Buying things on trademe

Okay Ive had a few questions for a ‘Buyers’ Trademe hints and tips. Here goes.

  • $1 Reserves
  • Bidding Hours
  • Prices
  • Postage
  • Contact
  • Feedback
  • Expensive/Large Items
  • Testing
  • Changing your mind
  • Honesty

$1 Reserves

Watch the $1 reserves. If you customize your left hand menu (click the Customize and change it to full) you can have the $1 reserves at hand all the time.

Bidding Hours

NEVER bid on anything during the hours of 5pm-11pm. This is when the most people are on and bidding goes through the roof. You can pay up to twice as much by bidding on things at this time of night.

Go online at obscure hours to check. The first thing i do in the morning is check trademe. The amount of people between 6am-9am is low so you often dont get the bidding wars you would get in the evening.

Prices

Check the price before buying, compare with similar items. Often you might think what you’re getting is a bargain only to find out you overpaid. Bid with your mind not your heart or testicles (dont worry if you miss out, there will ALWAYS be another one).

Postage

Check the price of postage, some traders sell at a loss and make it up on $10-$20 postage. They use the excuse that 1 price for North Island one for South, and they dont allow pickups (even if they live next door).

Contact

Contact as quickly as possible. If you won the auction and want it, then email them. Never get nasty in emails, even if you waited 2 weeks. Whatever may have happened may be a genuine problem with the seller (got sick, other commitments etc). Hold back on placing bad feedback until at least 1 month after resolution. Never post bad feedback in a fit of anger.

Feedback

Check the feedback on a user before bidding! if a user has less than 10 feedbacks, more than 5-10% bad feedbacks (ie only 90% good) then dont trade with them unless you are going to pickup, and see the items before paying.
Also take into account the bad feedbacks they do have – are they just idiots who had no idea the rules of trademe? or long time trademe users that know whats going on?
Check out this cool tool for filtering feedback

Large/Expensive Items

Dont bid on large expensive items unless you can pickup (ie Laptops, TVs etc). If they get shipped and broken or lost (or the buyer claims they were and just scammed you) then somebody has lost $1000 or more.

Testing

Test things before you pay and go home. If you break it or find out that its not working a few days later then its not entirely believeable.

Changing your mind

If you buy something and change your mind later for whatever reason …

a) you are an idiot – its annoying and waste of time to the buyer
b) dont try and lie and make up some stupid story about your account being hacked, the kids did it, your dog did it, some flatmate did it – nobodys that stupid
c) admit that you did it and apolagise, take the bad feedback without returning it.
d) let them refund their sucess fee
e) give them good feedback, if nothing else for wasting their time.

Ive done this, i got over eager and carried away and ended up bidding on something that was more $ than i had. I realized what an idiot i was, emailed the user and was most apolagetic. I told the truth and was lucky enough to not get a bad feedback on it.

My point is, everyone makes mistakes, dont make it worse by making up a lame excuse 🙂

Honesty

And along the lines of that … if you cant pay till next pay day – most people are happy if you say ‘ill put the money through next tuesday’. They tend to get annoyed if you claim you already put the money through when you clearly didnt or some other excuse that you got held up.

Trademe hints and tips – a Guide on how to make sure you get the best out of your auction


If you want to get rid of stuff and dont have the time to sell it, i suggest Trade My Stuff
The key reasons for low prices on trademe are:

  • Bad finish time
  • Wrong category
  • Crap or no pic
  • Crap title/description
  • Answer Questions
  • Feedback
  • Auto Extend
  • Prices/Postage
  • Shorthand

Bad Finish Time

Having an auction that finishes at 3am in the morning may NOT get you the best price for your goods. The reason? Well how many people are up at 3am browsing trademe? Seriously? Look at the stats on the trademe website, find out the most popular time and day, aim to close your auction at that time. This means you will have more people watching.
Find your Market here

Wrong Category

If you want to find a fish bowl, you look under pets -> fish. Not kitchen bowls! Therefore why would you list it there?
Entirely so many auctions finish below their potential because they are in the wrong category.
However on the upside, often I have bought things for less that were listed in the wrong category and made a bit of money on them reselling them with the right category 🙂

Crap or no pic

Its a fact that a picture will sell an item. If im looking in a shop i like to see what im buying before i buy it.
A camera is cheap and you only need a 1-2MP one for trademe stuff.

