Games - TradeMe

	Games - TradeMe

Sam Morgan founded Trade Me as an online auction web-site based in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1999. Other websites owned by the Trade Me organisation include:

On March 6th, 2006 the Australasian newspaper group Fairfax acquired Trade Me in a deal worth NZ$700 million.

Trade Me Ltd has become New Zealand's largest company of its type, and its flagship became the most popular website in the country in 2005. The group of sites collectively generate just over 50% of all web-page traffic originating from New Zealand-based servers.

During peak hours, Trade Me has approximately 50,000 people online, and 565,000 auctions running. Trade Me currently has 1,140,000 active members who can operate one Trade Me account each. These statistics make Trade Me seem very popular, since New Zealand has a total population of around 4,100,000 people.

The Trade Me site also has a general messageboard, where Kiwis from all walks of life and ages participate in discussions on a variety of casual topics. People also ask questions and seek advice on the messageboard, making it one of the most active online communities in New Zealand. As members cannot hide their Trade Me identity, controversial postings or flame wars have occasionally resulted in auction interference by members with opposing views.

Trade Me shares many features with other online auction websites, such as the American auction giant Ebay. Some of these features include 'Buy Now', 'Auto bidding' and the Safe Trader escrow service. Members in New Zealand can become 'Address Verified' by confirming their street address, and the site may block unverified members from bidding. Significantly, despite its global reach, eBay has failed to make a sizeable penetration in the New Zealand market.

To minimize payment problems and reduce fraud, Trade Me restricted membership to New Zealand and Australian residents in 2005. This affected around 20,000 international members, but New Zealand's banking system can now be settle payments. Most traders quickly settle by bank transfer or by bank deposit, and Australian sellers must have a New Zealand bank account. Trade Me operations do not require PayPal, as Australian buyers can pay by cheque which many New Zealand banks will negotiate free of charge. Members usually report fraud via 'Community Watch' or , which monitor online fraud in New Zealand.

Acquisition by Fairfax

On March 6th, 2006 Fairfax acquired Trade Me in a deal worth NZ$700million, with an additional NZ$50million payable if the organisation meets earnings targets the next 2 years. Sam Morgan, who established Trade Me in 1999, will stay on as chief executive.

Recent enhancements to the website

28 November 2005 - Date and time on answers and comments (questions and answers on auctions now get time-stamped with the times of asking and of answering)
28 November 2005 - Email to watchers when Buy Now added (watchers will receive an e-mail if the seller of an item has added a buy now price to the listing)
21 November 2005 - Improved photo page to make it easier to browse photos. When viewing an enlarged photo you can now see thumbnails for all images without having to return to the listing itself.
11 November 2005 - Local tag displayed in auctions (an icon now displays in auctions indicating whether the item up for auction currently shares a province of New Zealand with the enquirer)
11 November 2005 - 'Buy now' price shown on category pages (rather than having to go into the auction to see the 'buy now')
1 November 2005 - New icon for brand new listings

Unusual sale items

In 2005, a red paperclip allegedly sold for $749.00. The auction became one of the most viewed auctions in Trade Me's history, and the seller received approximately 200 questions about the paperclip, all of which he answered in a humorous fashion.

In late 2005, a member offerred a time machine for sale through auction (or swap for "anti gravity machine"), with the highest bid reaching $300,000,000,001,999. The seller withdrew the auction shortly before its close-time. News of the auction reached some New Zealand newspapers, which ran a story on it. Currently holds the record for the highest number of questions asked and answered.

Prohibited items

Trade Me bans the sale of the following items, and a site administrator will withdraw auctions including them:

Alcohol (but not alcohol-related collectibles)
Backup or copied software, CDRs or DVD-Rs
Copyrighted items and content (including replicas)
eBooks and downloadable media

Fireworks
Human bodies or body-parts
Lottery
and raffle tickets
Medicine and supplements
Menacing dogs
Nazi memorabilia
Offensive weapons
Recreational drugs
Services
Software that interfaces with the Trade Me website
Tobacco (but not including tobacco-related items and collectibles)
Uniforms for NZ emergency services
VCDs
Veterinary Medicines
Wholesale lists

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for TradeMe ]

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