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Trade Me

Entry 358, on 2006-06-29 at 20:24:32 (Rating 1, Activities)

After years of resisting the trend, I have finally succumbed to the on-line auction phenomenon. I have been bidding on various items, and just completed by first purchase of an iPod. You might be wondering why such an Internet-centric person as myself has taken so long to get involved with what is a fairly well established Internet service. Well, I knew that once I started it would be hard to stop, and this has turned out to be the case. I also avoided chat rooms/discussion forums for years but eventually fell into that trap as well and spent many hours in interesting discussions.

Generally I am well ahead of the pack in new Internet trends. A couple of years ago I was the only person at our IT department meeting who had a blog. In fact, several people at the meeting didn't even know what a blog was! Yes, I know, this is an IT department at a University - hard to believe, isn't it? I also have the most impressive web site of any of the many IT staff here. In fact no one else really has anything that could be described as a web site at all!

So my average day now consists of half an hour writing a blog entry, updating the RSS file, and uploading the results to my blog sites; half an hour maintaining and extending my general web site; and half an hour checking on my TradeMe (the New Zealand Internet auction site) auctions. This is in addition to the Internet activities everyone is involved in, such as checking and sending email, browsing a few interesting web sites, etc.

So at this rate, by around the year 2008 I will spend every waking minute on some sort of Internet-related activity! Hey, I have no problem with that! Sorry but I've got to finish this blog now and check by bids on digital cameras, amplifiers, and iPods!

Comment 1 (215) by janmc on 2006-06-30 at 18:27:46: (view recent only)

TradeMe is excellent! It's addictive though - you end up buying stuff you don't really need. It's probably done wonders for NZ Post.

Comment 2 (216) by OJB on 2006-06-30 at 18:28:55:

Well we all buy stuff we don't really need. I mean, what do we *really* need? Food, water, iPod, Powerbook, digital camera - what else is genuinely essential? Well I suppose a good cell phone, fast Internet, a powerful stereo system, fast car, ...

Oh no, I've been brainwashed by western consumerism!

Comment 3 (226) by Dave on 2006-07-18 at 11:42:28:

Have you try alternative to TradeMe such as Lixtor (http://www.lixtor.co.nz). I'm thinking of making a switch to it but dont' know what the quality of the service is.

Comment 4 (227) by OJB on 2006-07-18 at 12:16:58:

No, but I tried MegaTrade (MegaTrade.co.nz) which I couldn't get into because of some sort of configuration or installation error. Not a good sign! I had a look at lixtor. There doesn't seem to be much there. Maybe its really new.

Comment 5 (228) by Anonymous on 2006-07-19 at 17:54:12:

lixtor.co.nz is really clean. It seems like it hasn't been online for a while. Looks like a start up but with a good potential. I mainly like it because of the really really clean layout. Trademe is confusing. lixtor is a good alternative choice.

Comment 6 (231) by Cooldude on 2006-07-29 at 12:33:49:

No doubt that trademe is the biggest in the country and so has the widest range of products.

Tried to go to lixtor - doesn't seem to be up anymore?

Went to megatrade.co.nz... simple presentation and fairly clean. Got a few auctions going but had problems with one of them so sent an email to the admin. They emailed me back some instructions on how to get it going but I still couldnt get the auction going so I asked if someone could give me a call to talk me through it (didnt actually expect them to call me).

Incredibly enough someone actually DID call me later that evening. They sorted out my auction and gave me $50 credit to boot! So far the best customer support.

Does lixtor actually exist anymore??

Comment 7 (232) by OJB on 2006-07-30 at 17:41:27:

The domain lixtor.co.nz still exists but the server doesn't seem to be running any more. An auction site is only as good as the material on it. TradeMe is a fairly ugly site, and not spectacularly well designed, but it does have a huge amount of useful stuff available.

Comment 8 (236) by nwa on 2006-08-01 at 21:27:00:

I was able to get into the lixtor site but I didn't really like it. It was ugly and didn't have any categories to browse through and its like the worst colour. Went into Megatrade and found it was a nice clean and easy to use site. Needs more auctions on it though. I joined up and they gave me $15 credit so I'm stoked. TradeMe is such a rip off - I think I might just stick with Megatrade from now on.

Comment 9 (237) by www.FakeMe.co.nz on 2006-08-15 at 08:55:36:

Hello all, I think TradeME is excellent, except for all the crappy, low quality obviously Fake and Cloned items for sale. A real 21st Century Black Market. TM have a few issues they need to sort. We have created a blogsite, www.FakeMe.co.nz where if you have had a bad experience, you can vent your anger here.

Comment 10 (241) by Dave on 2006-08-22 at 16:42:42:

lol. I have no problems with Lixtor color. I also checked the Mega Site but didn't really like it. I hate it when sites use Javascript scrolling items and all that. Also the fonts are too small and bold.

Lixtor looks really like Trademe, it has even got the subtitles! TradeMe is charging 55c for its new subtitles. Time to put "fair" in the Fairfax TradeMe. lol.

Comment 11 (2004) by Philip on 2009-04-27 at 20:28:10:

supaganic.com is the next famouse website in the world, its a kiwi website its gonna operate worldwide in 8 wks time. have a look coz im addicted to it.

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