The thinking behind Fixed Price Offers

Offering a fixed price offer higher than s/r is an indication the seller wants people to bid, and that they won't get it cheaper by waiting for a fixed price offer. It doesn't apply to you if you are not wanting to purchase, but a genuine buyer would get the message and place a bid next time.

What it means is that the seller set the s/r price lower than what they hoped to get. I do this, because getting a bit of a momentum in an auction, started by a low reserve, can boost the final price. The extreme example of this is $1 reserve.

There's a risk in this, because you might only get one bid, and the item sells for less than you wanted: if so, you accept that your wanted price was too high, or it was a bad week for selling that kind of thing. But if you get no bids, then you might, at least the first time, offer it at the lowest price you'd be happy with, which is above the reserve.

I'm no expert, but this seems a fairly reasonable set of reasons for doing that. Of course, when I've been watching an auction and see an offer like that, sometimes I think "You're pretty ambitious, friend." But goods have different values to different people, for quite sensible reasons: for one buyer, the trade might be over a generic, fungible widget; for another, it is an apparently ordinary item that has one specific uncommon feature that just fits their needs.

Just like to know when is the system notify bidders/watchers about the fix price offer?

Is it x number of days before the listing ends or the system notify bidders/watchers when the listing ends?

If I understand what you're asking, Trade Me doesn't do automatic Fixed Price Offers. If the auction ends without the item selling, the Seller is automatically notified by TM, and given the option of relisting, or making a fixed price offer. Normally it goes to people who've bid, or have the auction on their watch list. People who have had the item on their watch list are notified when the auction ends, and invited to contact the seller to request a re-listing or a Fixed P. O. It all depends on the seller, ultimately.

Sometimes I have given stupidly high FPO's to watchers as I just want them to go away due to them being serial watchers who have no intention of buying the item regardless of the price, be it 50 cents or $50. These are watchers that have been watching every time an item is listed for years. Even after they have been blacklisted for being stalkers, they still watch. Yes, I treated them as genuinely interested buyers to begin with, but after they didn't respond to FPO's and continued watching, it got old very fast. I have just complained to Trade Me once again regarding a certain watcher that I blacklisted over 2 years ago that is still watching my trades. I no longer make FPO's to the genuine watchers for these listings as 14 times out of 15 the watcher is the blacklisted person wasting my time. If a person is blacklisted they can't bid, this should apply to watching too. It doesn't stop them looking at an auction to see what it sells for, they just shouldn't be able to put it on their watch list.

I have a serial watcher. It has been going on for months. Just watches, never bids. So I created a listing just for her lol, and nope that didn't work. Mentioned to trade me but not much they can do, so I blacklisted and guess what... this trader is STILL adding my listings to her watch list. Actually very off putting listing any items now.

Hello I'm Duncan.! I'm just querying about these fixed price offers as I'm still learning about trademe and buying and selling items. I'm currently selling a couple items. However I was mixed emotions about what the charge fee would be to me/for me to have to pay to trade me/buyer? Can someone please help explain this process to me?. Would be appreciated.! Thank you.!

Duncan a fixed prce offer (FPO), is just like any other sale in that the success fee is paid when the item sells. If you had 2 for example and one sold with res met or Buy Now and one sold by FPO, you pay a success fee on each sale. All selling and other fees are paid to Trademe directly from your Trademe account. Listing fees are automatically taken from your Trademe account when you list and sale fees are taken when something sells. It's an automatic system.

The fees vary based on what category the item is listed in and all the differences are detailed on the Fees page of the online help pages.

FPOs in addition to a sale from the same listing are great if you have paid listing or promotional fees as effectively you have spread the fees between the 2 sales. Each still has it's own success fee thoiugh of course as there are 2 sales.

Marketplace fees – Help - Trade Me

Why has Trade Me taken off the identity of watchers?  I have serial watchers who I don't do FPO for, but now there is just 'make FPO' with, say, 6 watchers, but not a list of who they are.  Also, at times, when relisting items the watchers are carried over from the expired listing meaning that within 2 seconds flat you have 6 watchers.  Why is Trade Me making things difficult when it used to be so easy?  Not a good look to make FPOs to the same people week after week - delays relisting and probably annoys the watchers who are probably not watching this time around.  Not a good move, Trade Me

Kia Ora knitpurl1,

In regards to watchers reappearing on your listings as soon as you relist your items, this is a feature TM brought in around August 2024 - watchers need to delete the item from their Lost items & the relisted item so they don't keep getting the item placed back on their watchlist - Members who are unaware of this change may not even know this is happening if they aren't regularly logging in to view their watchlists so yes redundant FPO's may be being sent out. - I haven't heard regarding watchers identity  not appearing, another Member may be able to add value to this for us. - Cheers.

Don't know if you can track expired listing 5800258275 Handbag.  If I make a fixed price offer on this item I cannot see who I am offering to.  Same with garden plants I sent out offers for this morning - made the offers but don't know who the members were.  As for the needing members to delete from their watch lists - I consider this to be a bad move.  Leave it in the Lost items OK but to not auto delete from the watchlist is not good.  Trade Me is making bad moves with some of their changes making using the site a chore rather than a pleasure as previously.

Just tried on some of my listings that have expired with watchers. If you use the desktop site option the names are displayed. If you are not using that option, you should have two choices - all watchers or selected watchers. If you choose selected, then you see the names and can choose who to send to. Unsure what options you get if only using the phone app, which I don't use.

I use Desktop and yes, there was always an option for 'selected watchers' so you could see who the offer was going to.  Indeed, some items I offered today did provide a list.  I record all watchers so I know who are my serial watchers.  I have been using Trade Me daily from the beginning (over 20 years) and feel I know my way around the site.  For some of my expired listings there is definitely no way of finding out who you are offering to.  You go to make an offer and there is no list to be found.  I suspect that this could perhaps be because there are no real watchers - only people who have forgotten to go into their watchlist and delete things?  TM is becoming a pain in the butt with some of their changes.

Thank you to those who tried to help with regard to being unable to see who my watchers are.  I contacted Trade Me and their reply -

Thanks for getting in touch, 
 
Unfortunately, you won't be able to see details of the people who watch your auctions - you can only see the amount of watchers you have. 

Unsure if this is another of their 'improvements' but with the number of watchers increasing over time there is no way of finding who new watchers are.  Not a good move by Trade Me and I cannot understand why they would do this.  It basically means 'don't offer to watchers'.  I was a useful tool for the casual mums and dads which the site was originally et up for.

Trade Me need to return the valued feature of seeing who our Watchers are so we can use our intelligence to decide if we make a Fixed Price Offer.

It's function over reach to have our rights over ridden likely because of some person undertaking a Privacy program in another country that's now rolled out here - look up what's going on in Ontario, Canada with this in relation to Online marketplaces and also Know Your Customer programs.

It should not be decided by AI, nor someone who is not walking in our shoes.

Once again, where's the application of logic?

We have had exactly the same user watchlist our items and never bid so why would we not want to see who is still "watchlisting".

It's time wasting as well as wasting resources used to operate data centers worldwide as all this online Superhighway goes through them too...