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Instant Gratification — And More Pressure On Sellers February 21, 2012

Posted by Michael Carney in : buying, selling , add a comment

We were caught by surprise by last Friday’s announcement from our bank:

Payments made between banks will be processed hourly on weekdays. This means you, and those you pay, could receive money the same day payment is made

A bit more digging led to the discovery that (a) the initiative apparently came from the Reserve Bank; and (b) there are still a few inconsistencies in the way the new scheme operates. For example, “hourly” starts for Kiwibank at 9.45am and finishes at 2.45pm; however Westpac don’t operate with “hourly” until the afternoon, according to what we’ve been told. And no doubt the other banks will have their own timetables as well.

What this means, if you’re a Trade Me buyer, is that internet banking just moved a whole lot closer to real-time. Buy something in the morning and pay for it immediately by internet banking and you have a reasonable expectation that the seller will receive the money that same day.

Of course, for the seller, that means there’s an increased expectation that you will be in a position to despatch your product on the same day as well.

No pressure …

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Sell Much More Stuff on Trade Me in 2012 January 6, 2012

Posted by Michael Carney in : selling, trade me, trademe, training , add a comment

New Year, new resolutions. What are you planning to do in 2012 to upskill yourself and learn more about doing business on Trade Me this year?

Here’s how to make yourself more money on Trade Me in 2012:

  1. Read our Trade Me Success Secrets book from cover to cover
  2. Sign up for our Advanced Selling on Trade Me online course, which gives you plenty of hands-on advice on how to sell more effectively on Trade Me

PS We had paused our Advanced Selling on Trade Me course because of other demands on our time, but we’ve decided to run the course on a very limited basis in 2012. The course starts on Wednesday January 18, and we offer a special $124 Early Bird discount for bookings received by Wednesday 11 January, so we recommend you check the course out NOW.

SPECIAL JANUARY BONUS OFFER

We’ve never done this before, but consider it a belated Christmas gift: if you purchase our Advanced Selling on Trade Me course by midnight NZ time on January 11 2012 and quote this code (JAN11BONUS) we’ll send you a copy of our best-selling Trade Me Success Secrets book absolutely free! So don’t delay, BOOK HERE, NOW and claim your BONUS FREE GIFT!

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What Buyers Want January 6, 2012

Posted by Michael Carney in : auctions, buying, selling, trade me, trademe , add a comment

Ah, if we only knew what people wanted to buy …

Well, as it happens we do have some ways of finding out. First, let’s take a look at some recent research from Nielsen USA, which asked those 13 and older what they intend to buy in the next six months. Here’s what they said:

You’ll notice that all these items are objects of techno-lust, which probably says more about the limited scope of the questionnaire than it does about the consumer. Still, it’s a useful guideline if you’re in the business of offering gadgets for sale.

If not, where else could you turn for information about what buyers are looking for?

First, look no further than the good old Trade Me newsletter, which each month reports on the most popular recent searches:

Secondly, to take a look at what is actually selling on Trade Me, wander over to their Sell-Through Statistics, where you’ll find what percentage of items in each category is actually selling:

This data will give you a heads-up on, for example, whether you’d be better concentrating your attention on selling antique clocks or antique flags. You’ll need to explore further, of course — some categories simply don’t have many listings, so percentages can be misleading — but this section is a good place to start your research.

Next, head to Google Zeitgeist and click through to the Top Ten lists for Kiwis — things we were searching for in 2011:

You’ll be able to drill down further, and find the hottest searches by month. For example, in November 2011 one of the most popular searches locally was for “Adele” (if you don’t know who she is, ask a young ‘un):

Where else can we turn for information on prospective buyers?

If you can identify the types of products you want to see, head to Google’s Keywords Tool. Here you can search by specific keywords, to determine the approximate local demand for a given keyword or phrase. For example, if we search for “ipad”, we find that there are an estimated 246,000 local searches for phases such as “which ipad”.

If you’d like to develop an even better understanding of your buyers and what they want, may we respectfully direct you to:

PS We had paused our Advanced Selling on Trade Me course because of other demands on our time, but because of popular request (Mr Tom Popular requested it!), we’ve decided to run the course on a very limited basis in 2012. The first release is on Wednesday January 18, and we offer a special $124 Early Bird discount for bookings received by Wednesday 11 January, so we recommend you check the course out NOW.

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Where’s The Money? August 3, 2011

Posted by Michael Carney in : most valuable, selling , 2comments

Which are the most valuable categories on Trade Me?

