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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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The Single Most Important Buying Secret August 31, 2010

Posted by Michael Carney in : buying , 1 comment so far

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.

It may not be much fun for the seller. And you won’t get caught up in the thrill of the chase. But this is by far the best strategy for buying on Trade Me. When you find something you like,  add it to your watchlist, wait until 15 minutes before the auction is due to end and then follow these five simple steps:

1. Decide on the maximum amount you want to pay.
Unless the auction item is the long-lost silver watch that Lloyd George gave your grandfather, you need to set yourself a limit on what you’re prepared to pay. Deduct the shipping costs. That’s your Maximum Bidding Amount.
2. Check the current bidding.
Open the auction listing page and check the current bidding. If it’s already over your budget limit, step away from the computer. Otherwise, proceed to Step 3.

3. Refresh the auction listing page every minute or so.
Keep refreshing the page until four or five minutes before the auction closes.

4. Place your bid.
Place your Maximum Bidding Amount in the box labelled ‘Minimum next bid’ and (vital!) tick the AutoBid box. Double check that you’ve put the correct dollar amount in the Bid box and that the AutoBid box is ticked.

5. Click ‘Place Bid’.
You’ll be asked to confirm your bid. Check it, click to confirm, then walk away.

So what just happened?
You set a budget and used Trade Me technology to do the bidding for you, up to the maximum amount you specified. You either won or lost the auction, but the odds are in your favour. You will win more auctions using this strategy than with any other Trade Me buying strategy.

WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT THIS STRATEGY?

A number of things:

1. You won’t spend more than you planned.
Discipline yourself upfront and stick to the maximum you think the item is worth. Then walk away. Yes, you will lose some auctions using this strategy. But those are auctions where someone else is prepared to pay more than you believe the item is worth. Congratulate yourself — you didn’t let your emotions run away with you. And you’ve still got your money in your pocket, ready to bid another day.

2. You won’t set off a red flare alerting other bidders.
Just one early bid on an auction will draw other members like bees to a honey pot. ‘What are we missing out on?’ Surfers skimming through Trade Me tend to head first towards the auctions with bids, figuring there must be something going on, if others have been inspired to bid. The more bids, the more interesting the item looks. Bidding early also tips off any other potential buyers who had placed the auction on their watchlist, increasing the likelihood that they’ll be more active when the auction is about to close.

3. Trade Me’s AutoBid system does all the work.
As the name suggests, the AutoBid system is used to make automatic bids. When you enter the most you are prepared to pay as an AutoBid, Trade Me will keep you in the lead, by the minimum allowable bid increment, until you win the auction or your AutoBid is exceeded. You won’t have to sit there watching, making a bid, watching, bidding again, watching, bidding, chewing your fingernails. Relax — your trusty companion is on the job.

WHAT ARE YOU UP AGAINST?

There are four other primary Trade Me buying strategies:

1. Nibbling
Users place a bid early in the auction, just enough to take the lead. They don’t bid again until they’re outbid, at which point they nibble away with small increments, just enough to try to take the lead. How do you respond to these users? Ignore them. If they nibble away enough to push the auction beyond your Maximum Bidding Amount, good luck to them. Otherwise they’ll be left behind when your late bid kicks in just before the auction closes.

2. Pre-emptive high bid
Some members believe that if they bid high at an early stage they’ll scare away other bidders. They may — or they may simply raise the cost of acquisition for everybody else, if it’s a popular item. If other bidders are indeed discouraged from joining the bidding, that’s good news for your late bid.

3. Early AutoBids
These Trade Me members have mastered the AutoBid but place their bids relatively early in the auction, often because they’re not going to be at the computer when the auction is due to close. Unfortunately, their bid does increase the visibility of the auction to casual Trade Me browsers and they risk escalating the auction pricing well before the end game — essentially an automated nibbling process. Nothing you can do but stay out of the way.

4. Edge-of-the-seat late bids
More and more members — especially those who’ve been around for a while — adopt the late-bidding strategy, but often want to be there at the kill so they are able to place their own bids manually in the last few minutes. It’s a fine strategy if they really, really want that auction item, but they end up bidding against the machine (ie, your AutoBid), and either drive up your final cost before pulling out or win in the end but pay more than you believe the item is worth. What can you do about these people? Nothing much — but at least you’re emotionally detached.

What about other late autobidders?
There will be other bidders out there who use the same winning strategy we’ve outlined, either as a result of their own experience or (hopefully) because they read this article (or our TRADE ME SUCCESS SECRETS book) as well. What can you do about them?