When taking photos of items, take them from the same level or slightly raised from the item, this lets the person see it from the front and perhaps other sides.
Make sure there isn’t a lot of background noise – ie messy shelves, tv, garbage, household stuff – in the background. A sheet behind or under the item means users can ONLY see the item for sale and don’t get distracted.

Often ive seen an item and then the background is a filthy garage – it makes a person not want to buy an item because i would assume its probably not looked after like the rest of the garage.

tm_badpictm_goodpic

A blurry or dark picture is worse than no picture at all almost, do take a couple of pictures, choose the best one. Things always look nicer when photographed outside in the sunshine or in natural light rather than using a flash. Make sure also the item fills the photo – there isn’t a lot of blank space around it. Sometimes things need a hand or person standing next to it so users can get perspective on the actual size – measurements don’t always do the trick (though always include them).

Doesnt hurt to add a 30px bright red or orange or similar border to your main photo so it stands out amongst the crowed either 🙂kettle
Please check that your reflection is NOT in the photos, plenty of auctions have been made famous by hairy naked mens reflections in items they were selling!! (yes the makeup guy on trademe and the kettle man on ebay http://www.snopes.com/photos/risque/kettle.asp)

Crap title/description

If your title sucks, so will your auction. If a person is looking at a category listing or search of 50 items all identical yours will NOT stand out if it says ‘fish bowl’.
Try something like ‘Super clear large round fish bowl 500mm’. Some people resort to using patterned ASCII (****** LIKE THIS ********, or *~.~`OR THIS`~.~*), though im not overly a great fan of it.
Particularly for those where English is a second language, MAKE SURE YOU SPEAK GOOD ENGLAND! If you cannot take the time to make sure your auction reads fine then others cant find the time to bid on it. Nobody is going to bid on auction that are in txt speak (THS IS GD 4 U), or yelled (ALL IN CAPS IS CALLED YELLING), or even in alternating caps/non caps (tHiS lOoKs StUpId).

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is your ‘homie’ or ‘bro’, talking ‘getto’ or that ‘maori/billy T’ street slang isn’t that great, in fact some people see you typing as if you are talking to you mates may presume that you are an uneducated idiot, or thief, and not wish to trade with you.

Answer Questions

If you don’t answer questions, people will assume that you are trying to hide something. Always be polite no matter how annoying or stupid a question is.

Feedback

If your feedback sucks, or is low then you won’t get the same price for your goods. People DO understand if you have the odd bad feedback however from the jerk who sold you a dud and then gave you bad feedback because you placed bad feedback first.
Dont be a git and place bad feedback on others if you were the one at fault, NZ is a small place and word does get around 🙂

Auto Extend

ALWAYS USE AUTO EXTEND! Its a great feature. Most auctions get their bids in the last couple of minutes, if your auction doesn’t auto extend then you won’t get as good a price.

Prices/Postage

Always (where possible) state postage costs. Dont quote $3.50 then send it in a 90c envelope (thanks babysister for that suggestion) $1 reserve does NOT mean its going to sell for $1, it just means that it is definately going to be sold at the end of the auction.
I often have $1 reserve auctions as they bring in a lot of watchers very early on thinking they are going to get a bargin, then at the end they all get hyped up in a bidding frenzy and often you will get a better price than you could have otherwise. This only really works if you follow the other rules.

Shorthand

Bump = This is what somebody says in the forums to ‘bump’ up a topic, They are listed in ‘last replied to’ order
a hundy = hundred dollers
ROTFLMAO = Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off (ROTFL you can guess from that)
LOL = Laughing out loud

And if all that confuses you and you just want to get rid old stuff, try checking out these guys who will sell your stuff on trademe for you!

Liz

If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don’t have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year.

Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don’t bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: Get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers.

Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor’s house that he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can’t happen very often.

Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I’ve given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can’t handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.


Suggested additions

“Make sure your estimate for this plan is no more than $2000. I have a 15 year old nephew who designs houses and he say he can build it for me for $1000.”