There are potentially quite a few different ways to answer that question, depending on how you define the term “most valuable”. For example, if you opted for a definition that encompasses the highest overall pricetags in a given category, then Trade Me Property would win by a country mile.

Or you could look at the highest cumulative value of items in a general category (excluding Property and Motor Vehicles), in which case Womenswear would probably win based on its volume (175,000+ items in a typical week).

Another possibility: assessing a category based on the historical highest bid in that category — in which case, do we include or exclude joke bids such as the $99,999,999 offered for the iceberg that floated close to New Zealand in November 2006? And should we also include the auction where someone tried to sell Australia, as is, where is?

No, we decided to ground this analysis in reality and so we’ve settled for the definition of “Average Selling Price” per category. The higher the Average Selling Price (the amount that items actually sold for, not the listing price), the greater the value (even if actual numbers sold were low).

Against that yardstick, then, the Top 20 Most Valuable Categories on Trade Me are:

20. The Snooker & Pool category(encompassing Cues, Tables & Other items). Average Selling Price: $210.37

19. Accommodation (both domestic and international): $216.79

18. Mobility Aids (Scooters, Wheelchairs, Walking frames & sticks) $220.63

17.  Computer Servers (including components): $223.39

16. Building & Renovation (a diverse range of materials, from tarpaulins to portable buildings): $227.78

15. Kites, Stunt Kites & kitesurfing gear: $232.16

14. Tickets to Sporting Events: $235.30

13. Trampolines, a perennial favourite: $237.93

12. Apple Computers (including peripherals): $247.92

11. Arcade & Pinball Gaming Machines: $253.18

10. Kitchen building and renovation materials: $254.09

9. Digital Cameras: $267.85

8. Desktop computers: $268.28

7. Farming & Forestry products: $296.89

6. Kayaks & Canoes: $325.68

5. Industrial equipment & machinery: $329.57

4. Internet Domain Names: $409.02

3. Holiday travel packages: $939.22

2. Flights: $977.52

And the most valuable items sold on Trade Me (excluding Property and Motor Vehicles)?

1. Businesses for Sale: $6,864.73

If you were wondering what you should sell on Trade Me, those are twenty high-value possibilities for your consideration.

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Twelve Top Trading Tips July 10, 2011

Posted by Michael Carney in : auctions, buying, selling , 2comments

What does it take to do well on Trade Me these days? Here are a dozen tips to spice up your trading:

1.Know What’s Hot
What are the most popular items on Trade Me right now, within your chosen category? Here’s one way to find out:

(a) Click on the ‘Browse’ button, just under Kev the Kiwi.

(b) Find your category (we’ve chosen Carpet, Tiles & Flooring in the Building & Renovations section for our example).

(c). Click on the link to take you to the chosen section.  Once you get there, you may want to drill down a little further (in our example, we might refine the search to focus on carpets).

(d) Once you’ve reached your chosen destination, use the “sort by” feature and sort by “”Most Bids”:

(e) Browse the top results and you’ll see what’s currently most popular within the category — very useful whether you’re selling or buying, especially in categories driven by fashion, technology or price.

2. Know What’s Cool
Want to see what auctions the Trade Me team think are cool — and they should know! Head here: http://www.trademe.co.nz/cool-auctions. Content refreshes daily.

3. Know What’s Selling
The Trade Me numbercrunchers are always hard at work analysing what’s happening on the site — and once a month they publish a roundup of the percentages of items that sell in each of Trade Me’s categories. It’s a great way to identify how well you’re doing versus your competitors and peers — and even whether you’re selling the right types of products (grass on the other side always sells better, of course).

You’ll find the monthly Sell-Through Statistics here: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/SellThroughRates.aspx

4. Know What Others Paid
Wanting to sell that seldom-used coffeemaker but not sure what you might get for the effort? By using Trade Me’s Expired Listings search facility you can identify recent prices and determine whether it’s worth the effort of posting on Trade Me.

(a) Head to the search box at the top of the Trade Me listings and click on “More Options”.

(b) Type your search term into the box (and make certain that “Expired Listings” is selected).

(c) Sort the results by “Most bids” and the items that actually attracted bids will rise to the top of the results.

(d) Check out the comparative prices paid for items similar to yours (for up to the last two months) and make your decision.

5. Know What Others Think Of The Seller
Before you buy anything of value on Trade Me, check out the reputation of the seller — see the feedback score in the “About The Seller” box near the bottom of each auction.

At least 100 Feedback Ratings and 100%? Great!  Otherwise, dig a little deeper — click on the feedback number and read the actual feedback posted about this seller (especially any negative comments).

