I have on my iPhone a very nice application from Orsome Software called MyTrades. It does one simple thing, and it does it well:
It allows you to set a list of people whose TradeMe auctions you wish to monitor. Its not a full on client for the whole site. More of a tool for sellers to check how their sales are going.
What is very cool is you can click on any item to see more details from the listing, and if you want you tap a button and the view flips over and it takes you right onto the full TradeMe web page, so you can respond to any questions or check out more details on the bidders.
I’ve been selling a few items lately and love that I can quickly check the status of my various auctions from my iPhone. I don’t even actually use the two extra features mentioned above.
There is one more feature I’d like though, so I emailed Peter Watling:
There’s one feature that would be very useful: a listing of recent successful auctions that would allow me to check how much the item sold for.
It could be by time period, such as the last week, or perhaps a number, such as the last 10, or even maybe items that haven’t yet had feedback placed.
The particular use for this is when you’re suddenly face to face with the buyer and can’t recall how much they owe you, or perhaps you’re at the Post Office and want to shoot off a quick email confirming total amount to pay plus the shipping cost you’ve just discovered.
Of course, I can visit TradeMe’s site via Safari and sign in through the browser, then find my way to a completed auction, but what a rigamarole. I’d rather have the one-click access to that info that MyTrades could provide.
Peter replied very promptly, but the news was bad:
Sadly, trademe only have one this one set of info available right now. … I would love to be able to write a full trademe client… I have contacted them several times, feel free to blog how they should have a public api like ebay does. It only encourages more people to use their site. I think it was something like 40% of eBays sales use some 3rd party tools to complete the trades, they still get their commssission, but allow people to make appropriate front ends for various platforms. Imagine how cool it would be on the iPhone…
It would be cool to be able to use TradeMe better from my iPhone, though at the moment I’m fixated on just the one additional feature I desire.
So, come on TradeMe: get your API’s sorted.
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Trade Me already punches far above eBay in stats per person, API development takes time and money and it would slow down other dev. The price of making everything more complicated for everyone for the benefit of a few apps makes it simply not worth it.
Thanks for that clarification Lance.
I’m not sure how an API makes things more complicated, but then I’m no expert in APIs.
Hi Miraz, if you’re looking to use Trademe on your iPhone check out my app Tradestar at http://www.tradestar.co.nz – I still have lots of features that I’d like to add to it, but its a great start and beats using the trademe website on your iPhone.
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