If anyone saw Sunday, on the 15 July, there was an article about Trade Me and its success and also monopoly over NZ when it comes to Auctions and Classifieds.  Sure auctions are great but what about good old fashioned Wanted to Buy's which don't require hard-earned points, like Smile City or early-bird viewing charges.  The Sunday programme also interviewed a guy who pays over $30,000 a year in success fees and felt he was at the mercy of TM especially when they raise their fees with little or no warning but the faithfuls stick with it simply because there is no alternative.  I am a good mate of the brother of the creator of a brand new site, which has a classifieds section as a part of its overall features.  He says it is due to be launched officially in NZ at the end of July 2007 and has been under development for the past 3 or so years by a team of 4 or so guys so it is serious stuff.  He tells me that they have addressed the requirement for a wanted to buy and have also created a Dutch Auction section as well so that is good news.

I understand that they also cater for all categories including real estate, cars, boats, personals etc. and whilst they are not free to list, there are no success fees or other costs for photos, features etc. Don't quote me on this, as much of this is still under wraps, but I think that they have a flat rate of $2/mth per ad but there are no limits on the quantities of items one can sell through a single ad so if you have 20 USB keys to sell, you only have to list it once but I also hear that they have a membership option where for $60/yr members get 100 ads which means ads are as low as 60c and have expiry dates of 12 months.  I also heard a whisper that they are about to embark on a membership drive and the membership fee of $60 per year is reduced by 50% provided people signing up key in a special code.  They also have a lot more other goodies like online interactive games and video sharing but I have to do some more digging.

Anyway, I think it is great we have a new player about to enter the market and I hope NZ'ers really get in behind and support it even if you pay the low membership fee and keep a foot in both camps whilst it gains support and grows as I would say any decent site needs at least 6-12 months to establish a reasonable foothold in the marketplace.