Trademe vs Ebay.co.nz vs sella

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Sellanz

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#334469 25-May-2010 12:53

Hi All

(disclosure - I'm the founder of Sella.co.nz)

While you all make valid points I thought I would let you know my 2 cents worth.

Yes, sella.co.nz is a long term proposition, I'm happy to be honest if it takes 5 to 6 years to become anywhere near as popular as TradeMe. TM has been around since 1999, we started in 2009 - so they have 10 years on us.

It always amazes me and it is the source of our biggest frustration, that people expect sella to be TM's equal instantly after launching. This is not just true of sella, but it is true of any website.

I'm fairly certain google didn't become a hit the day they launched it from their garage!
Ebay probably didn't even worry about amazon - now amazon is taking market share off them at an amazing pace.

Since launching, some 16 months ago - we have racked up some pretty impressive stats

240,000 + listings
260,000 + members

And the best thing is that the activity on the site is increasing faster than anything else. Just yesterday we had a record bids and users watching items. Are these numbers still small compared to TradeMe, absolutely, but I can tell you they are about 40 times the size that any other auction site going up against TradeMe has got to.

http://blog.sella.co.nz/site-stats/sella-april-review/

On all our stats that we track, we have already overtaken April's numbers - this happened last saturday, the same occurred during April when we overtook March's numbers from the 19th March.

The biggest growth for sella will come during 2011. 2010 for us is about building the site and adding functionality and features to the site. You will notice in the next 3 months quite a few features that TradeMe doesn't have - some very big, a few smaller ones - but the key here is innovation.

In the last 4 weeks I cannot believe the level of support we have had from the trading community - users now realise that a monopoly will behave like a monopoly can - this means increasing fees whenever they feel like it. They want us to succeed and are willing to support us to succeed, if only to keep TradeMe in check.

Anyway, as you say, taking on TradeMe is a big ask - but the same people who told me finda.co.nz would never work found out that it did - finda now has 750,000 + users a month and 230,000 businesses listed.

I think we can achieve our stated aim of being a "solid number 2" in the New Zealand trading scene - to be honest, I wouldn't be wasting my time or money if I thought overwise.

Cheers

Shane
www.ideahq.co.nz

MooPoo

251 posts

Ultimate Geek

#334474 25-May-2010 13:09

Sellanz:

240,000 + listings
260,000 + members

http://blog.sella.co.nz/site-stats/sella-april-review/

Cheers

Shane
www.ideahq.co.nz

Hi Shane and thanks for the honesty. I for one really appreciate it.

I have to say that the link you gave us shows members, visits and watchers but no stats on actual sales?

Do you have any stats on actual completed sales for the months? Unfortunately nowadays just about everyone who has an interest will get a free account somewhere and even visit it but completing a sale is the true test of peoples value of a site. This is my opinion anyway.

I was in Sella the other day poking around and noticed that none of the auctions I looked at had any bids. Not one. Add to that, just about every auction I looked at as well only had 1 view, and that could have been me for all I know!

I will give the benfit of the doubt and say that I probably didnt look hard enough or in the right places, but then, I was only looking in categories that I would be selling in.

Unfortunately, I think that until people see a lot of bids on items they arent going to do it themselves.

Thanks again Shane and good luck battling the behemoth that is Trade Me.

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.

--------------------------------------------

Earthquakes. Shift Happens.

Sellanz

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#334482 25-May-2010 13:16

Yeah, we find certain categories perform better than others, which is how we have set about trying to build the site.

Rather than take on TradeMe across all 2,500 categories, which is impossible, do it category by category. A look at the homepage will see auctions with a decent number of bids on them.

Longterm game, but over the next 12 months you will hopefully see the method to the madness :)

cheers

Shane

Linuxluver

5828 posts

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#334509 25-May-2010 14:13

I've used sella.co.nz. For the sellers, it can absolutely be better than Trademe as you pay a flat fee (about $3 for what I was selling) for the feature package...and they take no commission. Golden.

TradeMe yanked one of my auctions 24 hours before closing and reserve had been met. They didn't warn me first and allow me to alter the wording to clarify a very minor point about the power adaptor, they just spiked it. The part that made me mad was that I BOUGHT the item on TradeMe....no issues for that sale.

That took the gloss off TradeMe and got me looking for Plan B.

Sella.co.nz is an excellent Plan B.

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I've been on Geekzone over 16 years..... Time flies....

Linuxluver

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#334518 25-May-2010 14:21

MooPoo:

I was in Sella the other day poking around and noticed that none of the auctions I looked at had any bids. Not one. Add to that, just about every auction I looked at as well only had 1 view, and that could have been me for all I know!

I will give the benfit of the doubt and say that I probably didnt look hard enough or in the right places, but then, I was only looking in categories that I would be selling in.

I happily sold a mid-range cellphone on sella for a price i was happy with.

But you do have to make some effort to promote your sale. I tweeted it a couple of times and posted links in a couple of related forums where kiwis hang out....and I got bids and sale.

Yeah.....you don't really have to do that on TradeMe, but TradeMe would have cost me nearly $30 more....so spending a little time and thought on promoting MY auction proved to be a successful plan.

In a way, it doesn't matter where the auction is provided you let people know it's there.

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I've been on Geekzone over 16 years..... Time flies....

nate

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#334527 25-May-2010 14:35

Sellanz: The biggest growth for sella will come during 2011. 2010 for us is about building the site and adding functionality and features to the site. You will notice in the next 3 months quite a few features that TradeMe doesn't have - some very big, a few smaller ones - but the key here is innovation.

This is where you will succeed.

It's amazing the number of smaller auctions sites that popped up around the time that TradeMe was sold to Fairfax. They all thought if they duplicated TradeMe that they could take them on, but they can't. New features such as ease of completion of sale for sellers, clever buyer tools etc is what is going to convert people over. Build it and they will come doesn't work online.

Good luck to you, competition in any industry (as long as it's not mine!) is always a good thing.

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