6. Know On What Days & At What Times To Finish Your Auction
Best days to close your auctions (because more buyers are browsing on Trade Me): Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays. Best time? Usually between 9pm and 10pm (but watch out if there’s a popular TV programme on the night your auction is due to close — the box still has great drawing power if the show has the right stuff).

7. Know What An Item Costs Elsewhere
Don’t just do your comparison shopping on Trade Me — try searching on PriceSpy or PriceMe, check out current deals on TreatMe, Groupon or GrabOne, and keep a watch on local retailer catalogues. Deals are all around us.

8. Know What Photos You Should Provide
Before you list an item on Trade Me, take a look at those selling competitive products. what photos do they provide? Is there anything special about what you’re offering? Capture it on virtual celluloid and upload it to your listing.

9. Know What To Say About Your Product
If you describe your product in very few words on your listing, you deserve to get a lousy price. Do your homework, list as much relevant information as you can and you’ll come out better off.

10. Know The Rules
Trade Me has rules. Read up on them (here or in the book Trade Me Success Secrets).

11. Know What To Do After The Sale
Your customers will judge you on what you do after the auction is over. As soon as you’re paid, ship!

12. Know When To Bid
The one essential piece of advice you need to know before you bid for anything on Trade Me is this: you shouldn’t bid at all until the last few minutes of any auction. Read more here.

PS If you want to find out a whole lot more about all this stuff, take a good look at the Second Edition of Trade Me Success Secrets.

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Should sellers offer “Buy Now”? May 11, 2011

Posted by Michael Carney in : Buy Now, selling , add a comment

One of the intrinsic appeals of any auction is the uncertainty surrounding the final amount to be paid. For the buyer, there’s the tantalising possibility that they will score the item on offer for far less than it’s really worth. The seller, on the other hand, is ever hopeful that a bidding war will erupt that just might result in a windfall being paid, if two or more eager bidders drive up the price.

These days, many Trade Me auctions offer a “Buy Now” option — a chance for buyers to grab an item without going through the auction process. “Buy Now” does remove uncertainty from the equation — but at the same time it also takes away some of the fun (and the possibility of unexpected outcomes, for better or for worse).

So is “Buy Now” a good option for sellers to offer (and buyers to use)?

We took a recent look at the numbers to find out.

If we start with the total number of Trade Me general auctions that closed successfully over the last twelve months, on average 36% of auctions closed using Buy Now, 54% by Auction and 10% by Fixed Price Offer (after the auction has closed).

That’s the result across all general categories on Trade Me, but there are variations depending on the type of product on offer (and whether the items are new or used). Some highs and lows:

The conclusion we draw from those results: that where items on offer are more easily understood and evaluated (especially with new products featuring well-known brands, in sectors such as technology where product specifications and comparisons are readily available), buyers are comfortable with what they are purchasing and willing to make an rapid and informed decision (and commit to that decision via Buy Now).

However where the value of items on offer is more subjective (eg art, jewellery and the like), consumers are less confident and more likely to look to the market to set the price. As a result, they’ll either simply add the item to their watchlist (and check in later to see how the auction is going) or place a bid at a price they’re comfortable with — and see what others are bidding for the item as the auction nears its close.

So if you have products to sell in the right sorts of categories, a “Buy Now” price is likely to be reasonably effective in encouraging instant purchases.

If your products fall into more subjective areas, then you’ll need to provide more objective reinforcements — eg testimonials from happy customers, external price comparisions (“Recommended Retail Price is $X so you’re getting a great deal”) or compelling reasons to act now (“only three left so click on Buy Now to claim your copy”).

Another possibility, if you want to encourage Buy Now usage: offer a bonus if they click on Buy Now (eg “free shipping with Buy Now”). Of course you’ll need to set your Buy Now pricing to cover the cost of providing such extras, which leads us into the next topic:

How Much?

Another issue for sellers to consider — if you’re giving up the possibility of bidding-war windfalls, how should you set the price of your “Buy Now”? The same as your Start Price? A premium?

Again, we look to the statistics for guidance:

Here, we suggest that other pricing dynamics are in play (and we refer you to Chapter Eleven of TRADE ME SUCCESS SECRETS, which covers in much greater depth the pricing possibilities on Trade Me). Briefly, however:

Three-quarters of general auctions on Trade Me now offer “Buy Now”. As we’ve seen on our romp through the numbers, that works well for some categories — but not for everyone (or at least not without other encouragements or sweeteners).

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Seven Smart Trading Tips for 2011 January 11, 2011

Posted by Michael Carney in : buying, selling, trade me, trademe , 6comments

Ready to do things differently on Trade Me this year? These seven tips will help you buy better and sell smarter in 2011.

