Our new bulk listing tool has arrived!
We’ve created a free listing tool, called My Products, to help you easily manage bulk inventory if you sell a lot of items on Trade Me. It automatically manages auctions, so you can run your business more smoothly. We’re making it available to everyone, but we think it will be particularly handy if you’re selling multiple items that are identical or closely related.
Here’s some of the cool stuff that My Products allows you to do:
- import and update listings in bulk
- assign a custom SKU/product code
- set a product to relist and/or automatically send a fixed price offer
- set an end time for automatically relisted auctions
- use auto-billing to ensure your products continue to list, even when your Trade Me account is in debt
New import transaction fee
Since plenty of Trade Me members are importing all sorts of wonderful (and occasionally weird) things to be sold, we thought we'd pass on some information about an upcoming change to the fees charged by Customs on new imports.
From 1 July 2010, a new import transaction fee of $24.75 ($22.00 plus GST) will be applied to a range of personal imports that attract GST and import duty of $50 or more. This would include items such as jewellery, clothing and electrical appliances.
There will also be a new MAF biosecurity system entry levy of $12.50 (including GST) charged whenever the import transaction fee applies.
For more information on the new fee and the new levy, check out Consumer or New Zealand Customs.
Trade Me Property 5th Birthday Giveaway
To celebrate turning five and to say thanks for your support, we’re giving away a new Apple iPad, plus $50 iTunes credit and accessories valued at $200!
How to enter
There is currently a listing on Trade Me Property with a photo of the green Trade Me Property kiwi.
Simply find the listing (hint: it’s somewhere to enjoy your golden years, and a one bedroom apartment located in NZ’s art deco city).
Then email the property ID number (circled below) and a suggested name for the kiwi to propertybirthday@trademe.co.nz before midnight 24 June.
Find out more
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China visits Trade Me
A group of Chinese young leaders visited our Wellington office last week to find out about Trade Me’s experiences of e-commerce in New Zealand, and compare this with the bevy of online marketplaces in China.
The visit was part of the first ever NZ-Sino Youth Exchange, a programme that brings together a handful of young leaders from New Zealand and China. In October last year, five young Kiwis headed over to China, with the help of Asia:NZ and the magnificently named China People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and last week saw the reciprocal visit to New Zealand.
Before coming up the lift to Trade Me, our Chinese visitors had already visited dairy gurus Fonterra and bee product experts Comvita, touched Oscars at special effects maestros Weta, met a couple of Government ministers, and had a taste of Maori culture in Rotorua.
Bowen Pan was one of the Kiwi group who went to China in 2009 and is now on the staff at Trade Me where he is in our strategy, finance and analytics team. He took this week off work to hit the road with the Chinese delegation.
Bowen says the exchange is about developing friendships and networks across the business, education and government sectors. “The New Zealand government is investing heavily in China to help Kiwi firms do business in China. One example is New Zealand Central, a $40m project in Shanghai that aims to be a ‘home base’ for New Zealand businesses.”
Thanks to our Chinese visitors for making it in to Trade Me for a chat, and a look around our neck of the woods.
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Let's not rename Queen's Birthday
Over the long weekend we asked visitors to our Community page what they thought of the New Zealand public holiday that falls on the first Monday in June. More than 1700 people let us know their innermost thoughts. There wasn’t a hell of a lot for the Republican movement to get excited about with the results: 56% of Kiwis preferred to retain the status quo. Another 26% were happy to have it called anything under the sun, just as long as they got a day with their feet up on the La-z-boy. Of those that were keen for a change, Matariki (aka Maori New Year) led the way with 9% of votes, followed by Sir Edmund Hillary Weekend with 5%. In terms of the battle of the sexes, it was roughly a 50/50 split between men and women who voted in favour of the “no change” and “day off” options, but a lot more women than men were keen on the Matariki idea (outnumbering them 2 to 1). In a nutshell: it looks like a long, hard slog to convince most New Zealanders that something other than Queen’s Birthday Holiday should be appearing on kitchen calendars across the nation.
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