Category Archives: auctions

Goodbye Trade and Exchange

Posted on November 6, 2009 by

Michael Carney picks up that Trade and Exchange has finally given up on publishing in print. They ceased to be relevant a number of years ago, and will not be missed today. However Trade and Exchange were the Trade Me … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, fairfax, Trade Me | Tagged | 4 Comments

Well done Trade Me, but the threat remains

Posted on May 25, 2009 by

There’s an interesting article over at eBay strategies, which talks about how eBay lost the market for classifieds and mentions that Amazon is taking out the top end. (If you work at Trade Me then you should have eBay Strategies … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Business, Internet Business, Trade Me | Tagged | 6 Comments

eBay UK stacks it high and watches it fly

Posted on May 15, 2009 by

eBay have taken a leaf out of 1-day‘s playbook and have launched a Daily Deal on their UK website. The idea is simple – offer a compelling deal from the homepage, drive traffic to the site each day and sell … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Trade Me | Tagged | Leave a comment

The reasons Ferrit failed

Posted on January 13, 2009 by

Ferrit’s failure has been tipped enough times in these pages – so to make it easy here are the main posts over the past 2 years. I believe that Ferrit failed for three main reasons: Very poor usability, with the … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Internet Business, NZ Business, Trade Me | 6 Comments

The top one thing to change at eBay

Posted on December 29, 2008 by

A while back I posted a list of the top 10 things eBay could do to improve: Top 10 things to change at eBay I now believe I missed the most important one:  0: Introduce auto-extend on auctions.  Auto-extend makes the auction … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Internet Business, Trade Me | 2 Comments

eBay’s horror year

Posted on December 29, 2008 by

It’s not farewell yet, but eBay’s descent in 2008 has been staggeringly complete. I was intending to write about it, but Dinah Balk has done that already. Here it is – 2008 – the year eBay lost its mojo. I’d … Continue reading →

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Trade Me has added at least $3 billion to the NZ economy

Posted on December 9, 2008 by

A persistent, err, troll over at Bernard Hickey’s blog post on Trade Me and Australia asks an interesting question:  “How is Trade Me a productive NZ asset? The answer requires just a little bit of economics, and it is really … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Business, fairfax, Internet Business, NZ Business, Trade Me | 2 Comments

Trade Me trounces eBay, and eBay is in real trouble

Posted on November 23, 2008 by

The evidence mounts against eBay, as they continue to cast away their franchise. It’s really sad to see this happen as they naturally own their space and should be unassailable if they were playing it right. They are not. Over … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Internet Business, NZ Business, Trade Me | Tagged | 11 Comments

eBay’s descent into oblivion continues

Posted on October 11, 2008 by

I tried logging into my ebay account last night from Nigel’s computer, and this is what I got after successfully entering my password: I have no idea what my phone number from 1999 (or was it earlier?) is, and I … Continue reading →

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Top 10 things to change at eBay

Posted on August 30, 2008 by

I’d love to get into the numbers in the recent changes to eBay, but it is too hard on this iPhone. But regardless, here are my top 10 suggestions for change at eBay: 1: allow google checkout and integrate it. … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Internet Business, Investing | 1 Comment

eBay is selling lovers

Posted on July 2, 2008 by

Googling for “lover” I noticed that eBay had taken out an adwords ad: Clicking through (gee – had they started an online dating service?), I found an interesting array of… nothing in particular. So – freshen up those ad-words eBay. … Continue reading →

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Trade Me lite is here – for your phone

Posted on June 18, 2008 by

Go to m.trademe.co.nz – even from your mac (or PC if you really must) browser. It’s simple, stark even and light. A staggering 6.9k home page, versus 292kb for the www home page. Forget about browsing any way but by … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Internet Business, NZ Business, telecom, Trade Me | Leave a comment

Ticketmaster has auctions. sort of.

Posted on February 26, 2008 by

Here is one for Westlife. A lost opportunity for Trade Me perhaps, but ticketing is a tough market to get into as it is all about tying up the suppliers of the tickets. However, given that, Trade Me (or whomever) … Continue reading →

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Fairfax & Trade Me results

Posted on February 22, 2008 by

Not bad – strong profit growth of 40% versus last year, with Trade Me and Digital leading the way. Trade Me showed $32m in EBIT, which is for the 6 month period to December 2007. That, apparently, puts them at … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, fairfax, Internet Business, Investing, media | Leave a comment

eBay makes fundamental changes – enough?

Posted on February 1, 2008 by

Massive changes today announced for eBay’s economic model, in response, I take, to the increasing power of Amazon and Google. Listing fees down 25 to 50%, especially for bigger sellers Gallery is free final value fees (commissions) are up – … Continue reading →

Posted in auctions, Business, Internet Business, Investing, Trade Me | 3 Comments