I run the website for the Waitakere BMX Club in New Zealand and one frequent question I get from new club members is “how do I get the gear?”
I point them to retailers, who are also generous sponsors, but TradeMe is also a very valuable source of second hand bikes and safety gear. So, it seems that TradeMe do quite well out of clubs like ours and there’s an opportunity for them to participate more with clubs and individuals.
I’d love to have a section where I could list all the BMX gear currently up for auction. They have a BMX category and I’d also be able to search on keywords for motocross clothes and helmets. It would be a great service to our members and also drive people into specific TradeMe auctions.
What’s more, I’d be giving them that exposure and I wouldn’t have to do a thing, just code the page and let it run. TradeMe would write cheques out for the club and everyone would be happy.
I’ve emailed them about this and haven’t heard back, nor have any insiders replied to my message on their messageboard. I won’t give up hope though, I’m sure they’ll see the value!
I got a reply!
and I sent one back
You can always try using eBay, I don’t know if it is worthwhile as shipping costs to NZ might be too expensive. But they have a really good affiliate programme. TradeMe definitely need to do the same.
Oh, yes, you can use eBay but TradeMe have market dominance in New Zealand – even ordinary classified advertising has taken a huge hit. People feel confident in using a local system, buying offshore is less appealing.
Once Amazon starts getting use then maybe eBay will stand a chance – after all books come with a certain quality you can be sure of. Second hand goods don’t.
Have you guys try alternatives to TradeMe such as Lixtor (http://www.lixtor.co.nz). I’m thinking of making a switch to it but dont’ know what the quality of the service is.
Thanks Dave, I’ll keep an eye out for it. It looks pretty brand new and from the Google Cache it appears that the owners are recycling the same items over and over to make it look busy.
If they support their users well then people will flock to it. If they don’t then…
Perhaps you could ask one of their techies to get in touch?
Hi you could try this site megatrade.co.nz, its a new site that just launched this week.
Dhermesh, since you’re their representative why don’t you tell me here, rather than make me chase you?
Oh Yes I think one of the ways to sum up this
Blog Resource Information is……..
Very Very Interesting and so Cool. What’s
interesting to me is the more I read the more
I find this very blog helpful, but thats only
my opinion. Each to there own I say…..
Is trademe really more popular than ebay? I doubt so.
Btw,have you heard of cost per action technique to get qualified leads? If not yet, you can download a free report from http://www.w3submit.com/noppc/
TradeMe caters for the New Zealand market and yes, I believe it’s more popular than eBay.
Try visiting eBay.co.nz – no site exists. We have to use the Australian or American versions with all the risk that that involves.
Atleast with TradeMe you can organise to collect goods and hand over the cash then.
Personally, if I never again deal with TradeMe, it’ll be far too soon!
-kevin
Hey Sarah…
*****First things First: MAKE SURE YOU REMOVE THIS POST ONCE YOU GET IT.*****
Okay…I take HUGE exception in being called a ‘spammer.’ You have NO idea how much. But you’re about to.
You don’t know A THING about me. You don’t know what I do, or for whom I write or for what companies I write for. You don’t know what aliases I write UNDER to protect certain privacies. You don’t know that I post on TradeMe or IF I don’t. You don’t know that I write for people who make money selling things through TradeMe or IF I don’t.
Yet you ‘brand me a spammer’: your words exactly. And I won’t allow that.
Your argument about me not living in New Zealand makes me wonder aloud how a person could make a statement like that. You’re kidding right?
I also don’t live in Ireland or Brazil or New Jersey or Zimbabwe, yet I write for places that DO BUSINESS THERE. That’s write, with this little thing called the internet, I can actually work for companies that I don’t live next to. Wow. Insightful, huh?
“Boy, thank the Lord I work on the same block as Johnson & Johnson or I don’t know what I’d do…”
I did not say that I wrote for TradeMe specifically. Take an extra second out of your busy day and, um, read WORD FOR WORD what I wrote…I wrote that I no longer wanted to deal with TradeMe “ANY TIME SOON.”
I maintain that comment.
I am a copywriter. A goddamned good one. I have 20 years worth of experience writing very powerful copy for Kodak, The Wall Street Journal, Partnership For A Drug Free America. Etc.
