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andrewc

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#109177 14-Sep-2012 12:36
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Well, this should probably go in the startups forum but I don't seem to have enough posts for there.
I've been working on a website for buying things off Trademe -- basically place your bid with my site and it'll queue it up until just before the auction closes. That way noone knows you're interested, plus you can cancel the bid at any time if you change your mind.
It also does things like
  • One click bidding -- you only need to click once to place a bid. If you make a mistake it's easily cancelled.
  • Group bidding -- place a bid on multiple items, set them as a group, and it'll bid on all of them one by one until you win an auction, then it'll stop bidding on the rest.
  • Bad feedback finder, so you can find someone's bad feedback without trawling through 20 pages.
  • URLs in auctions are clickable.
  • ... probably more things I've forgotten.
You do need to create an account on the site and authorise your Trademe account, but you don't need to hand over your Trademe login/password, it's all done via the Trademe API.
I'm looking for feedback on it, the site is www.bidbud.co.nz -- I can't post URLs as yet so you'll have to copy/paste.
Let me know via here or the contact form on the site...
Cheers!

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kingjj
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  #685977 14-Sep-2012 13:03
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Does this fully comply with TM's TOS for the website and API?



Disrespective
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  #685979 14-Sep-2012 13:05
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Looks interesting, particularly the bad feedback finder.

One thing I noticed straight up was when looking at an item with more than one image there are no small previews to show that there is more than one image available. I have to click on the one image shown and hope/assume there are more.

I don't know why TM doesn't hyperlink links inserted into their auctions. It seriously grinds my gears. Yours does. Handy.

Also, it seems every auction automatically gets 'gallery view' on your site. As in, a search for diode on your site returns the same results as one done directly on TM but every auction has their image shown. I like this but might be cutting out some of TM's revenue...?

andrewc

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  #685980 14-Sep-2012 13:06
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kingjj: Does this fully comply with TM's TOS for the website and API?

Yes



andrewc

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  #685981 14-Sep-2012 13:09
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Disrespective: Looks interesting, particularly the bad feedback finder.

One thing I noticed straight up was when looking at an item with more than one image there are no small previews to show that there is more than one image available. I have to click on the one image shown and hope/assume there are more.

I don't know why TM doesn't hyperlink links inserted into their auctions. It seriously grinds my gears. Yours does. Handy.


Yeah you're right with the images, it's something I've been meaning to work on. Noted.
I'm glad you like the URL linking feature, I'm not sure of Trademe's reasoning on not doing that...

mattRSK
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  #685987 14-Sep-2012 13:14
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What an excellent idea, well done!

sidefx
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  #685988 14-Sep-2012 13:15
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Hmm.. I'm pretty sure Trademe has shutdown or threatened to shutdown sniping sites in the past; though maybe since they added auto-bid and auto-extend they won't bother. Some nice features on your site at first glance, but even if you're technically within all Trademe user and API ToS I wouldn't be surprised they don't like it...




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andrewc

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  #685990 14-Sep-2012 13:17
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mattRSK: What an excellent idea, well done!

I'm glad you like it Smile

mattRSK
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  #685991 14-Sep-2012 13:18
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What is the difference between fast and slow bid strategy?

andrewc

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  #685993 14-Sep-2012 13:20
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sidefx: Hmm.. I'm pretty sure Trademe has shutdown or threatened to shutdown sniping sites in the past; though maybe since they added auto-bid and auto-extend they won't bother. Some nice features on your site at first glance, but even if you're technically within all Trademe user and API ToS I wouldn't be surprised they don't like it...


I did wonder, so I contacted Trademe and asked about scheduling bids (which is fundamentally what's happening).
The answer I got was it wasn't a problem. Now, this is one of their support people and not someone higher up, they said they talked to someone about it and were told it was OK though. Here's hoping it is....

mattRSK
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  #685994 14-Sep-2012 13:20
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Never heard of TradeMe applications before, is this a new thing?


andrewc

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  #685996 14-Sep-2012 13:23
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mattRSK: What is the difference between fast and slow bid strategy?


Good question, that's not mentioned anywhere on the site.

Fast bidding just places a normal autobid for you, but at the last minute.
Slow bidding will bid manually, within the last minute or so each time... the theory is to tire any other bidders and make them give up. I'm not sure the theory holds up though so the default is fast bidding, the slow bidding option may well be removed at some point.


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andrewc

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  #685997 14-Sep-2012 13:25
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mattRSK: Never heard of TradeMe applications before, is this a new thing?



Not really, the API was released last year sometime.

mattRSK
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  #685998 14-Sep-2012 13:25
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andrewc:
mattRSK: What is the difference between fast and slow bid strategy?


Good question, that's not mentioned anywhere on the site.

Fast bidding just places a normal autobid for you, but at the last minute.
Slow bidding will bid manually, within the last minute or so each time... the theory is to tire any other bidders and make them give up. I'm not sure the theory holds up though so the default is fast bidding, the slow bidding option may well be removed at some point.



Love it, that's basically my strategy now it's automated!

andrewc

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  #686001 14-Sep-2012 13:27
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mattRSK:
andrewc:
mattRSK: What is the difference between fast and slow bid strategy?


Good question, that's not mentioned anywhere on the site.

Fast bidding just places a normal autobid for you, but at the last minute.
Slow bidding will bid manually, within the last minute or so each time... the theory is to tire any other bidders and make them give up. I'm not sure the theory holds up though so the default is fast bidding, the slow bidding option may well be removed at some point.



Love it, that's basically my strategy now it's automated!


Great, let me know how it works for you... it hasn't really been used as yet, all the auctions won so far have been using fast bidding.


Klipspringer
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  #686002 14-Sep-2012 13:28
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This is a great site. Well done.

I was thinking about something simular a while ago. Maybe you can implement it too..

It would be nice if this site could also list items from other sites in your searches. Ie, priceme, sella?

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