Wow, look at this line up of speakers!
This is surely the Retail event of 2012 and Tradevine will be there! Retail Australasia is being held at the Aotea Convention Centre on the 23rd and 24th May and we’ve taken an exhibition stand with Brightstar. What a fantastic opportunity to meet and hear from New Zealand’s leading retailers!
We’ve learned that some of the best insights into Tradevine comes from our customers, those who use it every day. So we thought it’d be a great idea to provide an easy way for you to let us know what you’d like to see.
So we’ve created a forum which allows you to submit and vote on new feature suggestions, and recommendations for the system. The more ideas we get the better, so please take a moment to check it out. Your ideas will make Tradevine better!
We are super excited about the release of our new video. It tells the story about how Tradevine helps our customers transform their businesses.
With its multiple sales channels and integrated inventory management, Tradevine is revolutionising the way retailers sell online.
Imagine what Tradevine could do for your business.
When it comes to retailing, we want our customers to be able to sell anything, any time, anywhere. And so for Craig Love, owner of Easy Gardener, Tradevine combined with Xero is a perfect fit.
Craig sells great quality log splitters, chainsaws, hedge trimmers, generators etc, on Trade Me, on-line and at A&P shows. So he needed a business solution that works literally everywhere.
Craig was at the recent Southern Field Days, in Waimumu, with his trusty iPad and 3G dongle. With real-time access to Tradevine and Xero he had access to up to date inventory, all his financials and could process new sales whilst face-to-face with the customer. He could also keep an eye on his Trade Me listings, his bank account and see what was happening back at base in Blenheim. Being out of the ‘office’ has never been this easy.
By using Tradevine, Craig, can manage his entire business – his sales, purchases, inventory, Trade Me listings,webstore, feedback and questions, and coupled with Xero his accounting. Simple and easy.
Craig’s recent testimonial says it all…
“Time is the most valued asset in my business. Working for myself I have to manage importing of goods, Trademe Listings, Trademe orders, accounts, customers, and dispatching of goods. Tradevine is my one stop shop for TOTAL management of my entire business. At a glance I can see our Total sales, profit, and orders to process. What I like is that Tradevine is fully integrated with Xero accounting, no duplication of data is ever needed, it simply creates customer invoices for you.
Tradevine’s support is the best I have come across in 12 years working online, they actually help you with any queries you may have. I am looking forward to the future with Tradevine and for what’s in store in the coming months ahead.
Really, switching to Tradevine is a no brainer – Go Tradevine!”.
To find out how Tradevine and Xero can help your retail business contact us on support@tradevine.co.nz
Tradevine and Craig in a field…
Today is the first anniversary of the devastating Christchurch earthquake that claimed the lives of 185.
February 22nd 2011 started like any other normal day for us. Our offices were in the old harbourmasters building in Lyttelton. There was nothing out of the ordinary as we worked away, coders coding, BAs BA’ing, testers testing, and bosses drinking coffee.
Then suddenly the earth shook violently. This wasn’t any ordinary aftershock, we had experienced hundreds after the September quake, but this was different, this was massive.
The building moved as it had never before, it heaved under the strain. In the split second as the shaking starts, people catch each others’ eyes, thinking will it stop or do we need to take cover. The ceiling panels started falling, take cover it is. As people dived under desks, aircon units crashed off the wall, computer monitors literally flew sideways from desks. We were right at the epicentre, but we didn’t know that yet. Power was out, alarms were ringing all around us, and the air was thick with settlling dust.
As we ran into the street we could see our building, along with what appeared to be every other building in the street was destroyed or severely damaged. Later, as we struggled over the Port Hills, we looked down on our home city, the collapsed buildings, the streets under water, carnage everywhere. We knew that things would never be the same.
In the weeks that followed the tenacity, ingenuity, resilience and generosity of the people of New Zealand, and the world shone through. First with the rescue and now with the extensive recovery.
Our office was gone, but within a week we were writing code again and offers of help poured in from our friends, customers and strangers throughout the land. Thank you New Zealand.
Despite all of the personal issues, like trashed homes, kids losing schools, not having running water, and constant aftershocks (10,000+ and counting) our staff coped magnificently and Tradevine was launched in November, one month behind schedule.
We are the lucky ones, possessions are replaceable. To all those who lost their lives, we grieve for your untimely loss. For all those who were injured, we hope for a speedy mend, and for all in Christchurch whose lives have changed irrevocably in that instant, we stand together with you, as we rebuild our city and lives, together.
