A new franchise has been started, initially in Christchurch but with nationwide aspirations, called TradeRunner.

The concept revolves around facilitating Trademe trading for those who can’t be bothered, don’t know how or are time limited. Basically TradeRunner charges a commission on top of the standard TM one for managing the process from collection, to listing to delivery.

Some people I have talked to have questioned the viability of the concept – claiming the Kiwi DIY attitude (and reluctance to give up potential earnings) as barriers to its success.

The business is backed by Mike Pero of Mike Pero Mortgages fame, and also has amongst its staff/ownership some pretty astute people. Grant Wells is a consultant with Nextant and him and Helena Parsons from Quartz Clarity were instrumental in creating the NZTE funded Manufacturing+ document (and that in itself is a document which deserves some significant comment at a later stage).

What do others think of the TradeRunner concept?

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

3 Comments
  • Good luck to Mike Pero and TradeRunner, however I will be watching carefully as I am predicting that TradeRunner will take Trade Me to court over some disputes in the future. I predict that if it is a success then Trade Me will start charging TradeRunner for being piggybacking on their service. If Mike Pero and TradeRunner refuses to do so, then it will prompt them ( Mike Pero and TradeRunner) to file charges against Trade Me for being a monopoly , unfair market competition or something else that TradeRunner’s lawyers could find in the commerce commission’s law book.

    As a supporter of property rights, this is absurd if such a hypothetical scenario outlined above is allowable by law (not a lawyer myself to know about it), ie, the law allows someone else to stop the property owner from making any decision of what is rightfully theirs.

    The anti-trust case against Microsoft was a clear violation of property rights, which is similar to the hypothetical scenario described here. Microsoft was forbidden from bundling together its own software applications with its own windows operating system .Such law is outdated and it should be killed. It is easier for people to slag off such private enterprise as Microsoft or Telecom and labeling them as monopoly, when it is not their property that is violated by stupid anti-competitive law or anti-trust law, however when it happens to them such as the Trade Me/TradeRunner hypothetical case described here, then they would wake up and think, umm, Microsoft has been right after all in its efforts to defend its right to do whatever they like to their own intellectual property in court such as software bundling.

    Just a thought for discussion Ben.

  • Anyone else want to join in this conversation? Personally I can’t see any TM/TR issues arising – it’s mutually beneficial IMHO (thus far anyway)

  • Good luck for TradeRunne. I tried to surf their website unfortunately website is not accessable. Could you guys please check web hosting.

    Cheers

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