List Sell Trade - catchy name!

[chunky]

Sounds more like a brainfart, reeks of desperation for the fledgling site giving people only 6 days to try before paying

[marika3]

Now what was that target number again? One million subscribers? Two million? Ten million?
Sorry LST but I'm not going to pay $10 per month to buy on a site with very few listings, and I'm not going to enter your lottery.

Wow, those are some conditions.
Draw won't be done until 500,000 members that have paid their $10 fee for at least 3 months and have a listing loaded for each and every day of that 3 months.
gazza1234 (23580 ) 4:52 pm, Fri 2 Nov #14

_banker_ wrote:
I agree gazza but sadly there will be a lot of people that go "oh wow, worth a shot", sign up, get stuck with the subscription and there you have it. A New Zealand version of a Nigerian scam?

Especially with T & C 14. List Sell Trade reserves the right to amend, vary, extend or discontinue this promotion at any stage and for any reason.
Thanks for the $15 mill subscribers, but we've already spent the bucks, so have decided to cancel the prize draw. Better luck next time....lol
gazza1234 (23580 ) 5:10 pm, Fri 2 Nov #20

From here: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/Mess ... 0&topic=10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[chunky]

Even TM couldn't maintain what they are asking, it's just a marketing stunt.

[digidog]

Bruce Simpson looks at LST in this morning's Aardvark and comments on their "million dollar" bribe.

What a tragic disaster LST has turned out to be and this latest act of desperation shows just how out of touch they are with the market
and how little they actually know about marketing in "the real world".

Why on earth anyone would recruit the parent company to develop their web marketing presence I have no idea, and I suspect this fiasco
has done a huge amount of damage to them -- especially after the first few attempts to launch the site crashed and burned.

http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2012/1120.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Right now the site has a grand total of 2,285 listings and their message boards have only 26 threads.

[marika3]

Right now the site has a grand total of 2,285 listings and their message boards have only 26 threads.

I can't do even that, as their front page at http://www.listselltrade.co.nz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; looks like this:


FireFox here, if this matters.

[digidog]

Here's another email from LST.

Dear registered List Sell Trade member : it's time to subscribe !

Our free trial period has ended and you have not subscribed yet.

This means you cannot list any new items for sale and you cannot edit your current listings.
It also means we will have to hide your current listings.

If they're going to "hide" current listings from anyone who hasn't paid the monthly fee, I predict that the site will be
a listing-free wasteland within a month. The odd big seller may stick around for a while, but the little guys won't
bother.

At only $10/month, less than $2.50/week, you get the ability to sell and list as much you like with
no other fees, no long-term contract, and unlimited use, why wouldn't you subscribe!

Hmmm... why wouldn't I? For a start there don't seem to be any buyers on the site. I've yet to come across a single
listing with any bids - if anyone can spot one, please post it here. Then there's the $10 monthly fee to list anything
when that part is free on TM, Sella, EzyAuctionNZ, etc. I suppose there's always the million buck bribe?

LST seem to have modified their operation in a few ways. It's now free to buy on the site, sellers can list their
website on listings and there's even a "directory" where traders can display their contact number. Hello? In that
case why not just stick the seller's phone number directly onto listings?

Building a TradeMe killer is a big ambition. I don't think that LST are likely to achieve that aim.

[digidog]

I've just received another newsletter from LST reminding me that I can list as much as I want for "just" $10 per month. So I had a quick poke around the site to see what's happening. The message boards are usually a good indicator, but they're dead as a dodo. Most of the posts there date back to October last year.

How about listings? The numbers on the main page seem healthier, so I drilled down into "Antiques and Collectibles" / Used. And there's only a single listing from Christchurch (where LST is based). How about my favourite TM area, "Electronics > Photography" / Used. Nope! Sadly there's not a single listing. Well, how about "Books"? Hmmm... only six listings and they're all from the same person.

But wait! Here's a busier area... "Food and Beverage" / Used produces an amazing 1103 listings. Hold on... used food? You must be joking?

In my travels I didn't spot a single auction with any bids. Maybe I was just looking in the wrong places?

[digidog]

LST have sent out their annual "list all you want" email but they're still asking me to pay them $10 month. And to me, that's the biggest flaw in their business plan.

I buy a few books on TradeMe and onsell the ones I've read. As an example, if I sell four books a month on TradeMe, it costs me 50c for each one which sells - total cost $2. If I decided to test the waters on LST as a seller, listed and sold exactly the same four books, that would cost me $2.50 per book = $10. So I'm not even going to go there. And that assumes that there are actually buyers on the site. Try as I might, I can only find a total of TWO books currently for sale on LST compared with more than 32,000 available on TradeMe... it's a no brainer.

I pointed out last year (see above) that LST's message boards were sad and languishing. This time I can't even find them so I guess they've been killed off.

While LST seem to have a few commercial members listing hundreds of items, I can't find a single auction listing that actually has a bid. As an auction site it's the equivalent of owning a general store on a quiet street in the back of the burbs. No foot traffic... no eyeballs... very few sales.

[digidog]

LST's latest bright idea is asking registered users to supply them with 30 email addresses so they can build an email database. Their latest promotional email reads:

FREE banner advertising for 7 days on the homepage of List Sell Trade!

It's simple.

To qualify, forward this email to 30 or more friends and business associates plus cc track@listselltrade.co.nz and you will receive free banner advertising for one week on List Sell Trade.

The track@ address sounds a little ominous. I wonder what they intend to do with the email addresses they harvest from this exercise?

[snokmz]

Hi I read with interest all the posts re List Sell Trade back in Oct 2012. Can anyone tell me if this site has improved at all? I received a phone call from them re listing my business, I'd really like a reply and suggestions ASAP before they ring back. I can't find any listings with bids on them. I can't really even find any private sales, also listings in the private tab seem to be mostly businesses. Look for to any info Cheers

[digidog]

LST are running a promo offering 10% of postage if you sell anything through their site. This is the same 10% discount which NZ Post offers when you buy their products online.

LST-promo.png (32.76 KiB) Viewed 2416 times

They'll give me a FAT? Say what? Like many people, I don't allow my email programme to load offsite attachments. That explains the little grey boxes throughout the email.

Sorry LST... but offering me a discount I already receive elsewhere still won't persuade me to pay you $10 each month.

[digidog]

Another year passes and LST appears to be surviving and still sending out hopeful newletters. Their latest one contains a doozy.

List Sell Trade has now opened up to private sellers

Say what? They were always available to any sellers silly enough to pay them $10 per month for unlimited listings on a site with little traffic. They must think kiwis have extremely short memories.

There's still no "browse" function on the site and all of the listings I've found appear to be businesses with hundreds, if not thousands of listings. LST offer a service importing retailer's listings in bulk, so the place has ended up full of $2 Shop stuff. A search for "book" turns up handbags an other tat, and bugger-all books. And with no "Closing Soon" function, it's impossible to tell how many (if any) items actually sell via the site.

That old "Win $1m" thing is still running, and naturally they've still not specified their 'target' number of subscribers.

...when we reach our target number of long-term subscribers we will draw one of them at random as the grand winner of $1 MILLION DOLLARS CASH!

Judging from the lack of Mum & Dad listings on the site, I doubt that magic 'target' figure will ever be reached.

[plinuckment]

*bump* For the record... LST is no more. Looks like they quietly folded around March this year (2019).