Advice on using Trade Me

[slofox]

Never used tard-me before but want to now. Coupla questions....
Which payment methods would you accept?
Are listing 'extras' worth their money? (not that sort of extra you grubby sods)
Anything else for the unwary to know?

Ta all.

[MSTRS]

Deal with Address Verified traders with excellent feedback. If they have a black mark that's old or happened in their first few trades but all good since then, you can be reasonably confident that they are genuine.

[mdnzz]

been trading there for six odd years or so, buyin and selling everythin from empty perfume bottles to vehicles, had one neg feedback from some wally up north even after they got full refund back, it goes to show ya can never please everybody in that place....hmmmm similar to KB sumtimes

[Blossom]

Never used tard-me before but want to now. Coupla questions....
Which payment methods would you accept?
Are listing 'extras' worth their money? (not that sort of extra you grubby sods)
Anything else for the unwary to know?

Ta all.

Only accept cash if its a pick up job. You dont want someone sending cash in the mail and then 'claiming' it got lost. Internet transfer or bank deposit is the usual method if your posting an item. Personally I wont accept a cheque of any sort as its too dodgy.

extras are risky. some buyers can be a pain in the rear about it and will claim you promised more than you did. So be carefull.

Finally.. add a bit to the end of your auctions stating something like this:

"payment must be made within 5 days of auction close or item will be relisted.
Please ask any and all questions before auction end. Thanks"

I find that helps keep things clear and easy. Cheers and good luck.

[slofox]

Only accept cash if its a pick up job. You dont want someone sending cash in the mail and then 'claiming' it got lost. Internet transfer or bank deposit is the usual method if your posting an item. Personally I wont accept a cheque of any sort as its too dodgy.

extras are risky. some buyers can be a pain in the rear about it and will claim you promised more than you did. So be carefull.

Finally.. add a bit to the end of your auctions stating something like this:

"payment must be made within 5 days of auction close or item will be relisted.
Please ask any and all questions before auction end. Thanks"

I find that helps keep things clear and easy. Cheers and good luck.

Hey that's great Blossom - thanks. I will add your suggestion to my listing.

BTW, the extras thing is whether I want the listing in bold type, at the top of the list etc etc etc......not things I am offering....

[Blossom]

oh then thats different.

Using the gallery listing is worth it if the item is worth more than $15 or so

I have not found the rest to be that useful.

[Swoop]

Enter your details to get signed up, BUT THEN make sure you change them to something unrecogniseable!
As a trader who now has his details floating around prison cells thanks to the incompetence of BetradeMe and nzplod, this is "not a good thing".

[portokiwi]

If its here and they allow pick ups I pay cash, Otherwise I only do bank deposit as the bank allways checks to make sure the account is correct. Some banks will double check to see if the name is correct.

[RantyDave]

As a trader who now has his details floating around prison cells thanks to the incompetence of BetradeMe and nzplod, this is "not a good thing".
Did they actually let you know that yours was one of the compromised accounts?

Dave

[slofox]

Enter your details to get signed up, BUT THEN make sure you change them to something unrecogniseable!
As a trader who now has his details floating around prison cells thanks to the incompetence of BetradeMe and nzplod, this is "not a good thing".

Can you enlighten me on how you would change them Swoop?

[FROSTY]

advice for tard me sellers.
1) Pictures lots of em good and clear showing all the good stuff and any defects if there are any.
2)primary picture. Make sure its as complimentary to the good you are selling as possible.-I use a plain grey background.
3)Make your description as complimentary as possible of the goods.
Bullet points work well

[MotoGirl]

My tips:
- State the suburb and city where the item would need to be collected from (people always ask)
- Give as much information as possible because people always ask for dimensions and model numbers and the like
- Use some software like Picasa (free) to combine multiple photos into one, such as a four-way grid format. This means you only need to upload one photo and won't pay fees for additional photos.

[slofox]

Excellent advice from you all - thanks team....!

[CookMySock]

If you want to get lots of impressive looking feedback real fast, then get a huge box of books from a garage sale and sell them on TM for $1 reserve, and post the books out before you recieve payment for them. You won't make a brass razoo from it, but man you get some grrrreat feedback real quick.

Steve

[The Pastor]

If you want to get lots of impressive looking feedback real fast, then get a huge box of books from a garage sale and sell them on TM for $1 reserve, and post the books out before you recieve payment for them. You won't make a brass razoo from it, but man you get some grrrreat feedback real quick.

Steve
lol !

[Swoop]

Did they actually let you know that yours was one of the compromised accounts?
Yes, I was emailed directly by BetradeMe.

Can you enlighten me on how you would change them Swoop?
On the "my details" page of BetradeMe (once signed in), there should be your name and address on the right hand side of the screen. Underneath is a blue hyperlink that says "update my details" or something like that. Click on this and then you will have to be creative with your details.
Don't want a list of what you have bought, your street address and phone numbers falling into the hands of criminals, do we...

[ynot slow]

And if possible put phone numbers as 000000etc.

I have a policy of if over $100 sending item track & trace.

And it really pisses me off when you say all the correct things like NZnew and get a question .Is it NZ new?

Add as much detail without bullshitting the goods,I bought some nike sunnies,said a couple of scratches plus orange lens' as well they interchange,when I paid $30 and put addreess to seller,he emailed me apologising that there were really bad scratches and if I didn't want them could return etc,seems he new they were scratched but was worse than he realised,looked at his feedback and was 99% so ok.

[Naki Rat]

For more valuable items think seriously about using Safe Trader as an intermediary - (Details on Trade Me site)

My current laptop was purchased for just under $2,000 a couple of years back. It arrived fine and the okay was given to Safe Trader for payment to be made to the vendor.

A couple of weeks later the trader was selling another laptop the same, so I thought he had landed a liquidation lot or something - no problem.

Two weeks later a question popped up on one of my auctions from the guy who had won the second auction. He had paid his $2,500 and no laptop, and no further communications from the vendor, so was requesting contact details for the vendor. I only had the same email contact email as the second buyer had been supplied but thanks to Googling details of the vendor that I found on the laptop I came up with some info on him.

Last I heard was that the police had tracked the vendor as now being in Aussie. I suspect the $60 or so commission to Safe Trader was money well spent in that case!

Also from my experience avoid dealing in items that attract the younger end of the market such as computer games, rap/metal CDs, boy racer parts, etc. I have found these buyers are far more likely to renege on auction wins, be slow payers, complain unjustly and are quick to post unwarranted negative feedback. Long story short - they are more trouble than they're worth!

[JimO]

touch wood i have had no problems on tardme and i have bought and sold over 200 items including 2 cars and 3 motorbikes