Buy Crikey: Auction site offers bargains aplenty but buyer beware

Photo / Tracey Robinson

Trade Me is New Zealand's biggest "retailer". And a staggering 40 per cent of all items sold are new.

You'd have to have gone bush for the past few years not to have noticed that there are certain categories on Trade Me that have new items far cheaper than high street stores.

Fragrances and makeup are two such categories where one-man-band traders are doing a lot of parallel importing. New children's beds also come pretty cheaply, a friend pointed out to me this week.

Likewise a huge number of small importers bring in branded clothing and sell it on Trade Me. For example, trader pashway had 246 items of new men's skate gear listed this week, including brands such as Neff, Globe, Osiris and Converse.

I've enthused before about how cheap mobile phone and computer accessories are on Trade Me. This week I've been looking at 3m HDMI cables and they're dirt cheap. For example, 3m gold-plated HDMI male-to-male cable from seller realwholesale costs $10.93, including postage. A similar Transonic HDMI cable was selling in The Warehouse this week for $39.99.

I must warn, though, that these cheaper items are often unbranded. What's more, although both cables mentioned above are probably made in China, sometimes the branded ones are better quality.

Conversely with some goods, branding just doesn't matter. If, like me, you need a new Toshiba-compatible laptop battery you might be willing to go generic to save $100 or more. A generic m800 laptop battery costs just over $53, including postage, on Trade Me from ray_tech. The equivalent battery direct from Toshiba is A$199 ($250).

I asked food and garden writer Virgil Evetts for his favourite categories. Evetts puts together $20 projects each month for a gardening magazine and sources much of the equipment needed on Trade Me. A recent project needed an aquarium heater, which might cost $30 at a pet shop. Trader petstoreonline sold one for $12.

The other warning is that it is much easier to return an item to a store than it is to send back to a faceless Trade Me seller. Not all smaller sellers follow the letter of the law when it comes to returns. What's more, the Consumer Guarantees Act doesn't protect you if you've bought an item by auction rather than using the Buy Now price.

Some of the "new" items on Trade Me are unusual. You can even buy live goldfish very cheaply from sellers like addicted2fish and ls813.

They'll even have them couriered to you in a container of water.

Another slightly unusual, but super-cheap "new" item you can have couriered to you by a Trade Me seller is live crayfish at $69.90 a kilogram from trader hbseafoods.

If it's garden plants you're after there are some real bargains on Trade Me.

Many of the traders are growers, so you cut out the middleman.

More deals

Molokai paddle board package. 10ft 6". $499.99 down from $799.99.

Half carat of diamonds set 9ct gold diamond pear-shaped ring $399.99, save $1100.

25 per cent off the L'Oreal Paris cosmetics range. Farmers branches.