TradeMe will typically charge you 15% of sales, when all the fees are added.  This means if you buy gold or silver for $1,000, and then sell for $2,000, you’ve made a $1,000 profit.  Now TradeMe charges 15% of that $2,000.  This equates to $300.  You’ve made $1,000 profit, and $300, 30% of that goes to selling fees.  This means 30% of your hedge is taken.

The other bad strategy is to use another auction site that doesn’t sell the goods.  In essence, in the meantime do business with the little guys first.  Let them grow, and then one day you won’t need TradeMe.

So here’s the proof.  This shows that they said the reserve price was too low.  Why were they concerned about the reserve price being too low?  As you will see for every dollar you have as a reserve they charge 10% of that, and that’s just one fee.  So let’s start off with the fact that they are upset about my reserve price.

TradeMe-letter

Within that email she said two things, you are confusing the customer, and the reserve price is too low.  How am I confusing the customer?  I’ve said that if you win the auction you win an ounce of silver, and you can take your pick as to which design you want.  Their is nothing confusing about that.  The other point is that your reserve price is too low.  Why do they want a higher reserve price?  Because they get 10% of whatever your reserve price is.

So now let’s take a look at the proof.  So what does this prove?  Their are about two pages worth of fees.  I have 11 sold items and 8 unsold items.  That’s because their are many fees.

TradeMe-fees

Also on the 21st of March I paid an Auction Success fee of $2.92 and for sale was an ounce of silver.  On the 2nd of April another ounce of silver was sold and the success fee was 57 cents.

In regards to the sale on the 21st of March I put in a reserve price of $20.05, after finding out that the success fee is based on the reserve price, I put in an auction with no reserve price.  The difference in fess was $2.35.  So that works out to be more than $2.00 for a reserve price of $20.  This means it is more than 10% in that particular case.

Then to have a good picture, you pay another 55 cents, called a gallery fee.  When it hits reserve you pay a 25 cent fee.  And if the person pays by credit card that’s another 2 or 2.5% you pay.  So if you’re paying 10% for selling it plus 2.5% for accepting their credit card called pay now, what do the other fees equate too.  25 cents + 55 cents is 80 cents.  If we are selling for $30, that 80 cents is nearly 3%.  So you are paying around 15% if you set the reserve price to its worth.  And if you set the reserve price too low, you will get scolded.

Going back to setting no reserve for an ounce of silver, everytime I’ve auctioned an ounce of silver, it has within two days hit the $20 mark.  However, their have been things, which I wish I had set a reserve price on.

For the purposes of this next clip.  Dark Blue means equity.  When the equity is thin or non existent, the company will no longer exist.  The pink line is to show your overall change in equity.

Also supplementary to this is a chart.  It you invest over a 3.5 year period you could lose money.  This is why I need to empasize over a 10 year period, it is almost certain it will go up.

The first 3.5 clips will give you a good understanding.  If you watch further you’ll have an even better understanding.

This clip is the start of a series.  If you are familiar with what has been said in my pinnacle series you can skip to part 1.  If not the introductory video is ideal.  Below is the first clip, for those who want to skip the introduction: