In the 10 days since our last post there have been lots of changes at TradeMe! We are now eagerly checking the TradeMe Announcements page quite regularly to see if any changes have taken place. Back before the trademe sale to Fairfax, the announcements page was updated at least once a week…sometimes several times a week. Our logging in process normally involved us going straight to the announcements page first!
Since the big sale, announcements have been sparse. Have TradeMe stopped innovating and adding new features? Theres probably some truth to that. TradeMe as a business works extremely well – don’t fix something that ain’t broken. But I think less announcements could also be due to the fact that Sam Morgan has started to step back a little from TradeMe, with the new General Manager Jon McDonald slowly taking over the reins.
Another possible reason is the fact that the probably one- third of the announcements were always site or credit card issues. Perhaps Fairfax doesn’t want internal problems broadcast to the world every time. Particularly since advertising takes an increasing role on the site.
So yes, lately the frequency of announcements is back up to the scope of the good old days. It makes it more interesting for those of us interested in how the giant operates, and the issues affecting it.
Site Changes – Fees for Hidden Reserves
Probably the most important news for a long time has been the announcement of a 25c fee to have a hidden reserve on your auction.
Hidden reserve? Whats that? Basically when you list a traditional auction you are able to set the price you would like bidding to start at, lets say $10 for your old vacuum cleaner. Next you set your reserve price (the minimum price you will accept to sell the item, lets say $50). Having a low starting price is good because it gets the bidding started. The more bids you have, the more attention your auction gets,
More attention for your auction is gained through being ranked higher in searches as a ‘hot’ auction, and also for the fact that people wonder why your auction is so popular if there are a lot of bids. If heaps of people have bid on it, others quickly notice and become interested, lets call it the ‘curiosity factor’. For instance say you are at the mall and you see a big crowd of people around an exhibit in the foyer. You are going to wonder what its all about!
Bids attract more bids, and theres more chance of a bidding frenzy when there is more people watching your auction. So many traders start their auctions’ bidding prices a fair way under their reserve price, to attract attention.
There is also a down side to being able to set your starting bid price low. A lot of people start the bidding at $1, and this could be on a high ticket item such as a lawnmower. Because bidders don’t know the reserve (which could be $350) This falsely gives people the impression that it might be a bargain going if the bidding is starting low. But in effect, this technique attracts a lot of people test bidding, probing with small bids to try to gauge the rough amount of your reserve. This frustrates buyers in a number of ways: These ‘probing bidders’ in an effort to find out your reserve price can accidentally bid over your reserve price causing them to have the leading bid when thats not what they intended. This can result in buyers asking for sellers to remove their bids, which creates an annoyance for the seller and for other bidders.
Another frustration for buyers because you might be in the market for a $100 lawnmower, and think that this auction could be a possibility where in reality with a $350 reserve there’s no point you even bothering bidding on the auction. with the auction. Hidden reserves do waste a lot of people time so there is some merit in discouraging hidden reserves as it connects genuine buyers with genuine auctions faster, and saves a lot of time in the process.
Although the big downside to this change is that we will see less and less of the traditional auction format with the exciting auction frenzy mode, where bidders simply get carried away with bidding! Of course you can still pay the 25c and set up your auction the way you want it, but the direction of the trademe site is definitely changing.
This follows what is happening overseas with Ebay, where they are adopting more of a fixed price buying approach, over their traditional auction format. Read more in the post above titled “News – International”
So is this change a change for the better? We believe so. With peoples lives getting busier, we have less time to mess around bidding on auctions. People want to know the reserve price so they can make an instant decision whether to make a bid or definitely come back in a few days to make a bid. With the majority of auctions now having the start price same as reserve they know any bid will have the change to be successful, saving time.
The change also removes the eternal question that plagues sellers thru the qna feature from buyers: “What is your reserve price?” This question is probably the most asked question on TradeMe and it can drive sellers mad
The change should result in a better user experience for both buyers and sellers.
Site Changes – Rental Property Pricing Change
The fee to list residential properties for rent will increase from $49 to $69, effective from 1 July.
A simple fee increase. We don’t think we’ll see any drop in listings over the price increase. TradeMe property is still the best place to list your rental property due to the fact of more eyeballs. Compare the one off trademe fee of $69 to relist for as long as you like versus a newspaper where you have to pay for each ad. The costs soon mount up. You can’t put a photo in the paper cheaply.
Sites Changes – Home Page Tweak
In an effort to get more exposure for their sister sites, TradeMe have added prominent links to the home page for FindSomeone, TravelBug and Stuff. To be honest, we know that the links for these are already up the top of the page but just like a banner add our eyes are trained not to read the top part of web pages so these links are often overlooked! So we think its a good move business wise to put these links in a new position.
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