(PR.co.nz) Neil Graham is not the only person gearing up to take on TradeMe.
Another new New Zealand owned-and-operated trading, auction and advertising site, List Sell Trade, is launching nationwide today (27/9/2012) at 3pm, with free subscription until 27/10/2012 and a nationwide print advertising campaign to follow shortly thereafter. List Sell Trade will charge no success fees or per-listing charges – instead it offers registered and subscribed users the chance to create unlimited listings and make as many sales as possible for one flat fee of just $10 a month.
List Sell Trade has been developed by respected Christchurch web development firm Treacy Advertising and Web Design. With TradeMe enjoying a near-monopoly on the online auctions market in New Zealand, director Brenda Treacy believed that New Zealanders could and should be offered a better deal.
“It has become a very significant monthly expense for many businesses such as real estate agents, car dealers and other retailers to advertise on TradeMe – an expense they have had little choice but to accept, with very few other viable advertising and marketing venues available online as an alternative. TradeMe also has a number of exclusivity and usage restrictions. We believed we could give not just businesses a significantly better deal, but private sellers as well” Ms Treacy says.
The site will use a subscription model. Users can register for free to browse and buy from listed items on the site, and for a subscription of $10 a month, can create as many auction and fixed price sales listings as they wish. No success-based fees will be charged whatsoever -no matter how many listings the subscribed user creates, or how many sales they make through the site, their total cost to use the site always remains at just $10 a month.
“By keeping the cost to our sellers at one low fixed monthly price, we offer potentially huge savings in comparison to TradeMe, and even in comparison to Wheedle” Ms Treacy says. “Where Wheedle appears to be planning to charge $49 for a single property listing, with List Sell Trade you can place a hundred or even a thousand property listings, and only ever pay $10 a month, and with no extra fees or sales commission levied on any of them. It’s a significantly better deal for businesses.”
Ms Treacy believes private users will also receive a better deal from List Sell Trade.
“At $10 a month, you don’t need to make many sales at all before you’re saving money on the success fees you’d have to pay on TradeMe.”
List Sell Trade was initially set to launch Thursday next week, but the combination of TradeMe’s fee increases and the launch announcement of another alternative site, Wheedle, has moved the launch forward.
Ms Treacy believes that that the public and sellers have been looking for an alternative DIY trading site for some time – but local companies that had made the attempt seemed unable to provide the required levels of execution in planning, design, web experience and technical support from within NZ, while at the same time offering a simple and fair fee system.
“By charging just a single $10 monthly fee for access to all of our services, we keep things cheap, but also simple as well” Ms Treacy adds.
List Sell Trade will also offer classified advertising for service-based businesses, a community message board and information hub, job vacancy listings, and a service called Headhunter that allows job seekers to place their employment profiles online to be searched by employers looking for new talent – with all these services available as part of the one $10 monthly fee.
Media Release 27 September 2012 from www.listselltrade.co.nz.