A. BUYING

1. Don’t settle for the first item you find.
When you have your heart set on buying something, it’s tempting to grab the first product that meets all your needs. If it’s a rare collectable (perhaps a handwritten note from James Cook to the British Admiralty with details of a fabulous long-lost treasure stashed somewhere in Gisborne), then by all means grab, grab, grab. Otherwise, do a little homework first, before you place any bids.

For example, let’s  hypothesize that you are looking for a set of petanque boules, to while away those long summer nights (we picked petanque because it was one of the first items we stumbled upon when we began browsing on Trade Me today).

Perhaps you, like us, found this listing:

The product looks good, the price (at $23.99) seems perfectly reasonable for a new set and the seller has a 99.8% rating. All systems should be Go, right?

Well, that would be true if you were browsing in a shopping mall — but this is Trade Me. The rules are different.

How so?

Well, for a start, unlike in a retail environment (where stores need to sell products to make a living), many Trade Me sellers aren’t in it for the money. Sure, most of us would like to make a few extra pennies selling our surplus wares on Trade Me — but that may not be why we’ve listed our goods on the site. Sometimes, we just want to be rid of the stuff cluttering up our attics and garages and shelves (or perhaps our significant other has hinted at GBH “if I have to look at that moosehead one more time”). So items that might be worth a lot more get listed for a low price just to get rid of them.

Secondly (and sorry, there’s no tactful way to put this), not every seller knows what he or she is doing — in other words, they haven’t read TRADE ME SUCCESS SECRETS. As a result, you never know when you’ll find valuable artifacts listed with a low starting price (and no competing bidders). That’s especially true if sellers have done a poor job of describing the product in their listing — or the photos look like they’ve been taken underwater.

Our first smart buying tip for 2011, then: look around before you bid.

And the easiest way to do that? For that advice, turn to Tip #2 (about which more in a moment).

But first, sticking with our petanque example: if you looked around on Trade Me, you would have found quite a few listings for petanque.

Are any a better deal than our original find? To work that out, sort your results by price:

Lo and behold, a couple of potential petanque bargains emerge immediately:

[Even though the second seller shown above has listed a $50 Buy Now price, he/she has still started the auction at $1 with no reserve (the yellow flag indicates that any bid of $1 or more could take home the prize) -- so you could well end up with a very low-cost petanque set.]

Add both prospects to your watchlist and keep your bidding powder dry until just before the end of each auction (see Tip #4 below for more details).

2. Use the Search facility properly.
At the top of the page on Trade Me, you’ll find the Search box. If you’re a Trade Me regular, you no doubt use the Search box all the time — but you’re probably not taking full advantage of all the capabilities available to you.

Trade Me Power Searchers know that:

There are more than a million listings on Trade Me every week. Using smarter search strategies to find the items you really want should make life a lot easier and avoid your having to sift through the 999,999 items that really aren’t you.

3. What’s it worth?

Despite the fiscal optimism of many sellers, if a product is priced too expensively on Trade Me it mostly won’t sell. So how do we judge what products are really worth, before we decide whether or not to bid on them?

We use the Trade Me Time Machine and take a look back to see what similar products sold for on the site.

Okay, Trade Me don’t really call it a Time Machine — but it serves that purpose. The path to the time machine is via the little link on the right of the search button labelled “More options”.

Click on that link and you’ll be taken to an Advanced Search options page that enables you to search what Trade Me calls “Expired Listings” — auctions that have closed.

If we search closed auctions for petanque, we find (amongst other results), auctions that closed recently with petanque sets going for $1.50 — so we know we just have to be patient to score a good deal.

4. Hold your breath — and your bid

This is the most important buying tip of all: don’t bid until the last few minutes of any auction. Otherwise you’ll just end up attracting other bidders.

For more information, may we respectfully point you in the direction of Chapter Six of Trade Me Success Secrets. It deals with the topic in far more detail than we can address effectively here.

B. SELLING

Finally in our roundup, three selling tips to guide you through 2011. NB: Follow the links to some of our most popular past columns — it may be a New Year, but much of this advice is timeless.

5. The Six Little Words

These six little words, added to your listing, can double the number of prospective bidders for your auction: “add this item to your watchlist”.


6. What should you sell on Trade Me?

So you’ve decided to get serious about Trade Me and make some real money on the site. But what should you sell – and where can you find goodies at the right price to make a good profit anyway?

Start here.

7. When bad things happen to good auctions

Sometimes, Trade Me auctions sell out in a flash. Other times, not so much.