I have worked at three of the worlds biggest ad agencies like JWT, Y&R and McCan n Erickson in NY.
Want some phone numbers?
Need some proof…you still have my email…let me know…I’ll put you on the phone THIS SECOND with the people I’ve worked with and for.
Oh sorry, naming those agencies probably constitutes ‘spamming’ huh? I should remove those critical pieces of info too right?
Your blog came up as a NATURAL SEARCH under the keyword: “become copywriter.” Having a bit of experience in the field I felt as if I had the ‘right’ to comment on it…
You also infer not so loosely that you and other webmasters like yourself are ‘up to my postings’ as if you sit on high and decipher who has the right to post into your precious blogs.
Guess what…POSTING to a blog in a category that I have specific knowledge in and about is MY RIGHT.
I can add to, detract from, infer within and generally interact with ANY blogs within my career and my life. Everyone can. It’s called a right. Take a deep breath an let that big bit of news sink right on in.
That’s what the human editors are for, to remove all the penis ads and the get rich quick nonsense.
If you felt that my post was spam, take it down…but crossing the line and emailing me made and has made me enraged.
You show me the paper that says that I don’t have that RIGHT to add my comments and I’ll gladly never post to a blog that comes up for “become copywriter.”
I did this publicly, by the way, because I cannot find your email throughout your other blogs EVEN UNDER ‘WHO IS SARAH KING’ and you PISSED ME OFF so much with your accusations that I deleted your email to me last evening.
I take what I do and who I am and my reputation VERY SERIOUSLY.
I encourage JUST YOU, MS. KING, to pop on by my site to find out what kind of person I am. Figure out what kind of site it is. (By the way, I left my site out of this post because, again, you know I’m a branded spammer. You know the site…you have it from yesterday. You go look it over. (Gosh I hope it meets with your approval.)
Is it a spam fest?
NO. It is content. It is copywriting content. Because I am a copywriter. I write for people and companies, and people who deal with companies like TradeMe and people who don’t. That’s what I do.
My work is everywhere under a ton of pen names.
I choose to add my comments to blogs because I know that my experience and my resume ENABLE me to add to them if they are about writing in any way.
I refuse to be accused of being a spammer.
And I can’t remember THE LAST TIME I TYPED THIS HARD …I’M SO F***ING PISSED.
No worries though, I’ll make sure and *run away* the next time I see a blog with your name on it.
Yes sir…I’ve finally been set straight.
Have an incredibly tepid holiday.
-kevin browne
So, Kevin, you’ve “dealt” with TradeMe? It’s an auction house that runs on minimal advertising. Have they used you as a copywriter then? My response was misguided as I thought you’d actually bought or sold things on the site. As a Canadian resident (according to your whois info) you’d be pretty unique to be using TradeMe for that purpose.
That’s clear, and fine by me.
No you didn’t, but this is a blog post about affiliate sales, not about copywriting.
Actually all those funny little slightly-off-topic posts were doing the same. The email may have been misguided but it gave you an easy right to reply. One reason the blog requests email addresses is to allow discussion to go offline. Go check your trash – the email is probably there. For the record the email I used is rainchx at gmail dot com. You can gtalk as well, but since you’re a yahoo kinda guy try sarahknz2003. Bear in mind that it’s the weekend so my kids may be online.
You have the right to add your comments, I have the right to moderate them. I’ve just worked through Google to page 10 on that phrase. It may be geotargetting but I don’t see my blog turning up anywhere.
Isn’t trademe connected to some sort of affiliate company that can help you adversite for them and receive a certain amount of the sale. I mean this is how most of them think “no cure no pay”.
You’d have thought so. But no!
If you search Google for “trademe affiliate” all you get is this page. So either they are using different terminology from the rest of the world or it just isn’t happening.
id reccomend including ebay affiliate. (you are able to show content for certain words). This would be ideal for your web users and when they click / buy you earn. Its very easy to use. Sign up to commision junction / ebay editor kit!
I have used it before!
