Comments on: Trade Me trounces eBay, and eBay is in real trouble

By: multitrim

multitrim — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:16:33 +0000

Great post.

Perhaps I can add to this that the best way to guard against being ripped off by online sales or auctions is to use an online escrow company. Although it does add some cost, that will take uncertainty out of the transaction.

For my money, the best bona fide online escrow (and there seems to be ten fraudulent escrow sites for every bona fide one) is probably Escrow.com (http://escrow.com). In fact, it’s the only one that eBay recommends.

Take care,

Ulf Wolf

By: Well done Trade Me, but the threat remains « Lance Wiggs

Well done Trade Me, but the threat remains « Lance Wiggs — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:46:43 +0000

[...] mentioned it here before, and it bears repeating: Trade Me is [...]

By: Lance Wiggs

Lance Wiggs — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:13:34 +0000

Fair cop – clearly I have been spending far to much time offshore. Still – The percentage of adspend versus GP by Trade Me is far far lower than that of eBay.

By: Alistair Helm

Alistair Helm — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:34:43 +0000

Lance,

As ever a clear view that the heart of what ebay was built on has been lost and the clarity with which Trade me operates is still there (be interesting to see the post Kirk era for Trade me!).

However I could not help but highlight the slight misnomer that Trade me does not advertise.

There is considerable Google Adwords investment by Trade Me and in addition there has been offline advertising for both Trade me property and Trade me jobs.

By: Kurow

Kurow — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:15:39 +0000

Nice piece and a good perspective. From a NZ perspective we must remember that trade me remains a domestic market and e-bay does gives us an international opportunity to both buy and sell treasures.

By: Mitchell Cooper

Mitchell Cooper — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 05:33:50 +0000

Well written – I too would be interested to see a Trademe push into Australia, but it seems difficult to imagine…

By: En Avant » Blog Archive » eBay versus TradeMe - what eBay's doing wrong

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:56:11 +0000

[...] response to declining performance from eBay, Lance Wiggs has written a short analysis of what eBay is doing wrong compared to Trade Me, which dominates the New Zealand market. Trade Me is something of a latter-day national icon in [...]

By: Craig Howe

Craig Howe — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:41:07 +0000

Agree also that this is a nice article. These ebay to TM comparisons are always interesting, especially with your expertise in this area.

By: Marshall

Marshall — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:01:52 +0000

Nice post Lance,

Simplicity is a surprisingly difficult thing to get right.

By: Bernard Hickey

Bernard Hickey — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:44:51 +0000

Lance
Excellent piece.
Maybe it’s time for TradeMe to revisit the idea of trying on the Australian market.
cheers
Bernard