Bidding to be best

PHIL DOYLE/Sunday Star-Times

TOP TRADER: Kevin Swendson says successful trading requires an understanding of logistics and an eye for what will sell.

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TradeMe's new top trader is aiming at nothing short of being the equivalent of The Warehouse online.

Kevin Swendson, aka barginsdirect, now has 27,836 feedbacks, topping friend and former top trader Owen Ellis (aka alfle) who now trails on 26,855 and who cheerfully admits it is unlikely he will ever claw back the top spot.

Swendson, who says a good week can see him and his team of seven workers ship out 1500 items ranging from wheelchairs to toys to musical instruments to bra padding set himself up as a trader just two years ago, more recently than any of the top traders tracked down by the Sunday Star-Times.

Swendson knows a bit about the Red Sheds, having operated as a wholesale importer for the giant retailer. He decided to go it alone after reading the first edition of Michael Carney's TradeMe Success Secrets, the second edition of which launches this week.

He fondly recalls the days when Stephen Tindall was hands-on at The Warehouse, but he says the atmosphere changed when teams of buyers were brought in.

"For me, he [Tindall] is one of the greatest guys.

"I understand that the business had to move on, but it just didn't become as much fun.

"I got tired of being on my best behaviour all the time, and especially when the buyers were having a bad day," says the avuncular Swendson. "And when something's not fun any more, I don't want to do it."

He also admits to having been a bit burnt out as, at his peak, he was doing 26 buying trips to China in a year.

But the 12 years he spent doing that Swendson is still in his 30s provided the springboard to his TradeMe venture.

It takes years to build up the contacts, he says, along with the eye for what will sell and the skills to be able to combine purchases in shippable loads.

Swendson operates a warehouse in China and still has a wholesale business supplying retailers, although his TradeMe venture is now more profitable.

While he's big-time now, and has a team of three employed solely to look after customers, he has bigger plans.

By next Christmas he expects to be completing around 4000 auctions a week and will have his own online retail portal up and running.

He's building a 6500sqm warehouse in Pakuranga on the outskirts of Auckland, where he currently has his base, to cope with the growth.

"We want to be The Warehouse online," he says, although he has a way to go to lift the 120 shipping containers he now brings in each year to the 9000 or so he says the Red Sheds bring in.

"There's no limit to what we can do."

Swendson attributes a good deal of his success to the former top trader Ellis, who has just launched Snipesoft, a software and consultancy business aimed at helping others become top traders.

Swendson was the first customer.

- © Fairfax NZ News