Building a credible competitor to TradeMe

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#699508 11-Oct-2012 09:55

freitasm: I have a meeting this Friday to discuss something a lot better than a Trade Me Killer Killer.

Oh... so you're going to unplug the whole internet then?
(That'd be the killer killer for me)

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#699524 11-Oct-2012 10:12

crackrdbycracku:
freitasm: I have a meeting this Friday to discuss something a lot better than a Trade Me Killer Killer.

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#699533 11-Oct-2012 10:21

Has sella.co.nz been mentioned?

I think the best 'killer' would be to move away from auction sites and instead have an auction app - running on an independent or existing platform - with maybe cross-platform support. This app would run within a browser like an RSS feed.
You would see updates on auctions relevant to your preset conditions, be able to search auctions and watch the auctions you are bidding on - from within the app in your browser.

The auction host would be a dedicated set of servers, open source, peer hosted or commercial. Or could be arranged via facebook, google, twitter or etc...

Revenue streams from that good ol' internet standby - real time advertising, targeted from your auction searches.

A system of + or 'like' etc for reliability.

Problems to surmount are: policing of reliability and trustworthiness of sellers, revenue streams.... and...

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#699534 11-Oct-2012 10:22

That's the new Geekzone retro electric shaver.

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#699540 11-Oct-2012 10:28

GDM: Has sella.co.nz been mentioned?

Somehow I don't think guessing at this will weddle it out of him.....

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#699541 11-Oct-2012 10:28

Problems to surmount are: policing of reliability and trustworthiness of sellers, revenue streams.... and...

"Further, I believe that Facebook offers a unique opportunity for auction sites and other similar sites that rely on trust, safety and reputation. A big part of what makes the Trade Me marketplace successful is the feedback system that means buyers can trust sellers to send items they've paid for, sight unseen. New auction sites face the challenge of trying to get buyers to trust sellers with no feedback. Facebook changes this. New online auction sites should offer a "connect with Facebook" option that shows me as "Dylan" and not "dbkiwi" or whatever member name I'd sign up as. When you view items I offer for sale, you'd see I was a real human and we had real mutual friends. You'd trust me, and you'd be more likely to buy stuff. Sites like Airbnb do this well, and I think it's huge." from here: http://www.dylanbland.com/blog/thoughts-on-wheedle-and-trade-me

The feedback could be posted on 'Dylan's' wall, too, which would be a major discouragement for people to be dishonest, because you could tell their friends and family, for example.

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#699547 11-Oct-2012 10:30

Or run a big bullying campaign with false statements. At least Trade Me is local, while Facebook would have been a lot harder to take things off.

Also you can easily remove stuff from your wall and block people from posting.

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#699551 11-Oct-2012 10:37

freitasm: Or run a big bullying campaign with false statements. At least Trade Me is local, while Facebook would have been a lot harder to take things off.

Also you can easily remove stuff from your wall and block people from posting.

FB won't tolerate bullying and since the auction account is tied to the FB profile, the FB app could prevent deletion of comments by design or as a consequence of a ToS. Unsubscribing to the FB app could disconnect the user form the auction account, so that way, if a deal was dodgy and the FB user did a runner, it would be no different to a TM user abandoning an account.

Of course, as usual, you'd want to scrutinise the person who is selling, so only buy from people who look like they are genuine and have genuine interests. No more trisk than the many odd or dodgy looking TM accounts or first time sellers - with FB integration and auth, you at least get to see the dude you want to buy from (or sell to).

Have you ever treid to call TM to get unfair feedback removed or get help with a dodgy deal - its pretty much more money wasted (they charge to answer the phone, last I checked).

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#699603 11-Oct-2012 11:46

One issue you will come across with any new site is you don't have any established feedback. Geta was going to combat this by importing all your feedback from TradeMe, which they aren't too happy about:

"People work hard for their Trade Me feedback and there’s nothing to stop a person telling others what their Trade Me feedback rating is," head of markets Craig Jordon told NBR."However it is a violation of our terms and conditions to have other websites link to Trade Me feedback.

"We don’t want to get silly about it, but would remind other website operators that inducing people to breach a contract is a tort and probably not a great idea. We’d suggest any website considering this sort of thing takes good legal advice before proceeding."

NBR.

ajobbins

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#699625 11-Oct-2012 12:24

I don't think that other websites should be able to 'import' a traders feedback rating. I see a number of issues with this.

Assume you would have to sign into your TM account to import it across, and it would pull it down via their API.

There is room for this to be exploited, say by having your feedback artificially inflated and imported across before Trade Me catch up. Unlikely, but not out of the question.

Their implementation would also have to be pretty sure, as to now allow manipulation.

It would also have to be a 'point in time' capture I would assume - so nothing to stop people who then turn bad and get banned from TM to then do the same on another site.

Could also potentially just get your friend to log in with their account to 'copy' your feedback across. Trade Me can see a lot more in the background of your account that can identify abuse of the feedback system that another player who simply 'copied' their feedback across couldn't.

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rubygirl

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#700138 12-Oct-2012 12:09

The Trademe feedback rating is important and an easy way of verifyng this would be to add a link to your Trademe profile in the item listing or the new auction site user profile - the profile details would contain the new auction site name and username.
ie. a line that says
Geta RubyGirl

Only problem is that Trademe may take a dim view of this and may blacklist - if that is legal for them to do so.

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#700141 12-Oct-2012 12:13

rubygirl: The Trademe feedback rating is important and an easy way of verifyng this would be to add a link to your Trademe profile in the item listing or the new auction site user profile - the profile details would contain the new auction site name and username.
ie. a line that says
Geta RubyGirl

Only problem is that Trademe may take a dim view of this and may blacklist - if that is legal for them to do so.

How much could you trust it tho? Couldn't I just link to someone else who has better feedback?

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rubygirl

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#700149 12-Oct-2012 12:19

ajobbins: How much could you trust it tho? Couldn't I just link to someone else who has better feedback?

As I stated (but admittedly not very clearly), you would put the new auction site and username in the Trademe user profile - only the legit Trademe profile owner is able to do that.

ajobbins

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#700188 12-Oct-2012 14:13

rubygirl: As I stated (but admittedly not very clearly), you would put the new auction site and username in the Trademe user profile - only the legit Trademe profile owner is able to do that.

Ah ok, I see what you mean now. Not sure how reliable this would be tho, and Trade Me would probably remove the reference if they came across it (and be within their rights to do so), so the other site would still be at the mercy of Trade Me.

Right now Trade Me hold all the cards. Until there is a point where it would be mutually beneficial to have a feedback exchange between sites (That is, when another player had a large portion of the market share) I don't know that there is a solution to this that Trade Me can't legitimately stop (or at least hinder).

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nate

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#700283 12-Oct-2012 16:51

ajobbins:Right now Trade Me hold all the cards. Until there is a point where it would be mutually beneficial to have a feedback exchange between sites (That is, when another player had a large portion of the market share) I don't know that there is a solution to this that Trade Me can't legitimately stop (or at least hinder).

Or someone mounts a legal challenge, opinion from the NBR:

A leading intellectual property lawyer says Trade Me might not be able to stop a competitor linking to its members' reputation ratings - and may fall foul of competition laws if it tries...

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