Has Trade Me had its day?

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Awrrr
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#1432805 22-Nov-2015 18:52

All good points but my intention at least with the relevance issue is that people like me who are dissatisfied with the level of service on Trade Me can now find what they want by going elsewhere. At the same time, it is well known that Trade Me customer volume is declining. Hence my question, is Trade Me losing its relevance to NZ customers?

My specific complaint about rural delivery has to due with the added costs which do not seem justified to me, and the lack of a cheaper alternative, but my real complaint is about the unwillingness of traders to offer other options, which to me is a service issue. A couple dollars extra is not going to break me. I see it as a matter of principle.

If Aliexpress can provide a service that Trade Me cannot, and if this causes me to shift my business from one to the other, then I think it is fair to ask if Trade Me is becoming less relevant in today's e-commerce world. Unlike Aliexpress, it depends on only a single domestic market and I would think it would want to everything it can to retain every single customer if it has any hopes of remaining viable in the longer term.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Aredwood

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#1432810 22-Nov-2015 19:09

gzt:
Aredwood: Also don't know if it applies in the OPs case. But have seen threads on the trademe forums from sellers complaining about some buyers who are rural, yet lying about that to get cheaper delivery.

Lying is one thing and no doubt it is common but many users and first time users will simply not know it applies and what it is for. Trademe could easily fix that but it would preference one carrier.

Just want to add in case my post gets interpreted the wrong way. Im not saying that the OP is / was lying. Was meaning if the seller had previously been burnt by buyers not saying they are rural / giving a false address (leaving out the RD bit) / outright lying ect.

Yes agree that trademe is loosing it's relevance. Alot to do with it getting sold for a stupidly high price. And the new owners taking too much money out of the business. (Which they need to do to justify paying the price they did) But this means high fees, but no improvement in service. And no technology upgrades. (Will they ever get an internal messaging system instead of having to rely on email?)

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#1432857 22-Nov-2015 19:46

Rikkitic: Today I ran into the same thing again. I needed a couple of small items and looked first on Trade Me. I sent a query to the seller and the response was not only could they not send it by ordinary post at my risk, but I could only pay for it through the bank, despite Pay Now being on the listing.

Welcome to the world where people can't trust others. They are probably afraid of people saying "I want my money back, never received the item."

(Although this was mentioned before, even first by Timmmay but worth repeating)

wsnz

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#1432890 22-Nov-2015 20:32

There are still a number of traders who inflate postage costs (e.g. $10 North Island urban delivery for an item placed in an envelope), in order to avoid paying commissions to trademe. TM appear to have cracked down on this practice, however it is still occurring. I now refuse to deal with anyone like that.

wsnz

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#1432892 22-Nov-2015 20:33

scuwp: Trade me has long passed it's prime years but still very relevant IMO. It's just about the only way to sell off anything these days aside from FB.

We should also remember that TradeMe also earns an increasingly large proportion of revenue to other avenues; Insurance, P2P lending etc. with further acquisitions on the way that will bolster this.

mudguard

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#1432914 22-Nov-2015 21:26

Actually I would say it's the fees and Facebook groups that area doing the most damage.
I used to buy plenty of mountain bike parts. One section, suspension forks and shocks, has so few listings now compared to five years ago. Whereas private Facebook groups have replaced it. Which brings numerous issues as well.

scuwp

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#1432916 22-Nov-2015 21:40

mudguard: Actually I would say it's the fees and Facebook groups that area doing the most damage.
I used to buy plenty of mountain bike parts. One section, suspension forks and shocks, has so few listings now compared to five years ago. Whereas private Facebook groups have replaced it. Which brings numerous issues as well.

Ebay also is becoming a little more relevant for NZ buyers. For example bike parts from the states are often under 1/2 price of that available in NZ. If you can afford to wait a couple of weeks TM can't compete.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

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Geektastic

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#1432919 22-Nov-2015 21:56

You should of course remember that the actual post cost is only part of it - there are packing materials required as well as the sender's time and petrol etc to send the item.

freitasm

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#1432931 22-Nov-2015 22:23

mudguard: Actually I would say it's the fees and Facebook groups that area doing the most damage.
I used to buy plenty of mountain bike parts. One section, suspension forks and shocks, has so few listings now compared to five years ago. Whereas private Facebook groups have replaced it. Which brings numerous issues as well.

Yes, and since Facebook does not take any responsibility, it's the Realm of Thieves (TM).

Geese

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#1432986 23-Nov-2015 02:53

Geektastic: You should of course remember that the actual post cost is only part of it - there are packing materials required as well as the sender's time and petrol etc to send the item.

