com/happyprints369

[mgdesigns]

Awesome! Following you back. Hope you get many referrals!!

[ElizabethR]

@mgdesigns

I noticed that the mermaid had 79 items when you took the screenshot. We had one that we took up and lost optimization. We took it back down one recommendation at a time. We got it back at 84 recommendations.

[Barbara]

Does that mean Benable wants a list no more than a certain number of recommendations? I don't know if I'm remembering correctly, but in my head is something like 13 to 16 items per list. (I could easily have gotten this confused with something else.)

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[ElizabethR]

You get the optimized badge between  15 to 20 recommendations we lost it above 84. We gained it back when we dropped back to  84.

[Barbara]

Then I guess we now know what the max is. Was all the list in a single group or did you have it broken down into sub-lists? That's something I recently created, and it could possibly grow into containing quite a number overall.

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[Echo]

I have one with 101 items and It's optimized. The items are broken into sub-lists.

[Barbara]

That may be the key--dividing up long lists into sub-lists. It makes sense since one extremely long list could lead to viewers growing weary with it, and Benable knows this. It's something I've encountered now and then on web site menus where it's like looking at an index instead of a table of contents.

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[mgdesigns]

I guess there might be a number but it seems more about the wording you add. They told me to make it sound more personal. I have not had the time to test but I'll start by changing the text and then removing some products.

[ElizabethR]

We have been investigating and found something others probably have found. The different brands that Benable offers have different length of time before they payout. So, if you choose Amazon it could be 60 days before you know if you sold something. Whereas the OP got a quick payout. Of course, you have to have $80 before you can collect your payout which means you may need some high royalty brands or high demand recommendations.

[mgdesigns]

For Amazon I have my associate number so it's separate but what do you mean about the other brands?

[ElizabethR]

I  am just calculating how quickly you get paid for those that want money ASAP 

[E-lenaLu]

I created my account a week ago. I made 4 lists. I have 7 followers and a small number of views. Is it the same for everyone, or am I doing something wrong?

 Benable is a tool to create shareable lists of things you recommend! You can skip the waitlist and create your own shareable lists by signing up using my invite link: https://benable.com/i/7NMJB

[Barbara]

A number of us have gotten followers from right here on the forum from people who are also on Benable. In addition to your invite link, you should also give the link to your profile page. Let us know where to find you.

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[E-lenaLu]

Thank you for the clarification and support. Here is the link to my profile: www.benable.com/Eleanalu

[Barbara]

I followed you and gave a bit of love to your funny cats. 🐱

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[mgdesigns]

I think it's normal. I'm even surprised so many people use it. You can leave your profile link here so we can follow you if you want 😁

[ElizabethR]

We sold this from Target. We just put it up several days ago and it said it sold on the 14th and we got paid $2.38 today. It won't help our immediate need but we can celebrate after we get through.

https://www.target.com/p/outsunny-raised-garden-bed-with-polycarbonate-greenhouse-garden-wooden-cold...

[MarilynR]

Since Elizabeth and I are probably going to get kicked off Zazzle for what I posted in the general discussion thread, I will leave a quick suggestion.

Benable lists the percentage for each brand but all of you could share with each other how quickly the different brands pay and where the best traffic comes from.

[MarilynR]

I have been all excited about the number of people showing up on my dashboard with just a city and state as compared to the people showing up with their name who are other Zazzlers or other list creators trying to get followers. I was thinking that the city and state only were people really using my lists to shop. I have contributed to the sale of two greenhouses for Target and got a quick, whopping $3.40. However, I thought that all the looks at my GrubHub list was a big positive and since GrubHub pays on Thursday, I was looking forward to seeing a bunch of membership sales with a healthy 10% referral for the first meal they bought. Then I just suddenly thought what if those city and state people were Zazzlers who just hadn't signed in. This could be coming from my low hurt mood or low blood sugar from not eating enough. I just thought I'd share to prevent anyone else from getting potentially over-excited.

[mgdesigns]

Congrats on the sale! Sorry I don't understand what you mean about the other part. But I think, except Amazon, we will receive only 1 payment once we reach $80. It's Benable who pays us, it's like they collect the referrals for us and then give us our part. 

