Trademe fees blimmin heck

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qwerty7

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#111116 24-Oct-2012 18:18

I understand the idea of paying a fee for an auction site with more traffic but this is starting to get ridiculous. Sold something for 170 and got charged nearly $15 in success fees. Did a search and sure enough the fees were raised again at the end of September. This is after paying for gallery option etc. I also said I would post it for free :/.

The success fee is currently 7.9% of anything up to $200 + promotional options e.g gallery

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Hawkes Bay
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#705843 24-Oct-2012 18:33

They're upfront about fees, and have a massive audience.

Maybe try Sella or one of the new ones, but Trademes prices really do reflect the quality of their offering IMO.

You just have to factor the fees into the prices you set and then it becomes largely irrelevant.

mattwnz

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#705849 24-Oct-2012 18:40

But at least you sold it. They charge a percentage, so the more you make, the more they make too.

scuwp

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#705851 24-Oct-2012 18:40

Yep, bound to happen when it was sold to a greedy multinational. As mentioned just accommodate the fees into your price if you can. Unfortunately they are the host-with-the-most if you want to sell anything, others currently are try-hards, has-beens, or wanna be's. No competition = captive market.

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mattwnz

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#705854 24-Oct-2012 18:46

scuwp: Yep, bound to happen when it was sold to a greedy multinational. As mentioned just accommodate the fees into your price if you can. Unfortunately they are the host-with-the-most if you want to sell anything, others currently are try-hards, has-beens, or wanna be's. No competition = captive market.

Plus you can get quite good prices selling on trademe, as people can pay way more than the item is worth. Just put a reasonable start price on the item. If trademe fees have increased, then the answer is just to put your start price a bit higher to accommodate this.

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#705858 24-Oct-2012 18:50

tonyhughes: ....Trademes prices really do reflect the quality of their offering IMO. <br

Could I paraphrase this? "Trademe's prices really do reflect their IPO".

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Zeon

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#705859 24-Oct-2012 18:53

You guys know Trademe is apparently planning a whole supply chain thing for sellers now (or soon)?

As in you can import stuff direct to the Trademe warehouse. They can then pick it out of boxes as you sell it and courier it to your clients.

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GBristow

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#705864 24-Oct-2012 19:10

It's a monopoly. Due to the nature of the industry, competition is almost impossible. It's another good example of a business/industry which doesn't function efficiently in an open market. eBay attracts similar complaints, and a similar dominant position. Trademe will continue to raise fees, and they will get away with it because other sites don't have the critical mass of users required to receive market price for a good.

The only realistic solution is legislation of some sort, but that's problematic for many reasons.

gzt

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#705882 24-Oct-2012 19:43

qwerty7: I understand the idea of paying a fee for an auction site with more traffic but this is starting to get ridiculous. Sold something for 170 and got charged nearly $15 in success fees. Did a search and sure enough the fees were raised again at the end of September. This is after paying for gallery option etc. I also said I would post it for free :/.

The success fee is currently 7.9% of anything up to $200 + promotional options e.g gallery

Did you try listing it on Sella first?

DonGould

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#705887 24-Oct-2012 19:55

gzt:
Did you try listing it on Sella first?

Exactly, all the moaning about TM, but how many sites do you regularly check for something and how many do you list your stuff on? Most of the other sites are free.

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1080p

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#705909 24-Oct-2012 20:39

http://www.bidbuddy.com/

qwerty7

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#705920 24-Oct-2012 20:51

Zeon: You guys know Trademe is apparently planning a whole supply chain thing for sellers now (or soon)?

As in you can import stuff direct to the Trademe warehouse. They can then pick it out of boxes as you sell it and courier it to your clients.

Interesting...

I read that trademe have a 75% profit margin and made a profit last year of 75.6 mill

A raise in fees causes a certain over inflation of prices. If something is worth $100 I need to sell it for nearly $110 to cover my cost. If something is worth $400 I need to sell it for $427.

I have not used sella but I am getting closer to trying and have spent more and more time 'exploring' it. The thing is in the past before trademe got money hungry you would be stupid not to sell on trademe, it was the only place to go, mass market and for a few dollars you could get it sold, but now not so much. That is why people are exploring other options such as selling through facebook.

It would not surprise me if fees neared 10% in the next few years.

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floydbloke

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#706094 25-Oct-2012 08:55

GBristow: It's a monopoly. ...

Agreed, but the general public in NZ helped make it so. Sam Morgan saw an opportunity, grabbed it and used it to his advantage.

I neither like nor loathe TradeMe, but I do agree that their fees are becoming too high. I actually wouldn't mind if they intorduced some sort of charging mechanism for re-listing an item that didn't sell after about the third time to weed out some of the crud that appears time and time again when you're on the lookout for certain things.

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

stuzzo

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#706112 25-Oct-2012 09:29

There's a lot of avoidance of fees that goes on to. Traders often list one item that has a cheap price which you take but then buy as many as you want from the seller later. Some areas such as livestock they have clamped down on by charging a set listing fee.

DonGould

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#706113 25-Oct-2012 09:30

The sooner TM fees rise to 15% the better.

Price will push consumers. The current problem is that TM fees are so low that consumers are not being pushed.

$75m on $1.5b is hardly an ROI. It needs to be delivering NP of $150m at least.

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ajobbins

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#706127 25-Oct-2012 10:03

Zeon: You guys know Trademe is apparently planning a whole supply chain thing for sellers now (or soon)?

As in you can import stuff direct to the Trademe warehouse. They can then pick it out of boxes as you sell it and courier it to your clients.

Source? I can't see them doing this (For numerous reasons)

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