Buying from Trade Me? Here’s BookieMonster’s top tips!

If you’re buying off Trade Me there are several things you can do as a buyer to make sure the process goes smoothly and safely. Here’s our top tips for happy buying:

• Read auctions carefully. Make sure you know exactly what is and isn’t included in what you are buying, and what sort of condition it is in. If you’re unclear on anything, make use of the Question & Answer facility and ask about it. A good seller will include as much information as possible on an auction (i.e. payment methods available, postage costs, pickup policy, etc), so make sure you take note of this information and agree with it before purchasing.
• Check the seller’s feedback. Feedback is a quick and easy indication of whether you should feel comfortable buying from a seller and how much you’re prepared to spend with them. Feedback allows you as a buyer to assess risk, or lack of risk when buying. Check our feedback here.
• Once you have made your purchase send your address straight away using Trade Me’s Buyer Delivery Address email! This can be seen by the seller on their Trade Me pages, so forestalls any possible email clashes. Also you can set up several different addresses to choose from with these emails, so if you have more than one address you get purchases sent to then avoid any confusion for the seller by choosing the correct address, rather than sending several different addresses by different methods.
  If you’re paying for courier send a courier deliverable address (for example only Courierpost will deliver to PO Boxes, so it’s best not to use a PO Box for courier unless you’re certain the seller uses Courierpost). If you’re paying for standard post use a postal address, e.g. if you have your purchases delivered to a business send their postal address to avoid any issues with NZ Post.
• Pay promptly! Trade Me’s Pay Now system is excellent if you wish to pay by credit card, and allows a seller to track payments all the way. If paying by internet banking remember to use an identifiable reference such as the auction number or your Trade Me username. If you need to wait several days before making payment it’s a great idea to just let your seller know when you will be doing that, and make sure you remember to pay on that day!
• Enjoy yourself! Trade Me has a huge range of products available, and once you’ve purchased several times most of these things become second nature. Five minutes and you’ll be the proud new owner of… a book from BookieMonster!  Take a look at our listings here.

Have any questions? Ask in the comments.