[MarilynR]

Here on Zazzle we know when we have made a sale immediately even though we have to wait six weeks or so to get paid.

On Benable, we have no idea if we are succeeding or not until they send us money and the different brands take different lengths of time to payout. So I was thinking that the traffic shown on the dashboard might be an indicator of potential success. GrubHub pays their direct affiliates every Thursday so that means Benable could receive money from GrubHub today and then distribute it. So, I was thinking that with the number of views on my GrubHub list, I might have a cashout from GrubHub today or tomorrow and since you get 10% of the new subscribers first order, I was hoping that it might be significant.

Then, all of a sudden, I thought maybe the traffic to my GrubHub list wasn't potential members but instead other Zazzlers just looking and that took away my excitement. GrubHub's offices are in Chicago so they're an hour behind us. I'm just looking for something to lift my spirits.

[MarilynR]

Correction: GrubHub pays their drivers every Thursday. Affiliates have to wait like we do on Zazzle.

[Cat]

I'm wondering if anyone has actually sold a Zazzle product through Benable. I'm not sure how you'd know unless you're using a tracking code, but something just seems odd here.

I've only created a handful of boards - a few with all Zazzle products, and some that have mostly products from other sites. I've gotten 3 referrals so far, and all of them have come in relatively quickly after the board was created, and since then nothing. Also, all of the referrals have been on products using a Benable link - even though most of the links I've used are either Amazon or Zazzle links. Plus, one of the referrals I got was on a list that hadn't been visited for several days at the point the referral came in.

I dunno... it all just strikes me as being somewhat improbable. It makes me wonder if Benable is "gifting" referrals to new users in order to keep people enthusiastic and engaged. I'm not sure how that would work, and since the tracking is very limited there's really no way to know for sure. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong or bad about doing that if that's indeed what they are doing, but I'm tempering my enthusiasm until I have a bigger data set, and more confidence that it's actually working for real.

Sorry to sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist, but it just seems odd to me.

[Monet]

I’m wondering the same thing too. And my Benable account seems weird. On my laptop, the auto-affiliate link is toggled off. On my phone, the auto-affiliate is toggled on, even if I’ve toggled it off a number of times. 

[jophb]

I actually would not be entirely surprised by them 'gifting' referrals.  I joined Benable well over a year ago and also got a few referrals within a couple weeks from Etsy products.  Haven't had one in the last at least 6 months.  They have a high payout threshold... I'm still only at like $12 after a year plus. To be fair, I haven't done much to it in the past 6-8 months.  They also have a sign up bonus for when people use your referral link to join Benable that I think makes your referrals temporarily higher.

I just don't know if it's going to grow enough.  When you look at the site traffic on Ahref, it has a GLOBAL monthly traffic estimate of 29,000 (6.6K in US).... Pinterest in comparison is 703 Million (114M in US)

[Monet]

Hmmm... since you got referrals from Etsy, I'm thinking of posting some of my Zazzle products with the auto-affiliate link turned ON. I'd get a cashback plus my royalty from a sale?? 🤔

[jophb]

If you use the Zazzle 'auto' just keep in mind that you will have to wait for the $80 threshold.  And I'm not sure what the percentage is, I don't remember. You can change it to your own Zazzle affiliate link though and then it would pay out through Zazzle like normal.

[Bailamor]

I also had the feeling that they "gift" sales to new active members so that they see the success and get/stay hooked. I had two sales in the first two weeks, and then I didn't have any more. 

Anyway, already two of us had a funny feeling about this.

[Cat]

I have gotten one or two more referrals from them, so I don't think it's a total scam or anything, but it's probably not the money machine that those initial referrals make it seem to be.

[orientcourt]

I agree with these thoughts. Quick early referrals sales, a couple more since but unless you whoo new followers to Benable which doesn't sit well with me, then unlocking the top sites is not accessible! With so many influencers on board especially females ? I think most of our traffic could come from them. 

[Barbara]

I'm seriously considering dumping Benable because I'm not interested in fashion, cosmetics, or gadgets. Books, art, and things of that ilk are my zone. Why would anyone interested in such things run a search on Benable when a general search on a search engine would work so much better?

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[mgdesigns]

I was too until I received an email that my lists were now indexed on google so people can find them. I will use it 6 months and then decide.