Sella rolled into NZHerald

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gzt

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Topic # 114679 27-Feb-2013 11:57

Sella is no longer a personal auction platform:

As you will know, Sella launched in 2008 and it has grown to more than 550,000 members. We wanted to let you know that our business is taking on a new direction in 2013. Sella is owned by APN NZ Media, publisher of the NZ Herald. APN has today announced a strategic decision to move away from the consumer to consumer auctions market and will instead integrate the Sella listings into the Herald and APN Regional websites. Motoring and Property will launch first. From 28 February, Sella will no longer operate as a standalone brand and we wanted to take the opportunity to update you and thank you for your support. Please check out our FAQs page for a full list of answers on what happens to your current listings, account balances and business listings.

Sella had 1-3% of NZ's online auction market. It will become the NZ Herald classified platform starting with motoring and property.

This strikes me as mostly defensive effort to keep their classified business out of trademe's clutches.

Thoughts?

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Reply # 771006 27-Feb-2013 12:03

Soon you will see trademe up it's fee's to 25% :)

sleemanj

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Reply # 771015 27-Feb-2013 12:24

My thoughts are that APN finally realised that you just CAN NOT compete with TradeMe and get anything like a useful share of the market. Just not happening. No way. No how.

Critical mass is the name of the game, and Trademe are like a blackhole, nothing escapes.

If APN can't make Sella work, why Wheedle, ListSellTrade and others think they can... I don't know.

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nate

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Reply # 771018 27-Feb-2013 12:29

sleemanj: If APN can't make Sella work, why Wheedle, ListSellTrade and others think they can... I don't know.

Because you can employ cheap coders and throw up any old interface and people will flock to it, disgruntled at Trademe's high fees.

QED.

freitasm

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Reply # 771020 27-Feb-2013 12:30

Why will be the next money waster to come with a "Trade Me killer" idea now?

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Reply # 771024 27-Feb-2013 12:36

nate:
sleemanj: If APN can't make Sella work, why Wheedle, ListSellTrade and others think they can... I don't know.

Because you can employ cheap coders and throw up any old interface and people will flock to it, disgruntled at Trademe's high fees.

QED.

Probably yes that's what they think. I've got news for them, and it's all bad.

Even though Trademe is clearly a large pile of unmaintainable spaghetti crawling with bugs they still have all the eyes.

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Reply # 771031 27-Feb-2013 12:40

nate:
sleemanj: If APN can't make Sella work, why Wheedle, ListSellTrade and others think they can... I don't know.

Because you can employ cheap coders and throw up any old interface and people will flock to it, disgruntled at Trademe's high fees.

QED.

This reminds me of those upstarts who come along announcing that their fancy-schmancy new search engine will knock Google off its perch. Many have tried...

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

freitasm

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Reply # 771032 27-Feb-2013 12:41

nate:
sleemanj: If APN can't make Sella work, why Wheedle, ListSellTrade and others think they can... I don't know.

Because you can employ cheap coders and throw up any old interface and people will flock to it, disgruntled at Trademe's high fees.

QED.

QED? The only proven thing so far is that "you can employ cheap coders and throw up any old interface". There's not a single evidence of people "disgruntled at Trademe's high fees" making a winner site. Not even Sella.

So, to me this is no "QED" at all.

The only conclusion here is that no matter what you do/make/build, this market is dominated by Trade Me and competitors have not much chance against it. Large or small, old or new.

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Reply # 771033 27-Feb-2013 12:43

freitasm:
nate:
sleemanj: If APN can't make Sella work, why Wheedle, ListSellTrade and others think they can... I don't know.

Because you can employ cheap coders and throw up any old interface and people will flock to it, disgruntled at Trademe's high fees.

QED.

QED? The only proven thing so far is that "you can employ cheap coders and throw up any old interface". There's not a single evidence of people "disgruntled at Trademe's high fees" making a winner site. Not even Sella.

So, to me this is no "QED" at all.

The only conclusion here is that no matter what you do/make/build, this market is dominated by Trade Me and competitors have not much chance against it. Large or small, old or new.

Well to be fair, I don't think that's true. It hasn't been true until now, however lots of big companies have been taken out by smaller ones in the tech world. If they don't service their customers, stagnate or get complacent, or get too greedy, eventually someone will come along and take a chunk of their market share.

geek4me

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Reply # 771083 27-Feb-2013 14:22

If one is not happy with the NZ Herald site and you have an account credit you want refunded, according to Sella's terms and conditions it seems they will not refund the full amount if the credit balance is less than $10. If over $10 they do refunds minus a $5 fee. This $5 fee or no refund seems unfair if you don't want to stay with the new owner.

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Reply # 771085 27-Feb-2013 14:38

geek4me: This $5 fee or no refund seems unfair if you don't want to stay with the new owner.

More to the point, and I think perhaps you misunderstand, Herald will not be offering private online classifieds, they are going to only be doing Business to Client - car dealers and real estate agents only (and further business areas later).

There is no new owner, APN has owned Sella for a while now.

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Reply # 771089 27-Feb-2013 14:43

Yes I did misunderstand. So all those $10 or less user credits make a tidy sum for Sella to stick in their pocket. Perhaps I should add $2 to my $8.05 so I can get $10.05 - $5 back rather than nothing at all.

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Reply # 771091 27-Feb-2013 14:54

geek4me: Yes I did misunderstand. So all those $10 or less user credits make a tidy sum for Sella to stick in their pocket. Perhaps I should add $2 to my $8.05 so I can get $10.05 - $5 back rather than nothing at all.

They are dropping the $5 admin fee apparantly stated on their facebook
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=1218209&topic=10

sella: hey guys.. we have decided to remove the $5 admin fee on refunds. its not your fault we're closing the Sella.co.nz front end.. so you shouldn't be penalized by an admin fee. there will likely be further announcements re: refunds shortly. cheers

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Kaos36

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Reply # 771094 27-Feb-2013 14:59

why did i not see this thread first before starting my one!

Idiot!

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Kaos36

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Reply # 771095 27-Feb-2013 15:00

At first i thought i was banned frm the mb so checked email

Thank you for being a loyal Sella customer.

As you will know, Sella launched in 2008 and it has grown to more than
550,000 members. We wanted to let you know that our business is taking on a new
direction in 2013.

Sella is owned by APN NZ Media, publisher of the NZ Herald. APN has today
announced a strategic decision to move away from the consumer to consumer
auctions market and will instead integrate the Sella listings into the Herald
and APN Regional websites. Motoring and Property will launch first.

From 28 February, Sella will no longer operate as a standalone brand and we
wanted to take the opportunity to update you and thank you for your support.

Please check out our FAQs page
for a full list of answers on what happens to your current listings, account
balances and business listings.

Worst Response To A Crisis:
From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

Macros

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Reply # 771096 27-Feb-2013 15:03

nate:
sleemanj: If APN can't make Sella work, why Wheedle, ListSellTrade and others think they can... I don't know.

Because you can employ cheap coders and throw up any old interface and people will flock to it, disgruntled at Trademe's high fees.

QED.

I think a lot of people forget that there are 2 sides to sales - the merchant and the customer. Customers do not care how low the fees are for merchants, as long as they can find what they want at the price they're willing to pay.

As Sella has shown, free listings does not equal more buyers. TradeMe has both sellers AND buyers. Unless another site can easily bring in the buyers, sellers will stay with TradeMe.

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