Tradewise folds

Online auction site consolidator Tradewise has shut down following a letter from leading auction site Trade Me.

As reported in the Herald last week, Trade Me asked Tradewise to cease operations by last Wednesday at 5pm.

Tradewise was using a "spidering" system to collect auction information from Trade Me and other auction sites and present it in a standard structure.

The user still needed to link to the specific auction site to participate in the bidding.

A statement on Tradewise's home page says "some auction sites did not wish to participate in our vision, negating the value of it".