Bidbud Ending - Bye Bye Trademe?

Bobtherobber on 28/07/2024 - 23:02

Recently the Bidbud developer has said some things on the trademe forum and on the bidbud website about trademe potentially changing things and stopping bidbud. After their terrible roll out of the new site recently with everyone on the forum claiming they were deleting all negative comments I wouldn't be suprised.

"Trade Me are making some big changes to how things work behind the scenes, some listings are using the new platform already. These listings cannot be bid on using BidBud, you have to bid manually on Trade Me. Going forward, this will likely be the end of BidBud. It's likely possible for me to update BidBud to handle the changes, however it would take a lot of my time - time I don't have. Enjoy it while it lasts."

Would any of us be keen to help pay the developer to keep bidbud alive (assuming if the developer wanted to)?

General Discussion

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Comments

  • chep on 28/07/2024 - 23:32

    Link to the post?

    • Bobtherobber on 29/07/2024 - 00:03

      Here, the text in the post is from the bidbud faq's

  • kiwical on 29/07/2024 - 07:23

    Probably need to wait for a bit until things play out. Years ago the bidbud developer did put out a bit of a survey or email asking if people would be willing to pay to use it. Can't remember what the result of that was. But it's still free so I guess nearly everyone said yeah na. I'd be willing to pay though. One idea was an automatic low percentage payment if you won an item using bidbud.

    Trade Me are removing posts. But they say it's because there are multiple posts saying the same thing more than because they are negative. They generally leave up the first post about whatever issue is being highlighted. Makes sense to me. It's a bit like on here where you only want 1 post of each deal. .

  • kiwijunglist on 29/07/2024 - 07:58
    +2

    Don't like how trademe keep defaulting to using ping payment, it's not something i want but I'm accidentally having it as a payment method, but i don't really to pay the additional ping payment fees on top of the exorbitant trademe fees.

    • CheapAzChips on 29/07/2024 - 08:26
      +2

      This. Trademe is getting more and more painful to use as a seller.

      How's this: The problem with anyone trying to set up a competitor to TradeMe is the issue of sheer numbers -you have to have buyers and sellers in high enough numbers to sustain a viable marketplace, virtually impossible with an incumbent like TM (many have tried, all have failed).

      What if BidBud were to simply** switch away from TM to their own custom auction API, and take all the BidBud buyers and sellers with them? I wonder if there are already enough users in the ecosystem to sustain it?

      I would gladly use BB exclusively over TM, even if it was a bit slow to get off the ground.

      ** Massive oversimplification here, I know this is anything but simple

      • kiwijunglist on 29/07/2024 - 08:33

        I would think bidbud is a very small proportion.

    • Dunno on 29/07/2024 - 09:07
      +1

      yeah as a seller I've found ping does not really add value to me for buyers paying more to justify the 2% fee, afterpay is 100% worth the ~5% fee as lots of people will pay a premium price with afterpay as a payment option.

      • MartinPrince on 29/07/2024 - 11:25
        +1

        Funny I'm the complete opposite. Ping makes my life a lot easier in terms of selling. Tend to sell a lot of things at once to a small number of people and they just pay straight away, whereas the bank depositors tend to take an age to get around to it or are waiting for me to come up with a total $ number which they can't be bothered working out. I've never had anyone use Afterpay, or ask to use it if I haven't got it enabled. Different horses for different courses, I guess :)

        • Bobtherobber on 29/07/2024 - 21:40

          Bidbud has a total amount at the bottom if you search the buyer in your sold listings

        • LupinS on 30/07/2024 - 11:12

          Agreed.

          With ping I can make the product if needed (I try not to stock too much), pack it, and book a courier straight away. I don't even need to email the other person 99% of the time.

          Way better than waiting days (as I currently am) to see if someone actually paid and ending up producing stuff I dot need (sure I'll sell a lot of it later, but not all)

  • cheekiecheapo on 29/07/2024 - 08:38

    Trademe is not worth using anymore. It's full of drop shippers, and the UI is specifically designed to make you always see those listings in searches with the way it now refuses to remember which area you want to limit searches to. I've used trademe about once in the past two years. It's pretty much useless as a decent tool for second-hand stuff now.

    • Bobbee on 29/07/2024 - 16:59

      Agree. The last item I searched for produced very few results on TM and when I looked on Marketplace there were several times the number listed, plus most of the TM listings were not private sellers. There is a lot I hate about Marketplace but there have been items I have listed a few times on Trademe and haven't sold that have when put on MP and sold for more than expected. I think I must have blocked hundreds of timewasters on MP

  • Monk on 29/07/2024 - 08:58
    +1

    Damn. Love bidbud. I never use the real site unless I need to make offers.
    I turn off adblockers on the bidbid site at least.

  • Michael D on 29/07/2024 - 09:24
    +3

    Used BB from the very beginning and it's been great - great shame if he goes to the wall. Hate Trademe but the Facebook alternative is a minefield of scams, thieves, crooks and brigands!

  • kiwijunglist on 29/07/2024 - 09:36
    +2

    The problem with Facebook is there is less accountability for people flaking and also the "is this available" messages are annoying as well the communication being more chat based rather than formalised it can take up a lot of your time. And people on Facebook usually can't read very well.

  • alanimal on 29/07/2024 - 14:31
    +3

    BidBud is the only way! I'd happily donate to keep it alive.

  • alanimal on 29/07/2024 - 16:59
    +2

    Note from the developer and legend himself: "It's nothing to do with money - I've had plenty of offers to donate but I'm simply not interested. I'm busy with other things these days and BidBud uses tech that I've long since moved away from. I'll keep it running as long as it's feasible to do so without needing too much of my time."

    Man I will be gutted to lose BidBud!!!!

  • LupinS on 30/07/2024 - 11:14

    Will suck to miss a few features that TM should still have - like hyperlinks to the auction in the feedback (for as long as they can anyway).

    Way too many sellers (some in trade) with positive feedback that when you look you discover most of it was buying $1 junk to improve their feedback

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