On-line auction adrenalin

By RICHARD WOOD

Online auctions, just like the real thing, are all about who will pay the most - offering at once excitement and risk, the chance to sell at a good price, buy a real bargain, or maybe just get rid of some useful rubbish you can't bear to throw away.

For many, using auctions sites is more than buying and selling. Regulars to local sites, such as trademe.co.nz, have built a close online community where they sometimes help each other in the most impressive ways. Like the Trade Me users who banded together to get a computer for one of their own who was about to lose a borrowed system.

This community building serves the site in keeping people coming back and has the benefit of strengthening trust between people, which can otherwise be difficult to establish online.

New Zealanders have a number of choices of where to go to find auction bargains online. Trade Me is the leading local one with over 100,000 members, but others of interest include recycle.net.nz, newly started buyme.co.nz, clearance-style auctioncity.co.nz, and international heavyweight Ebay at ebay.co.nz.

You can buy pretty much anything this way, but each site has its own reason for being, its own special advantage that might lead you to become a regular.

AuctionCity for example is a clearinghouse for excess stock and returned retail goods. The site is run by distributor Black Diamond Technologies, previously named Melco. In some ways it's very much like a retail store but using the auction process to sell.

At Auction City I completed my first successful purchase where I bid on an out-of-date, but unused, boxed edition of Dragon Naturally Speaking software. The site has a varying range of new electrical appliances and computer gear at any given time with the advantage that you are actually buying from the site's owners and they can provide a warranty.

Eighty-one dollars and a flitter of excitement later, I had topped the auction and set to wondering whether I had a good deal. Time will tell.

Whatever, once a deal is done, the confirmation arrives by email and it's time to get the money on its way, which I achieved by adding $5 postage and banking directly into their account at the National Bank. The software arrived a few days later.

Feeling cocky, I moved on to the Trade Me site to join up, get some goodies for the kids and experience buying from other members of joe public.

I don't mind admitting I'm always in the market for second-hand Lego - the stuff is expensive when your target is to get enough to build to the ceiling. Trade Me has a mind-boggling range of auctions from kids' clothes and toys up to real cars and houses.

At 4.30pm on a typical day last week there were more than 25000 items for auction and more than 1700 people online at once.

I tried several times to pick up some Lego, but I realised pretty quickly I'm not the only one who wants it and I was always outbid.

It's noticeable that people tend to leave most of their bidding to the last few minutes because auctions have a time limit and they don't want to bid up the price too high. Some sites have addressed the last-minute rush by extending the time of the auction if someone has bid in the last five minutes.

Many sites also have an automatic process that will keep you bidding up to a set amount while you go off and get on with your life.

Some items for sale have instant purchase prices that allow you to snaffle a product that you really feel you must own without getting into a bidding war.

Selling items is pretty straightforward as well.

Obviously, you need to register with a few details, and it helps to use digital photos of your goods if you can. Otherwise it's about selecting your reserve price, which is the minimum you'll sell at, and setting your auction to roll for a selected number of days.

You need to provide details of what payments you'll accept and who's going to pay for and arrange shipping. On the web you are, after all, advertising the product for sale anywhere in New Zealand and sometimes anywhere in the world.

Some sites operate free, and others will charge you a commission on successful sales. At Trade Me, for example, it starts at 5 per cent of the sale price with the percentage dropping for higher-priced goods, and the commission is waived for a range of large items including houses, cars and yachts.

It is likely you will develop an allegiance to a site and want to be support it financially, or you may weigh up the size and nature of each site's audience and consider whether it will make the difference in the price you get.

An important part of the online auction process is the ability to ask the seller questions. Because buyers don't get to see and touch the goods they're about to buy, and text descriptions and photos are often insufficient, getting additional information is essential - especially if you're buying technical products like computers.

TradeMe

recycle.net.nz

AuctionCity

eBay NZ

buyme.co.nz