Please also create this house so that my disfunctional part-time neice (sister to the nephew) can maintain the “content” of the Kitchen, Den and Play Room. But, create a admin shed containing a swiss army tool that will magically clean, press and freshen the rest of the house when you flick its switch. If we do not have time this year for the tool, we’ll re-approach the design in phase two with next years budget.

After the house has been completed, I will more than likely want you to tear part of it down and rebuild it a couple of inches to the left… for no additional cost.



Have I mentioned that I’m not approved for loans or building permits. Go ahead anyway and we will deal with them when the time comes. Did I mention that you will turn over all plans to me and I’ll take the credit of the project when its a sucess?

Oh, by the way … if I’m carrying groceries, I want the front door to lead to the kitchen, but if I’m coming home from work, I want the front door to lead to the living room. If I’m coming home from work AND carrying groceries, ask me before I come in the front door which one I prefer.



My mother-in law should not be able to go into the bedrooms unless my wife specifically gives her permission. Then, she is permitted to see what is in the bedrooms but not change anything. My wife is permitted to see or change anything in the bedrooms, but not in my workshop or the garage. Unless I say she can.

The floors must be level to within a tolerance of +/- 0.00001%. Of course, I don’t know where the floors will be yet.

Very often, I will want to replace everything in my garage with exactly the same stuff from my neighbor’s garage. Unfortunately, my neighbor and I are not always on speaking terms. You will have to figure out how to make sure that our garages always contain the same stuff, even when we’re not speaking to each other.

I will be giving my keys to about a hundred people. Some of them will be helping me on this dinner party I give every so often. I want to collaborate with them. The other people are free to do what they like in the other rooms, but I don’t want to see or hear them.

Did I mention that your boss promised me you’d be finished by Wednesday?



Did I mention that I need to have the plans ready for review by next week and the implementation of my new home will have to be completed within one months time…never mind, make that two weeks, my clients have to be able to come inside and see how it is doing now…

PS-I also reserve the right to not get back to you when you have any questions and then blame you for not designing my home fast enough…and may then have to report you to the BBB, and did I mention that I have several more things to add within that two weeks…so I hope that the scope is not too large because I want it by the deadline…even if the overtime kills you in the process.


Oh, and I forgot to add that there’s no deadline pressure at all — take your time to make it right, because I understand this sort of project takes time — except that the dining room and kitchen-management-system needs to be fully functional in a week for the big birthday party. Since that’s the smallest part of the house, it should be easy enough to get done in time. Then you can do the rest of the stuff afterwards. Don’t bother me with any approvals or questions that don’t have to do with the dining room or kitchen until after the birthday. You got to keep your eye on the ball.


Thank you for the proposal! My first inclination was to say no, but my nephew has a CounterStrike LAN party this weekend and cannot complete my project,. Luck you, It’s a go. I expect stringent adherence to the the 48 hour completion clause starting… NOW! Since I’ll be supplying the images and content, I’ll be back with that tomorrow… or the next day.


I will require free training as well. As I am very familiar with homes I am sure I will understand everything immediately, but I need you to show me how to walk through the back door. If I don’t get it, I will assume that it is your fault and poor design regardless of what I approved.

Also, since I am the only person who has ever used the Internet, I will inform you when you ideas on hyperlinks and buttons make no sense to anybody on the entire planet besides you.


I realize that although your estimate for this project is budgeted for a week’s worth of your time, I will respond to your initial design sometime next week, or month… or year… (yep seriously..) Please keep your schedule exclusively open so my whole family can review your specs at their leisure and reject your initial design. Once your design has been rejected we will expect 10 more designs to arbitrarily pick from. I expect that the costs for these 10 more designs shall not exceed the initial estimate. Since the initial specs were designed in blue, and it is now a year later, we expect the revised spec to be designed in this year’s colors, which are now pink and black… Also please include at the top some type of logo for our family at no charge….


“I’m going to have the building design and organization go against your better judgement and completely ignore you if you tell me my ideas are a more costly way to go. Later, I reserve the right to blame you for any problems or extra costs that will inevitably arise.”


Hey Buddy!
I have made several attempts to contact you regarding another interesting project for a good charitable cause, however I have yet to hear back from you. I had heard that you lost your home and declaired bancrupcy, so I thought you could use the work. Pleas give me a call.