I was going to say that Trademe's terms and conditions have long stated you can only charge for actual postage costs but not a handling fee, but after doing a search of their T&Cs it appears that has been removed from there?

richms

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#1432987 23-Nov-2015 03:02

Geese:
Geektastic: You should of course remember that the actual post cost is only part of it - there are packing materials required as well as the sender's time and petrol etc to send the item.

I was going to say that Trademe's terms and conditions have long stated you can only charge for actual postage costs but not a handling fee, but after doing a search of their T&Cs it appears that has been removed from there?

That was there at the time that me and my friend were selling a while ago. If they decided to enforce it we were just going to contract the posting out to a second company that would generate an invoice to the one running the trademe account for the amount that was listed on trademe as the delivery amount.

The thing that has stuffed trademe IMO is letting all the aussie and uk sellers clutter it up. They cant do next day delivery so I dont want to be seeing them on trademe when looking for things.

Richard rich.ms

Jaxson

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#1433017 23-Nov-2015 08:04

A few small comments:

1) I've seen a big in crease in Facebook local buy/sell/trade groups in the last few years. I suspect a fair bit of stolen goods goes around through these also. There are dedicated subject groups, like NZ Photography Classified for example, selling items that normally would have gone to Trademe.

2) The post rates are ridiculous. As has been mentioned earlier, you can get free shipping out of China for a .50c item. I purchased a couple of PS3 Bluetooth headsets from Banggood China for $10NZD each, free shipping. When they arrived I tested they worked ok and then went to send one to my brother in Wellington. The cost was $8.50 or something, so it was basically more sensible to buy another one and have it sent to him instead.

3) Trademe still do that stupid thing where the buyer of your auction can ignore you completely, and still gets a right to vote on your seller rating. I've had quite a few arguments with them over the years about that one, pointing out I listed an item and the buyer bid and won it. I couldn't have possibly done anything differently from my end, but they still get to retaliate and score me down.

4) Trademe still don't allow for multiple region searches at the same time. I live in Palmerston North and when buying a car for example I want to know about anything good that comes up between Taranaki to Hawkes Bay and down to Wellington, so including the Manawatu, Wairarapa also. That has to be 5 separate searches because you can't tick multiple boxes.

So I don't think enough alternative marketplace options have arisen to make Trademe redundant, especially as EBay never came here, but I do think there are a lot of different options starting up. My parents still use the buy/sell section in the Newspaper. Remember that? Newspapers?

jonathan18

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#1433024 23-Nov-2015 08:33

To echo Jaxon's points above, I have a real impression that Trade Me is being left behind in comparison to eBay and Aliexpress; it appears to be more worried about a redesign of its front page than actually providing a more maliable interface and search function. Totally agree re the need for multiple region searches, but there are also so many other areas it could learn from its overseas competition that make it easy for a buyer to find what they're looking for, for example filtering options are crap; similarly, their categories are often missing, inaccurate or not specific enough. I just often give up looking on TM and go elsewhere.

And I agree regarding the price of postage charged by sellers, but this isn't the fault of TM - and IME it's not limited to rural NZ only. It it almost always financially advantageous to buy small items from eBay or Aliexpress, as often the postage cost on TM is more than the item itself. I'd have no problem paying a bit more on the cost I could get something from o/s, given it'll often have CGA cover and will be delivered quickly, but not when the total cost can easily be 3-4 times more than getting it from o/s.

I'd imagine TM will remain the main place to sell s/h and larger items (the reality is not everyone is a FB user!), but for a number of reasons they'll continue to lose other types of listings.

reven

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#1433048 23-Nov-2015 08:42

I want trademe to show buy now + postage in searches like ebay and then sort by that. and their new way to display listings, if you sort by price, it doesnt actually sort by price, because the featured ads are still shown at the top even though they are more expensive.

but agree, I buy a lot from dx.com etc simple due to shipping. free shipping from china vs $8.99 courier from south auckland to south auckland... More sellers need to allow pickup as well, thats a PITA.

andrew027

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#1433052 23-Nov-2015 08:59

freitasm: Welcome to the world where people can't trust others. They are probably afraid of people saying "I want my money back, never received the item."

(Although this was mentioned before, even first by Timmmay but worth repeating)

Earlier this year my wife bought something on TradeMe - only about $8 for the item, with the courier delivery fee added to that. We never received it but the seller swore black and blue they had verification from the courier that it had been delivered and accused us of trying to scam them. My wife thought maybe the courier had delivered it to the wrong house - possible, but if it had been delivered to any of our even vaguely close neighbours they would have stuck it in our letter box. I asked the seller for a tracking number so I can chase it up with the courier myself and they refused to provide one, so I jump to the conclusion that they never even sent it and are scamming us. Everybody leaves frowny-face feedback.

So yeah, I think there are a number of dodgy dealers on TradeMe and (just my opinion) enough stories of people getting burnt that it's putting some buyers off. And TradeMe don't seem to want to get involved in disputes.

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