In the end, it comes down to two elements. Firstly, be as informed as you possibly can about the true value of the item you’re chasing. If the item is worth more to you than to them, your Maximum Bidding Amount will be higher and you’ll win.

Secondly, when you set the dollar value of your Maximum Bidding Amount, don’t round the total off. If you’ve decided that $40 is what the item is worth, toss in another 27 cents (or 59 cents, or 83 cents) or some uneven number that will take you just above what would seem a natural cut-off point. That may be just enough to win you the auction because people typically gravitate to nice round numbers.

Sure, this strategy isn’t as much fun — or as adrenalin-pumping — as a down-and-dirty bidding war but winning within your budget makes it all worthwhile!

SO IS THERE A RECOMMENDED STRATEGY IF YOU ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY MUST WIN?

Sure there is. And you can either read about it within the pages of TRADE ME SUCCESS SECRETS — or sign up for our free newsletter [use the signup form on the right hand side of the page] and we’ll cover it in our next issue!

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What does it take to sell stuff on Trade Me in 2010? August 19, 2010

Posted by Michael Carney in : auctions, trade me, trademe , 2comments

This internet thingy is catching on. The latest (August 2010) Media Trends Report from Roy Morgan Research shows us that buying stuff online is now pretty widespread in New Zealand:

used-internet-for-buying

So 58% of us have used the internet  for buying things.

What sorts of things are Kiwis buying online? Again, Roy Morgan Research to the rescue:

Top Ten Products Bought Online
(within the last three months, Jan-Dec 2009)

Trade Me’s influence is clear — most of those products (largely excluding travel, which can be found on sister site TravelBug) are readily available through our favourite online auction site.

So have the dynamics of selling on Trade Me changed, now that there are more than a million and a half items regularly listed on the site?

Better, Faster, Cheaper (pick all three)

Once upon a time, sellers could get away with offering products on Trade Me that were EITHER Better OR Faster OR Cheaper. Now we need to try and deliver across all three metrics — competition in most categories is as intense on Trade Me as it is in the real world (if not more so).

And customers today are more demanding. They want perfect orders, shipped and delivered on time.

What’s a “perfect order”? According to Edward Marien of the University of Wisconsin, customers are looking for:

  1. The Right Product in the
  2. Right Quantity from the
  3. Right Source to the
  4. Right Destination in the
  5. Right Condition at the
  6. Right Time with the
  7. Right Documentation for the
  8. Right Cost.

US consumer products giant Procter & Gamble has its own definition of a perfect order: “a product that arrives on time, complete (as ordered), and billed correctly.” By P&G’s internal calculations, the company estimated that an imperfect order was costing it an average of US$200 each time.

The company found that additional costs for getting things wrong included:

Those are industrial-strength concerns, of course. The Trade Me equivalent would be:

All in all, it’s better to be an overachieving seller, delivering more than you promised.

Seven tips for improving your Trade Me sales

In many ways, though, delivering on The Perfect Order is really just about the hygiene factor — getting things right after the sale.

If you want to increase the percentage of your listings that actually sell, start with these seven tips:

  1. Always include shipping costs in your listings.
    American research shows that one in five online shoppers abandon their purchase because shipping costs aren’t shown alongside the product costs. Today’s consumer doesn’t want any hidden surprises.
  2. Tell visitors why they should shop with you
    Unless you”re offering a one-of-a-kind product that’s simply unavailable elsewhere, chances are you have competitors on Trade Me selling similar products. So don’t rely on the product attributes to do all the selling job — tell your browsers why they should choose you. Talk about things such as value for money, your excellent customer service record, the merits of your organisation (not just your product).
  3. Include Customer Reviews
    According to Nielsen’s NZ Social Media Report (July 2010), 1.92 million Kiwis now look to their fellow Internet users for opinions and information about products, services and brands. It’s not that they don’t trust sellers — they just trust their fellow consumers more. So incorporate the words of your customers into your listings, If you have really flattering feedback, feature it prominently in your listing (don’t expect visitors to check out past praise in your feedback — they won’t, they’ll just look at the percentage of positive feedbacks).
  4. Have a highly-visible, no-hassle returns policy
    For many potential buyers, a money-back-guarantee will make the difference in convincing them to go with you rather than a competitor. Yes, there is the risk that your products will be returned to you, sometimes in unsaleable condition — but if you’re delivering The Perfect Order (as defined above), your percentage of returned orders will be much lower than your percentage of increased sales achieved as a result of your returns policy.
  5. Check Out Your Competitors’ Images
    What are your competitors doing well that you might copy (and indeed improve upon)? Take a look at their listing photos — are they sharp, professional, attractive? Do they show key aspects of the product that yours don’t? If you put your photos and theirs side by side, which look more interesting, desirable, show off the product features best?
  6. X-Ray Your Competitors’ Words
    Start with their headlines. What features have they highlighted? What keywords have they used? Are they using subheads as well? Are there any headlines which sound better than yours? Then take a look at the main body of their listings. How compelling are the words they use? Are there any benefits they’ve emphasised that you’ve overlooked? Review what others are doing, and then polish up your own stuff.
  7. Use Real-Life Stories to bring your listings to life
    It’s one thing to have nice marketing copy describing a product — but it’s far more compelling to see real-life tales from other customers describing how they use the product. Once you have a base of happy customers, invite them to contribute their stories. Even if most won’t, you just might find some real gems. [Okay, you can't do this with every product, but where you can, it's worth the effort].