Kia Kaha
Crushed car. Our building in the background.
Directly across the road from the office. (note: the road had to be cleared of rubble, by hand, to allow emergency vehicles through)
Photos courtesy of Phil Styler.
We held a prize draw from attendees of the conference, who threw their business cards into a bowl. Congratulations to Michael McCook, who won a Cruz Tablet – we hope you enjoy this fabulous prize. A special thanks to Charlotte Hinton from Xero, who drew the lucky business card.
Charlotte draws the prize winner
Tradevine, add-on partner to Xero, was an exhibiting sponsor at the Xerocon 2012, hosted at the beautiful Auckland Viaduct Events Centre. Tradevine has integrated with Xero, beautiful accounting software, to handle all the financial transactions for a complete back office solution. With 400 accountants from around New Zealand attending, Peter, Phil and Sandy were on hand to promote Tradevine.
We enjoyed listening to the speakers during the conference. There was a great keynote speech by Rod Drury where he announced WorkflowMax had been acquired, followed by some updates from the Xero Product Managers. I am sure there was not a dry eye in the audience when Dave Jessop (DJCA) , gave his talk around midday, which included a personal account of the earthquake, and the effect it had on his business. Key from the discussion is how the cloud enables business continuity. Well done to DJCA, who won Xero’s Partner of the Year award later on that evening.
All of us attended the Gala Dinner in the evening. With some drinking, a fine dinner and dancing into the night, a fun time was had by all. Well done to all the nominated practises and add-on partners, and winners on the night. We look forward to Xerocon 2013.
Our Xerocon stand
Tradevine will be at this year’s Xerocon being held in Auckland. We’ll be performing live demonstrations and offering Q&A sessions so be sure to come along and check us out.
Today we achieved a significant milestone of over $1 million in sales passing through Tradevine’s back office solution that connects to Trade Me and Xero.
The transactions involved the processing of 3700 sales orders and over 33,700 item listings on Trade Me. We are really pleased with this continuing validation of our service and it’s great progress considering we only released the Tradevine beta software a few weeks ago.
We’d like to really thank our Users for their valuable contributions and feedback to date. It’s great working with you all and we’ll continue to roll out new features and enhancements based on your requirements.
After lots of hard work, we are pleased to announce the doors are open and you can now register at http://www.tradevine.co.nz for our Beta offering.
Tradevine is completely FREE for you to use during the open beta period. The open beta period will last for a time during which we will seek feedback from our valued customers on pricing for Tradevine.
For more information on setting up and starting to use Tradevine, take a look at our detailed help information on the Setup Wizard, and the how to start using Tradevine section.
If you have any queries, please go to Help documentation in the first instance. Alternatively log an issue with our Support Desk. This is still a Beta offering so please bear with us.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to drop us a line at suggestions@tradevine.co.nz.
We had a great day with champion boxer David Tua here in Christchurch on the 26th October. David had placed his services for auction on Trade Me in order to raise money for the Breast Cancer Cure Research Trust.
David’s mother was a survivor of breast cancer and it is a cause very close to his heart. It is also a cause close to mine. On Christmas Day 2010 we lost a close friend to breast cancer and it was a very sad and difficult time for all involved and especially so for her young children. It was quite simply, heartbreaking.
When I saw the auction for David on Trade Me, I decided that here was a perfect way to make a contribution to this worthy cause and bring David to Christchurch for a day for a tour around schools in the district that had been worst affected by the earthquakes.
We went to three primary schools including Freeville School in Brighton and Aranui Primary School. David is a natural in this environment and is so great with the kids. It was fabulous so see him brighten up the room and the reactions and smiles of the children.
We purchased boxing gloves that David signed and handed out to selected children, many of whom have had to contend with very difficult circumstances in their own lives over the past few months. Case in point, I met 3 children in our travels that had recently lost a parent and we made sure these kids got a special pair of gloves. Perhaps it is only a small gift but we sure knew it made a difference for those kids on that day.
We’d like to thank the schools involved and the many parents present at the assemblies lending their support yet I personally want to thank David here for bringing laughter and happiness to so many children!
For more information on this event, click here.
Peter Montgomery
CEO Tradevine
David Tua and Peter Montgomery
David Tua with the Tradevine Team