Rooms with a view
It’s time to declutter and give the rooms in your home a sense of airy space.
If you’re looking to renovate and need some clear space – or if you’re a follower of the strangely inspiring Netflix series Tidying Up With Marie Kondo – you’ll know that decluttering is where it’s at. Without even trying, it’s amazing how many things can pile up in cupboards and drawers that have never really been wanted or used. If this sounds like you, then it’s time to clear out and sell up.
Once you decide what’s going, set aside an afternoon to photograph your selected items so you can list them online.
Not sure where to start? Here’s our guide to some available platforms.
Trade Me
Trade Me, which launched in 1999, now rates its used goods marketplace as ‘‘mature’’. The wellestablished e-commerce platform has many years of fine-tuning under its belt.
Around 800,000 Kiwis visit Trade Me each day. It is in the top 10 of our most influential brands and in 2017, Colmar Brunton named Trade Me as Kiwis’ sixth most loved brand. No online platform is completely free of risk but Trade Me’s ongoing commitment to trust, safety and transparency is reassuring.
Trade Me is easy to use, with tips on how to make a great listing, promote it, arrange shipping and organise payments. Recent innovations include a new fast track payment system called Ping and a payment by instalment option (Afterpay).
For casual sellers, Trade Me charges a fee of 7.9% of sale price (with the maximum success fee being $249). It is free to create a basic listing. Fees can be refunded if the sale isn’t completed.
Neighbourly
If you want to trade with people in your area, then the community social media platform Neighbourly is worth considering. You can use it to buy, sell and trade items with no commission fees.
All members have verified addresses and use their real names, with Neighbourly’s owner Stuff touting this as the platform’s key point of difference. Neighbourly offers helpful guidelines on how to get started.
In 2014, Neighbourly had 62,000 members. Now it has more than half a million and rates as New Zealand’s third most-used social media site (Nielsen Online Ratings, March 2018). What proportion of those members regularly trade on Neighbourly is less clear.
Facebook Marketplace
If you’re looking to declutter then Facebook marketplace, which launched here in 2016, is another free to use option. Its appeal stems from its power to facilitate direct peer-to-peer trading.
It’s simple enough to use but sorting out how the goods will be paid for and collected can involve quite a lot of time in Messenger.
Marketplace is only lightly moderated and a few cases have been reported of people transferring money to buy products such as an iPhone, only to never receive it. After one such case, the police urged people to be extremely cautious about buying items through websites such as Facebook. From a seller’s point of view, that’s a deterrent too because you’d imagine this type of coverage would deter potential buyers.
Facebook marketplace has a reputation as a place for bargain hunters so expect some haggling over price.
Freecycle
‘‘Changing the world one gift at a time’’ is the ethos of Freecycle, which encourages people to give away their unwanted stuff for free. Since launching in Arizona in 2004, it has since grown into an international non-profit platform. It’s free to sign up and free to list.
Compared to other platforms, its interface looks outmoded. Groups are run by local volunteers but reviews of Freecycle suggest it is only lightly moderated. A common complaint is that people who say they will get an item do not show up.
It could be easier to donate unwanted items to a local charity store or op shop instead, but there are plenty of active Freecycle groups in New Zealand for those wanting to give it a try.
AllGoods
Launched last year, AllGoods is New Zealand’s ambitious e-commerce newcomer. Touting itself as ‘‘the easiest way to sell to Kiwi millennials’’, AllGoods boasts a marketplace of more than 25,000 shoppers, has over 100,000 listings and a smart new mobile app.
While yet a minnow compared to Trade Me, AllGoods is confident of ongoing growth, thanks to features such as a real-time chat system and integration with social media.
However, cheaper fees are really the most compelling reason for giving AllGoods a try. In fact, it’s free to sell on AllGoods. Once registered, you can list in the secondhand marketplace for free and there are no success fees. Their messaging system has also been designed to keep contact info secret and they have a support team in place to review posts.
AllGoods only allows products to be shipped from within New Zealand, so you won’t be competing against international sellers.