Tip of the Iceberg

What we’ve covered here is only part of the story of what it takes to sell effectively in 2010.

If you want to join the 15,000 or so professional sellers that Trade Me estimates conduct business on the site, you need to dig rather deeper.

Here are just some of the questions that professional sellers have asked (and found out the answers to) and most of us don’t know:

If you’d like to significantly improve your Trade Me sales performance, allow us to introduce our new course:

Course TM-1: Advanced Selling On Trade Me

This is a seven-week eCourse providing a comprehensive masterclass on selling on Trade Me. The course presumes you are already familiar with the basics of selling on Trade Me (if there are a few gaps, you can do your homework with our own TRADE ME SUCCESS SECRETS book).

This is an ONLINE-ONLY course — you can take part from anywhere, in your own time.

This eCourse is conducted on a web-based e-learning software platform, enabling course participants to proceed at their own pace, accessing materials online. This particular eCourse provides content in a variety of multimedia forms, including videos, slideshows, flash-based presentations and PDF files. No special software is required to participate.

Course lessons are released weekly, for participants to access in accordance with their own timetables. Interaction with the course tutor is enabled through the platform software tools (with telephone backup if required).

TIMING
This eCourse started on Wednesday August 18, with the delivery to participants of Lesson One. New lessons are delivered weekly on Wednesdays.

LATE ENTRIES
Late entries are accepted within the first three weeks of course commencement (up until September 8).

COURSE CREATION AND TUTORING
This course has been created and will be tutored by Michael Carney, author of the best-selling book about buying and selling effectively on Trade Me, TRADE ME SUCCESS SECRETS (now in its second edition).

WHO SHOULD TAKE PART
Anyone who wants to sell as effectively and profitably as possible on Trade Me.

——————————————————————————–

The full course details are at http://trademesuccesssecrets.com/ecourses/ but here’s a sneak peek:

COURSE CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

LESSON ONE: ABOUT THE BUYERS

LESSON TWO: PRODUCTS THAT SELL

LESSON THREE: TOP SELLERS & THEIR STORIES

LESSON FOUR: GETTING NOTICED

LESSON FIVE: KILLER CONTENT

LESSON SIX: HOW MUCH?

LESSON SEVEN: GETTING THINGS DONE

CONCLUSION

——————————————————————————–

INVESTMENT

This seven-part eCourse is available for $297 +GST ($334.13 total). However we offer a special highly-reduced rate:

EARLY BIRD SPECIAL: SAVE $100

Pay just $197 +GST ($221.63 including GST) if you book and pay before MIDNIGHT NEXT WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 8.

Bookings are confirmed on receipt of payment, which can be by bank deposit or credit card. We can raise an invoice in advance if you need it.

If you’d like to pay by credit card, here’s the link to sign up for the Early Bird Special (via international credit card processor PayPal): CLICK HERE TO PAY.

We also offer a couple of instalment options, if you’d rather not pay up front:

  1. Pay five monthly installments of $70 per month (total to pay, including GST, $350): CLICK HERE FOR THIS FIVE-MONTH PAYMENT OPTION
  2. Pay twelve monthly installments of $30 per month (total $360): CLICK HERE FOR THIS TWELVE-MONTH PAYMENT OPTION

If you would prefer to pay  by bank deposit, or require an invoice before making payment, please send an email to info@successsecrets.co.nz with your contact details.

