What Does a Competitor Site Need To Seriously Take on Trademe?

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Ultimate Geek

#1471601 15-Jan-2016 09:06

Money.

Amanon

MikeB4

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#1471602 15-Jan-2016 09:07

spearsniper:
sbiddle: Why do we need competition?

What do you actually use Trademe for?

It's been ages since I used Trademe for anything other than browsing at things. For anything small gadget related it's easier and simpler to just use the myriad of Chinese sites and get the same goods for far less and typically within 10 days or so, which is pretty similar to shipping times for many NZ sellers.

eBay has become largely irrelevant in the US market as people have just switched to Amazon for so many new and used goods.

We need competition as a handbrake for fee increases, otherwise monopolies just keep increasing prices. Competition is good for the consumer - look at the Cloud Computing IaaS space. Price CUTS are the norm.

And what do I use Trademe for - selling stuff. Facebook works to sell items, but is full of losers without any money, and it would appear no legs (aka can you deliver it).

I agree that buying cheap poor quality items is the domain of Alibaba, but not everyone wants a poor quality copy.

Competition can often make matter worse for customers. When companies need to do ridiculous discounting or not increase fees etc for fear of losing market share they become unprofitable and wind up.
There are occasions when price increases are best for the consumer in the long term.

Batman

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#1471610 15-Jan-2016 09:12

Dulouz: Money.

No not money. Critical mass.

MikeB4

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#1471613 15-Jan-2016 09:17

joker97:
Dulouz: Money.

No not money. Critical mass.

before anything, Money.

Kopkiwi

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#1471617 15-Jan-2016 09:24

joker97:
Kopkiwi: With trademes recent increase in fees (again) that seem unjustified in all forms. What do you guys believe a new site would need to have, or do, in order to finally seriously take on Trademe?

What features do you think they could implement that would make people consider making the switch?

A couple of sites have tried and failed, but we need competition.

Not free, gives impression of poor quality. Say 1% fee, first 10 sales free.

Trademe feedback porting or variance of such.

Some creative competition to visit and browse.

Referral bonuses.

Get big businesses that sell a lot on trademe involved.

One other difference that separates and is better.

I like that.

What about the option to make an offer, like eBay?

Partnership with PayPal?

Killerkiwi2005

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#1471621 15-Jan-2016 09:25

This seems to be a "general" software pattern at any one time there is 1 major player, 1 compititor and minor niche players

OS Desktop - Windows, OSX, linux and others

Mobile - Android, Iphone, win and others

Server - Linux, Windows, others

Streaming - Netflix, Amazon, (maybe hulu?) other

Online Trading (US) - Ebay, craigslist, other

Search - Google, Bing, other

If the pattern holds there's probably room for 1 other player to compete with tradme which at the moment is probably those facebook groups, any one else is unlikly to make a dent in market share (but not impossible)

WyleECoyoteNZ

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#1471625 15-Jan-2016 09:28

MikeB4: I am not sure if NZ can support another site like trademe, our market is small. Also, without knowing Trademe's cost structure and overheads it's hard to say if the fee increases are justified or not.

The rent\lease at One Market Lane, where their offices are in Wellington won't be cheap...

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sbiddle

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#1471633 15-Jan-2016 09:40

spearsniper:
We need competition as a handbrake for fee increases, otherwise monopolies just keep increasing prices. Competition is good for the consumer - look at the Cloud Computing IaaS space. Price CUTS are the norm.

Competition or removal of monopolies does not always mean prices will decrease (or not increase). If a competitor doesn't have the traction to compete effectively then such competition is pointless.

In the cloud/VPS space many of the providers are selling the identical product with no real differentiation. Opting for the cheapest option will often save you money.

If you look in the airline space Air NZ still have a monopoly despite competition from Jetstar because Jetstar have a terrible product. If you look at the Air NZ site today you'll probably find $300 fares to Auckland and $99 fares on Jetstar - which for a customer is great, but ultimately shows the failings of a business when they can only charge 1/3 of the price of a competitor.

In the auction space it's no good if you don't have eyeballs looking at your site, which is why competitors have all failed.

Competition in the broadband market has lead to a position where there is very minimal margin for pass market consumer services. In the long term this isn't good.

WyleECoyoteNZ

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#1471634 15-Jan-2016 09:43

There are a number of smaller 'operations' taking on Trade Me.

Heck, even GZ has a sale section...

From a Trade Me perspective, assuming they know about them, the competitors are all the 'Buy Sell Swap' pages on Facebook, I know of a least 4 pages in the Wellington area alone.

There is a lot of stuff sold there that once would have been the domain of Trade Me. It's not generally High dollars, but it is high volume. The sites tend to be heavy on kids clothing\shoes\toys, and womanswear.

One of these pages made the news the other day, the facebook page 'Vic Deals' is being watched by police, and I'm sure the ones I've alluded too are watched as well.

Zeon

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#1471636 15-Jan-2016 09:46

It would be a struggle to even get one competitor so I don't think there is a risk of massive competition forcing prices down like in broadband. I don't think you can straight up copy Trademe - it would probably need a different model to gain user base and slowly evolve towards Trademe once that was going - otherwise as has been pointed out, people are too lazy to check a direct competitor of Trademe but may if its different.

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Sidestep

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#1471652 15-Jan-2016 09:57

I use ebay in Aust, Canada, US... would use it in NZ if it was available.

I use their main 'free listing' competitors also - Gumtree (Aust), Kijiji (Can), Craigslist (US)... two of those sites are now owned by ebay, and they have 25% of Craigslist.
They're not auction sites though - they won't get sellers the highest price (that's why I can find real bargains there).
One of the big things about Ebay-trademe is they can find a market price for that item of unknown value you found in the shed.

And a big difference is the 'safety' of ebay transactions.
Sellers are happy to transact with unknown buyers, and buyers with unknown sellers because of their 'feedback' system, buyer protection.

Gumtree, Kijiji & Craigslist sellers will generally only do face-to-face transactions, cause the risk of getting ripped off is so high.
Trademe's in a kind of middle ground, with a good feedback system but little buyer or seller protection.
Facebook's similar in a way, because there's basic 'feedback' but no chance to protection other than a moderator to try & sort things out.

So to me, a new site would have to offer transaction protection, an auction system - to set market value on items, free or cheap transactions, and critical mass! A big ask.

gzt

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#1471870 15-Jan-2016 12:45

Trademe fees were reasonable through most of Sella existence. Main reason for failure, it was a hopeful clone with no other ambition.

Kiwifruta

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#1472001 15-Jan-2016 15:27

As a side note here's a graph of the trend in google searches for trademe (and variants) over time
https://google.com/trends/explore#q=trademe%2C%20trademe.co.nz%2C%20trade%20me

Note Fairfax bought trademe in March 2006, and listed it in December 2011.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/trade-me-ipo-priced-top-end-range-ck-104033

Lining those dates up with the graph tells an interesting story.

Batman

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#1472015 15-Jan-2016 15:48

sbiddle: If you look at the Air NZ site today you'll probably find $300 fares to Auckland and $99 fares on Jetstar -

That's weird ... it's usually the other way round!

mattwnz

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#1472033 15-Jan-2016 16:05

Only one company in NZ I think is in any position to take on trademe and move on to the next generation platfor, with selling new products like amazon. A hint...they used to run quite a large auction site in NZ

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