You polish up your headlines, take some great photos and write sizzling words that (you figure) will have people bidding like crazy. You kick-start your auction with great hope and check back in a day or so later.

What? After all your good work, how could this happen? No bids! See here for what to do next.

The Seven Tips

Okay, that’s our lot this time round. If you’d like even more advice, check out the column on the right of this page to:
  1. Sign up for our free newsletter;
  2. Get your own copy of TRADE ME SUCCESS SECRETS; or
  3. Find out about our Advanced Selling on Trade Me online ecourse, starting soon.

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What Kiwis want for Christmas November 30, 2010

Posted by Michael Carney in : Christmas, auctions, selling , add a comment

So you want to make a few extra pennies for that Christmas break? What better way than selling a few goodies on Trade Me!

Hold on a minute, though — before you run off and start baking those gorgeous Christmas cakes (caution: may contain nuts, if you’re following the recipe), pause a moment and let’s have a look at what prospective buyers have been searching for in recent times. We just might find inspiration which will help guide our choices …

First let’s sneak a peek at the very hottest choices on Trade Me — the Top 15 Most Popular Searches on Trade Me are carried every month in the Trade Me newsletter, so that’s a good place to start.

As you’d probably expect, the iPhone (#1 in October), iPad (#5) and iPod (#9) are amongst the most sought-after goodies on Trade Me (as enthusiastic but cash-strapped consumers look for bargains). Unless you’re an authorised Apple orchard, you probably don’t have access to those products at a price that makes the igadgets worth reselling. However if you are able to source useful accessories (eg cases & covers) at a hot price, the continuing popularity of the core items suggests that there’s still good demand for add-ons.

Another technology on the Most Wanted list: GPS (#8), the ideal gift for the male of the species. Finally, a technological compensation for the genetic aversion to stopping and asking for directions.

If your prospective customers’ tastes run more to fashion than firmware, perennial favourites that keep making the bestseller list on Trade Me include Karen Walker, Country Road, Trelise Cooper and Roxy. Demand is clearly there; your challenge is to arrange supply at a profitable price point.

If we dig beyond the published Top 15 list and take a look at the fifty most searched-for items on Trade Me (this time for September 2010), here’s what we note:

If what we ‘ve covered so far doesn’t do it for you, let’s take a look beyond Trade Me, at what consumers are searching for through Google. We can’t drill down very far for New Zealand searches, but we can for Australia so let’s take a look at what was hot across the ditch in the last seven days:

To figure out more popular items worth selling, head to Google Insights for Search and do your own crunching.

PS Merry Christmas!

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7 Key Facts for serious Trade Me sellers October 1, 2010

Posted by Michael Carney in : auctions, selling , 2comments

If you want to get serious about selling on Trade Me, take note of these seven key facts about Kiwis buying stuff online.

1. More of us are now shopping online. In April this year the Nielsen Company was reporting (in its 2010 Online Retail Report) that 45 percent of New Zealanders (and 57% of regular Internet users) are online shoppers.

The implication for Trade Me sellers: your market is bigger than ever — but it also includes a segment of potential purchasers who are new to all this, and consequently still nervous about shopping online. So you still need to be on your best behaviour as a seller and offer reassurance to those who are newbies.

2. We’re shopping online more often. 35% of New Zealanders who shop online made six or more purchases on the Internet in the past 12 months, an increase of 12.7 percent on the previous year.

That’s good news for Trade Me sellers. Those who are already buying online are now buying more often — great for those who offer products that can be repurchased on a regular basis.

3. Here are the Top Ten types of products purchased online, according to that Nielsen 2010 Online Retail Report:

You may not be able to sell Airline Tickets (for security reasons, most air tickets cannot be resold) but all the rest of the categories are fair game.

4. These six little words, added to your listing, can double the number of prospective bidders for your auction: “add this item to your watchlist”.

5. Auctions that have a $1 start and reserve price attract 20 times more bids than other auctions.

6. The five Trade Me categories that showed the most growth over the past twelve months were:

  1. Mobile Phones
  2. Business, Farming & Industry
  3. Health & Beauty
  4. Antiques & Collectables
  5. Computers

7. The consumer’s ability to pay (or willingness to do so) still plays a role in determining the success or failure of our auctions. Our latest consumer research study (September 2010) tells us that Kiwis are still watching their pennies.

Kiwi consumers aged 25-54 have cut back on:

PS Apart from these seven sets of facts, there are a few other things you need to know if you want to sell successfully on Trade Me. For further homework, may we encourage you to check out our Trade Me Success Secrets book or (if you’ve already mastered that) our online course on Advanced Selling on Trade Me.

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