(The service provider will be shown as Netmarketing Services Limited in your transaction and on your credit card statement)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

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Finding Better Car Deals on Trade Me Motors November 12, 2009

Posted by Michael Carney in : trade me motors , add a comment

On Tuesday Trade Me announced

We’ve tweaked our vehicle categories to return more relevant results and hotter auctions to the top of your search results. We now also show the exact dates that classifieds were listed, in order to give buyers more transparency on the age of listings.

For now, we’ll just concern ourselves with the second part of the announcement, the news that Trade Me will now be displaying “the exact dates that classifieds were listed”.

THE BACKGROUND

If you list your vehicle for sale on Trade Me Motors, you’re given the option of listing it as either an auction or a classified listing. If you choose “auction”, as around half of private sellers do, then the normal protocols apply: you choose start price and closing date, season liberally with dazzling description and enticing images and post to Trade Me, there to await the pleasure of the bidders. The end date is displayed (and the listing date can be calculated easily enough based on the 14-day maximum duration of the listing). If the motorised conveyance fails to sell within that time, you can relist it for free (apart from any promotional extras you may choose, which are billed anew with each relisting). If your horseless carriage does sell, the final price may be the same as the starting price — or much higher, if more than one eager bidder is in hot pursuit.

If you choose “classified” (favoured by the vast majority of dealers, as well as the other half of those private sellers), the same protocols apply — except for the price, which remains fixed (unless negotiated otherwise, off-site). Relisting remains free (except for extras).

The main difference between the two options: price. In auctions, the final purchase price is determined by the market; for classified listings, the price is set by the seller on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis.

UNLEVEL PLAYING FIELDS AND THE POWER OF INFORMATION

Until the arrival and widespread adoption of the internet, most retail and commercial transactions were unbalanced. The seller typically knew a whole lot more about the product or service he or she was offering than the buyer,  at least in terms of where to source it and at what cost. As a result, products typically carried a higher profit margin than would be possible in a truly transparent marketplace.

Enter Al Gore’s creation, the Interweb. With the aid of a Google or two, would-be purchasers can quickly establish the going rate for most any product, and use that information to their advantage when negotiating with sellers.

TRADE ME AND TRANSPARENCY

The wide-open market that is Trade Me has long fostered transparency. Looking for a widget? Just search the site and you’ll find all the widget sellers and what prices they’re asking. If you want to know the final prices actually achieved on widgets recently sold, click on the “More Options” link on Trade Me’s search bar and you can prowl amongst up to two months worth of recently-closed widget auctions to identify selling prices.

In the used car market, not typically the most open and sharing of environments, information remains the jealously-guarded treasure of a few. You can search through closed Trade Me Motors auctions to see what sold or didn’t — but (until now) you couldn’t easily identify whether that 1999 Honda Accord was first listed 14 days or 14 months ago.

And, of course, that’s a major competitive advantage when negotiating. If you know that we’ve had that Honda sitting on our forecourt for six months, you’ll have a different view of the pricetag than if you thought it has just been listed for the first time (and other eager buyers are sniffing around).

THE LONG TAIL: MOSTLY DEALERS

We carried out a quick sortie on Trade Me Motors, zeroing in on the Honda category (so our findings are not necessarily representative of TM Motors as a whole — but they probably are).

What we found was that, of the 3593 used cars currently listed under the overall Honda category:

Needless to say, all the old listings we found were placed by dealers. Who else has the patience? Private sellers would long since have flicked their vehicle on some other way, or sold it for spare parts.

DOING THE DEALS

So, next time you’re in the market for a motor, check out the date of first listing. Oh, a word of advice: listing dates shown are ‘day and month’ only (eg ‘Listed Fri, 1 Jun’). Given that a small number of vehicles have been listed for more than 12 months, that “November” listing date could be November 2o08 or earlier. So double-check by reviewing the Listing Number. You’ll find it on the top right hand side of the listing.

auction-listing-number

If that number is below 1,947,000,000, the listing is from 2008 or earlier.  If it’s below 1,350,000, you’re looking at a gem from 2007 or older. And if that listing number is below 1000, congratulations, you’ve got yourself a collectors’ item from pre-millennial 1999!

PS For sellers: if you want to avoid the ignominy of having your failures so conspicuously displayed on Trade Me Motors, there’s a simple workaround: don’t simply relist your vehicle. Create a whole new listing instead, so that the new creation date takes precedence. Yes, you will have to pay a new listing fee, but that’s a relatively small cost in the context of vehicle prices. And besides — if your old listing was working, you’d have already sold the vehicle. So rework the words and pictures before you relist [you'll find plenty of helpful advice on the subject of effective vehicle listings in Chapter Twelve of Trade Me Success Secrets].

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