Thanks for the suggestion Leanne, but as stated eBay doesn’t operate in NZ, TradeMe has the greatest market share. We want to be able to promote the items our members are selling and things they can buy. It’s not all about the commission… it’s also about reality. Nobody down here is going to buy from a foreigner on eBay.
There are so many alternatives to TradeMe out there which some of them I think is far better than TradeMe; such as Zillion and Lixtor, so I don’t know why people put up with TradeMe’s large fees and sub-standard services??
Visibility – nobody talks about Zillion and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Lixtor before.
Lixtor won’t talk to me until I sign up but then I can’t log in until I get their confirmation email. Retrieved it from the spam folder and the link is broken: they don’t include the domain, just the page!
Zillion appear to be much more organised, their systems work and they have a zillionaires club for referrals. I’ll need to do some digging to see if they have an api or feed system to allow us to extract relevant items.
Lixtor seems ok with me. Zillion is more colorful and graphical. I see you choose Zillion over Lixtor. One thing that bothers me about Zillion is their fees are almost exactly the same as TradeMe. So it just hard for me find a reason to migrate to Zillion. Any ideas?
I emailed Lixtor and they can’t have no interface to allow me to query their lists. They are on 0% fees right now so that’s great. But until they have the tools to let me use an api, rest, etc to get data from them then they aren’t serving their users as well as they might.
They lose, after all the club website isn’t driving people to them.
Zillion, on the other hand, fall over themselves in the rush to get their info on my website. They still don’t offer the interaction but they’ve demonstrated that they understand what the possibilities are.
I am a keen cyclist and have bought many second hand items, including safetly gear, from ebay and can have no complaints. Ebay is obviously by far the most popular auction website in which many people will look to sell their items. I haven’t even heard of TradeMe or Zillion!!
I’ve no doubt that ebay is good in the UK. I’ll edit the original post to make it really, really clear that this is a NEW ZEALAND focussed thread.
Off to have a ride now in my new trademe purchased fluro jacket…
Hi guys
Just a couple of points about trade me and running an affiliate program. In the reply from trade me they said “I’m afraid we don’t currently have the technology for this in place” however it seems very funny that they used to have an affiliate program in 2000 (see http://web.archive.org/web/20020205082548/trademe.co.nz/structure/affiliate_prog/)
I think the reason they don’t have it is because they believe they don’t need to since they have such a market dominance now. In my opinion companies that do this are very greedy! They are happy to run a program to help kick start them but when they get big enough (like TM) they get ride of it and take all the cash for themselves without “rewarding” the people that help get them there in the first place!
Shame on Trade Me and what a BS excuse that they don’t have the technology to do it! Come on guys, you had an affiliate program in 2000. Has your technology somehow got worse over the years? 🙂
Just my 2 cents.
Simon
Hi Sarah,
My name is Henry Aung, Solution Architect of Lixtor.co.nz. I’m just submitting a message to notify you that Lixtor now provides RSS Feed of listings on each category as well as RSS Feed based on your search criteria.
Feel free to integrate the items to your BMX Club website or any other website you might have. We believe we are the first auction site in New Zealand to provide RSS feed of this kind.
Kindly let me know if you have any problems with the site as the site is being upgraded with new features over next few weeks and is in Beta stage.
If you have Facebook account, feel free to join our Fan page:
Henry Aung
Solution Architect
Lixtor Limited
PO Box 34854
Birkenhead, North Shore City
Auckland 0746
http://www.lixtor.co.nz
Seriously, you want to pe paid? Auction sites are nothing more than advertising sites. They are NOT selling the goods. You want commission, hit up the people selling the goods. As for trademe only having minimal advertising, what crap, they have so many banners and classified ads through the site then on top of that charge nearly 8% of every sale. Come on Sarah, lets get real. As for Lixtor, can’t find a single thing on their site about referal programs nor contact or PRIVACY. How these guys are flying under the radar of tade n commerce beats me. Trademe even charges charities, a lower rate but nonethe less they are still charged, that is as far as they go in “helping” the community, they are a corporate company and as such want huge profits to satisfy their predominantly offshore owners.
Just realised this post is TEN years old, Visited Lixtor which has been going for 10 years and they have only a few hundred items on their site and STILL no contact details, privacy or details about their referal program.