1 The store: a moat the IM undersold
2007
Member since — 19-year account
99.16%
Positive feedback · 10,586 reviews
Top Seller
Badge held · authenticated
2,370
Active listings · ~16,600 / 2mo
This account is one of the most valuable assets in the deal. A 19-year, ~99%-feedback, Top-Seller Trade Me identity cannot be bought or rebuilt — it's pure trust equity, and it's where the revenue is made today (the website is search-invisible). DD: confirm the account & feedback transfer with the sale.
But it's a generalist liquidator, not a refurb-electronics specialist. Category spread across the store: Electronics & photography 517 · Home & living 486 · Mobile phones 356 · Computers 251 · Clothing 178 · Music 147 · Jewellery 109 · Health & beauty 52 · Sports 44 … the whole marketplace. Reinforces the brand-specialist focus argument — and means the "refurbished Dyson specialist" framing in the IM is only part of the real operation.
2 What 20 listings reveal about all 2,370
Two passes via the trademe-store scraper: a full sweep of all 2,368 listings (titles, subtitles, payments) plus a 20-listing deep sample (photos, attributes, descriptions).
Full-catalogue audit — all 2,368 listings. The title/subtitle problems aren't sampling noise; they're systemic. 100% of listings have at least one issue.
98.5%
waste the subtitle (89% have none at all)
69.5%
don't lead the title with a brand
0.4%
say "Refurbished" in the title
100% / 98%
have Ping / Afterpay (the basics — done)
A ready-made fix queue: every one of the 2,368 listings is flagged with its specific issues in trademe-listing-audit.csv — the exact work list for the AI-cataloguing rebuild (sort/filter by the issues column).
The 20-listing deep sample adds the per-listing detail the summary API doesn't carry — photos, attributes, descriptions:
| Element | What the 20 show | Verdict |
|---|
| Photos | 11 of 20 have a single photo (avg 3; a few outliers at 5–18). For refurbished electronics, buyers need to see the actual unit's condition. | Big gap |
| Attributes | 19 of 20 have ZERO attributes filled. No brand/model/condition/spec fields — so they drop out of buyers' filtered browse. | Big gap |
| Title — "Refurbished" | 0 of 20 say "Refurbished" in the title, yet 14 of 20 say it in the description. They refurbish but never signal it where it counts (trust + the "refurbished [brand]" keyword). | Big gap |
| Title — format | Inconsistent: filler ("Worlds NO1 Television", "Amazing sound, 10 Speakers!!!"), some good (Sony … WH-1000XM5 Silver). First-3-words weight wasted. | Mixed |
| Subtitle | Wasted on "CHECK OUT OUR 2700+ LISTINGS" cross-promo instead of a selling point (warranty / tested / ships today). | Wasted |
| Description | Substantial (avg ~1,500 chars, 7/20 maxed at 2,048) and discloses condition + 12-mo warranty — but casual, typo-ridden ("certian", "SONUS PALBASE"), unstructured, with shipping notes crammed in caps. | Good content, poor form |
| Shipping | Paid & variable ($5–$90 seen); some pickup-only ("MUST PICK UP FROM PAPAKURA"). No free delivery → misses the Free Shipping filter. | Opportunity |
| Sponsored Listings & tags | Not running Sponsored Listings; bullet points & tags empty on every listing. | Unused lever |
The pattern: this is a process built to list fast at huge volume (16,600 listings in 2 months) — not to maximise each listing's visibility and conversion. The trust equity is already there; the per-listing execution is where the money's left on the table. And every fix is templatable and AI-automatable across all 2,370 at once.
3 The improvement plan — same inventory, professional process
| Fix | The move (AI-automated from product data) | Why it pays |
|---|
| Titles | Templated per category: Brand → Item → Model → "Refurbished"; strip filler; exact model numbers. | #1 Best Match lever + adds the "refurbished [brand]" keyword + trust |
| Attributes | Auto-fill every category attribute from the product spec. | Survives filtered browse — currently invisible to it |
| Photos | Multiple real shots per SKU + lifestyle/UGC (the AI photo studio) — end single-photo listings. | Condition confidence → conversion, esp. for refurb |
| Descriptions | Templated structure: condition grade · what's tested · warranty · returns · specs. Keep the (good) honesty, fix the form. | On-page conversion + consistency + no typos |
| Subtitle | Selling-point line: 12-mo warranty · Tested · Ships today. | Prime 50-char conversion real estate, currently wasted |
| Free shipping | On higher-value units where margin allows; clean shipping templates. | Unlocks the Free Shipping filter (visibility) + conversion |
| Sponsored Listings | Turn on once access confirmed (see §4). | The scalable paid lever they're not using at all |
4 Sponsored Listings — the lever that's switched off
Trade Me's native PPC ad product. TYDI runs none of it — for a 2,370-listing Buy Now catalogue, that's the clearest paid opportunity on the channel.
How it works
- Auction-based PPC — set a daily budget + strategy; Trade Me auto-promotes all eligible stock into "Sponsored" search slots. Pay only on clicks.
- Strategies: Cost-conscious (lower bids, higher ROAS) vs Maximise sales (more volume, lower ROAS).
- Eligibility: Buy Now items in Marketplace categories only (not auctions, not Motors/Property/Jobs/Services).
- Reporting: impressions, clicks, purchases (excl. cart — so true ROAS is better than shown), spend, ROAS.
Costs & the catch
- CPC is auction-set and not published — electronics is competitive, so expect upward pressure. You only see real CPCs once it runs.
- Daily budget = max/day, unused carries over; billed weekly, GST on top — enable Autobiller.
- Access was gated to pro sellers — step one is confirming the account has it.
- Beats flat-fee promos (Featured ~$9.95, Super Feature ~$39.95, Homepage Gallery ~$59.95 — indicative, verify) which don't scale across hundreds of SKUs and charge even when items don't sell.
The play: confirm access → start Cost-conscious on a modest daily budget to learn real category CPCs → measure ROAS (adjust up: cart sales aren't counted) → scale the winners. Reserve flat-fee Feature/Super-Feature for genuine hero SKUs only; let Sponsored Listings carry the volume.
5 Every listing at a glance
All 2368 live listings from the full scrape. Search by product or category; click a column header to sort. Brand / Refurb columns flag the title audit (✕ = title doesn't lead with a brand / doesn't say "Refurbished").
6 Best Match — how Trade Me search actually ranks
- Title keyword match is the #1 lever — and the first 3 words carry the most weight. Lead Brand → Item → Model/Colour; strip filler ("great", "amazing", "wow").
- Category accuracy — list in the most specific correct category; never "Other" (kills filtered browse).
- Complete attributes — condition, capacity, model, colour; buyers filter on these.
- Recency / relisting — fresher surfaces better; use Gallery Plus relists to refresh stale stock rather than letting it go cold.
- Conversion / sell-through & competitive total price (incl. shipping) feed Best Match over time.
- Payments & shipping — Ping + Afterpay (now default; Afterpay sells ~24% higher); free shipping unlocks the filter.
- Keep titles literal — no confirmed Trade Me semantic/AI search; match the buyer's exact words (model numbers, abbreviations). Feedback is a trust/conversion signal, likely not a direct ranking weight.
Store + listing data extracted 11 Jun 2026 via the trademe-store super-scraper (20-listing sample of 2,370). Sponsored Listings & Best Match guidance from Trade Me Help/Marketplace, Omnivore/Tradevine and NZ fee breakdowns (2025–26); CPC figures and promo-extra prices are not officially published — verify on Trade Me's live pages before committing budget. Not financial advice.
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