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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

Posted on

Little Helen

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Helen who bought a donkey
from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to
deliver the donkey the next day.

When the farmer drove up the next day, he said, ‘Sorry miss, I have some
bad news. The donkey is on my truck, but I’m afraid
he’s dead.’

Helen replied,’ Well then, just give me my money back.’ The farmer
said, ‘I can’t do that. I went and spent it already.’

Helen said, ‘OK then, just unload the donkey anyway.’ The farmer
asked, ‘What are ya gonna do with him?’

Helen said, ‘I’m going to raffle him off.’ The farmer exclaimed, ‘You
can’t raffle off a dead donkey!’

But Helen, with a big smile on her face, said ‘Sure I can. Watch me. I
just won’t tell anybody that he’s dead.’

A month later the farmer met up with Helen and asked, ‘What happened with
that dead donkey?’

Helen said, ‘I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece
and made a profit of $798.00.’

Totally amazed, the farmer asked, ‘Didn’t anyone complain that you had
stolen their money because you lied about the
donkey being dead?’

Helen replied, ‘The only guy who found out about the donkey being dead was
the raffle winner, when he came to claim his
prize. So I gave him his $2 back plus $200 extra, which is double the
going value of a donkey, so he thought I was a really
great girl.’

Helen grew up and eventually became the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and
no matter how many times she lied or how
much money she stole from Kiwi voters, as long as she gave them back
some of the stolen money, most of them thought
she was a great person.

Posted on

Best Genie Story

A Husband takes his wife to play her first game of golf.

Of course,the wife promptly hacked her first shot right through the window of the biggest house adjacent to the course.

The husband cringed, ‘I warned you to be careful! Now we’ll have to goup there, find the owner, apologize and see how much your lousy driveis going to cost us

So the couple walked up to the house and knocked on the door. A warm voice said, ‘Come on in.

When they opened the door they saw the damage that was done: glass was all over the place, and a broken antique bottle was lying on its side near the pieces of window glass.

A man reclining on the couch asked, ‘Are you the people that broke my window?’

‘Uh…yeah! , sir. We’re sure sorry about that,’ the husband replied.

‘Oh, no apology is necessary. Actually I want to thank you. You see,I’m a genie, and I’ve been trapped in that bottle for a thousand years.

Now that you’ve released me, I’m allowed to grant three wishes. I’ll give you each one wish, but if you don’t mind, I’ll keep the last onefor my self.’

Wow, that’s great!’ the husband said. He pondered a moment and blurted out, ‘I’d like a million dollars a year for the rest of my life.’

‘No problem,’ said the genie ‘You’ve got it, it’s the least I can do.And I’ll guarantee you a long, healthy life!’

‘And now you, young lady, what do you want?’ the genie asked.

‘I’d like to own a gorgeous home complete with servants in every country in the world,’ she said

‘Consider it done,’ the genie said. ‘And your homes will always be safe from fire, burglary and natural disasters!’ ‘And now,’ the couple asked in unison, ‘what’s your wish, genie?’

Well,since I’ve been trapped in that bottle, and haven’t been with a womanin more than a thousand years, my wish is to have sex with your wife.’

The husband looked at his wife and said, ‘Gee, honey, you know we bothnow have a fortune, and all those houses. What do you think?’

She mulled it over for a few moments and said, ‘You know, you’re right.

Considering our good fortune, I guess I wouldn’t mind, but what about you, honey?’

You know I love you sweetheart,’ said the husband. I’d do the same for you

Sothe genie and the woman went upstairs where they spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying each other. The genie was insatiable.

After about three hours of non-stop sex, the genie rolled over andlooked directly into her eyes and asked, How old are you and your husband?’

‘Why, we’re both 35,’ she responded breathlessly.

‘No Kidding,’ he said. ‘Thirty-five years old and both of you still believe in genies?’