What is sella?

Sella is an online auction & classified site that was founded in November 2008. It is a 50/50 Joint Venture between Shane Bradley and APN News & Media.

Sella was created out of the desire to give Kiwis a choice when it came to them wanting to buy or sell something online.

We felt that TradeMe was becoming too dominant in the auction space and this was starting to affect the livelihoods of the small sellers who sell on TradeMe via TradeMe's ever increasing fee structure making it more and more expensive to sell on.

We respect TradeMe as a business but feel there is a difference between making a fair amount of money and an obscene amount of money.

Basic economic theory suggests that companies with a monopoly will charge the highest prices they possibly can. On the other hand, competition results in lower prices, better features and improved customer service - all good things for consumers.

We believe that it's important for New Zealanders to have a strong, viable alternative to Trade Me to keep prices and service in check.

How is sella different?

Sella is free of commissions, pure and simple. There is no commission structure and there never will be.

Sella makes money via advertising on the site as well as offering featured listings where users can pay small amounts of money to have their listings show above other listings.

If your aim is to make a fair amount of money (and not an obscene amount of money) then only charging for a few features allows the business to run profitably.

Why do we think we can compete with TradeMe when no one else has been able to?

We are experienced at online businesses. Sella.co.nz is part of www.ideahq.co.nz, which owns many of New Zealand's favourite sites including flicks.co.nz & getfrank.co.nz.

We have a proven track record. Shane & APN first teamed up on finda.co.nz which is NZ's 2nd largest business directory. finda.co.nz started in 2005 and now has over 200,000 businesses listed and is a top 10 website in NZ with over 750,000 users each month.

The skills we learn't building finda.co.nz and other websites we are putting to use in building sella.

We know how to build good sites that attract users to them.

How is it going so far?

Fantastically!! Even better than we could have ever dreamed thanks to the massive support shown to us by the online trading community.

Since starting in November 2008 we now have:

• 250,000 members - growing at over 3,000 per week
• 240,000 listings
• 400,000 users per month

If this is what is possible after only 16 months of operation, imagine where we will be after 5 years!

How can you help us?

We appreciate that TradeMe is still alot larger than us, but as we have shown above, we are growing at a fast rate and every month we are getting bigger.

We will tell you now not to expect the same level of sales as you would on TradeMe, they have been going for 11 years we for only 16 months, but with time and the online trading community supporting us, sella.co.nz can become a very viable alternative to TradeMe in the near future.

Remember, we are commission free and plan to stay that way.

If you have any feedback, good and bad, please contact us and let us know.