Happy 21st birthday Trade-It

Trade-It is 21-years-old this week (on 25 November)! 

But while some things have changed over the past 21 years - like the goods for sale - some things have stayed the same and we’re still the best place to cash in on a clear-out.

This week 21 years ago, the first issue of Trade-It was on sale for 60p, it was 38 pages long and carried an ad for an ‘A-Team’ children’s bed set for £8. This would now be a collectors’ item! Today you can buy a bundle of Toy Story children’s bedding for £15.

In 1990, our computer ads section was dominated by secondhand Amstrads, Commodore 64s and Atari machines, today Notebooks, iPads and Thinkpads are our most popular computing items for sale.  

Twenty-one years ago a 1988 Ford Escort - a reliable little runner - was selling for £1,000, while this week an Escort made the same year was selling for spares for £375.  

There were also a few red faces when a Ford Escort was accidently advertised in our ‘escort services’ section of Trade-It.

But some things never change. You have always been able to buy unusual things in Trade-It. In 1990, you could buy a Father Christmas outfit for £30, while this week you can pick up a Santa outfit for a spaniel for £9.99.

Speaking of Christmas, if you’re in the market for one, you could buy a loved one a life-sized Elvis Presley statue - with guitar - for £450.00 this week.

So where did it all begin?

In 1990, Scott Davidson - a keyboard player with the Pet Shop Boys – created the concept for Trade-It while touring with the band in Canada. Once the first issue was published he continued to tour with the band for six months and sent money home to keep the business going while he was away.

The Davidson family quickly expanded the Trade-It so it not only covered Bristol, but the surrounding counties of Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire.

In 2006, the Friday Media Group acquired Trade-It and since then it has evolved to include one weekly paid-for title covering the South-West and a free title, named Trade-It Free. Trade-it Free is now distributed to over 450 outlets across Bristol, Bath and Weston-super-Mare every Friday.

In 2009, Trade-It moved from Emery Road to new offices at The Paintworks at Arnos Vale.

We launched the Trade-It.co.uk website in 2000 and it attracts about 128,000 unique visitors per week, who view the 15,000 ads placed each week through our effective Place an Ad tool. At any one time about 140,000 ads are live on the website.

We are currently developing a mobile version of the website and the site has a strong community of members who visit our Facebook page - which has more than 10,000 likes – follow us on Twitter and read our online guides.

Trade-It has expanded its print offering in recent years by producing a number of supplements, stand-alone publications and event programmes including: BrisFest Programme, Keynsham Music Festival Programme, Cotswold Show Programme, To Have and To Hold Wedding Guide, and many others.

Happy birthday Trade-It!  

Looking for a car locally? There's no better place to do it than Trade-It...

It's great for us to announce that we now have over 60% of all motor dealers in and around the Bristol area advertising their cars with us. We won't be stopping there, but what I wanted to explain was the benefit of this to you our users. Not only does more vehicles give us a greater selection for buyers to choose from but also drives more buyers to our motors section helping private advertisers to sell their cars quicker. So as we continue to create a greater, more rich motors section, rest assured that this is benefiting everyone looking to buy or sell a car with Trade-It. Visit our motors section and find your next car, or even take a look and get an idea of what you could get for your existing one instead... click here

Also something we don't always shout about enough here at Trade-It in these particularly challenging economic times is we still lead the way in offering advertising completely free to private advertisers. For instance if you have a property to rent, or a job vacancy to promote, no matter how big or small it's free online to advertise! Yes completely free! So whether you are looking to fill a position yourself or have friends who are looking to recruit running up to the Christmas period, rather than spending on costly advertsing why not do it for free with us? Renting a property can also be an expensive business, keep the costs down by advertising and renting a property privately on Trade-It. Place an ad today!

Don't forget to keep an eye out on Trade-It for our latest competitions, there's lots of great prizes and will be adding new competitions all the way up to Christmas so don't miss your chance to win! Click here to see the latest competitions on site.

Not another Christmas message..

So we all know the run up to Christmas is a busy time of year, if not a bit of stressful one at that. This year is no exception with Christmas decorations popping up in shops all over the place, even earlier than usual. So the last thing you want to read about is Christmas right?

Okay well yes, this is a post about Christmas, but it's an expensive time of year, so as we all start to tighten our belts, ready for the big spend, have you thought about selling some of those unwanted presents from Christmas passed? Those golf clubs collecting dust in the garage or that brand new bike the kids grew out of quicker than you could say 'Merry Christmas' or simply something you just don't use anymore. Our traffic sores in the next couple of months with people looking for that perfect gift. So we're the ideal place to make that bit of extra cash and make it that little bit less of painful period on your pocket. Our buyers are interested in just about anything, so take a second... have a think... What have you got that could be making you some money??

Start selling now, you might just be suprised how much you could make :)

Put your business in the Spotlight...

Introducing the new 'Spotlight Ad' from Trade-It....

On the right hand side of the Trade-It homepage, and following shortly on many other pages, you will now see a new product where there used to be a lot of graphical promotions.

Whilst we believe there is a place for the graphical rotating promotions, we have taken the step to reduce the number of these types of business products (we still offer graphical advertising options) so that we can provide an additional opportunity which may benefit business advertisers differently.

The Spotlight Ad is a text based alternative which gives businesses the opportunity to tell more of a story, immediately, and without delay (no rotating frames).

The new Spotlight Ad looks like this:




Spotlight ads offer the following benefits to business advertisers:

• Easy to read
• Informative
• Clear call to action always visible, giving users a reason to click and view more detail
• An image can be uploaded, either to promote the business brand (logo) or to show an example of work for immediate relevance to user
• Spotlight ads have better SEO value for the advertiser. The Title and description link to their website – this is known as anchor text and is stored as valuable information against that advertisers site. It helps to build an understanding of the sites purpose with Google
• They look like real classified ads not peripheral advertising – Because they look like natural ads that appear on our site, users are more likely to interact with them, which will in turn generate more traffic to your business website.

Spotlights are already proven to provide more than TWICE THE RESPONSE to the previous graphical promotions that appeared in these positions.

If you own a business and would like to promote your services using the new Spotlight Ad product then give the Trade-It team a call on 01179 72 73 74 to find out more and see how Trade-It can help your business to grow.

Had a weird dream? Ready for a Tweet and Tell session?

Saw this article on Bristol24-7 earlier today and thought it was quite interesting - Bristol academic wants you to tweet her your dreams

Dr Jennie Parker, an expert from the University of the West of England (UWE) is conducting an experiment on dreams and providing interpretations to those selected this Friday.

If you've had a weird dream recently, fallen from a building but woken up before you hit the floor, found yourself in a public situation starkers etc, then this could be your perfect opportunity to have an expert give you some meaning - If you dare!

To get involved simply tweet a description of your dream in less than 140 characters to @dreamshrink

Right then, to finish off this post I make no apologies for the following shameless self promotion...

If you're having odd dreams or not getting the best nights sleep then perhaps you need a new bed? If so, then look no further than the bedrooms section on Trade-It.

Told you it was shameless! ;)

Apple iPhone 4G - Myth or Prototype!?

As far as we're lead to believe, the much discussed Apple iPhone 4G does not exist, yet this doesn't stop Gizmodo claiming to have got their hands on a misplaced prototype!

The whistleblowers claim the 4G iPhone was lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged as a standard Apple iPhone 3GS.

Now I'm not convinced but the video below is quite compelling and makes a claim for this being genuine. If so, then it's quite exciting news for any current iPhone owners or anybody who fancies getting an early look at what the future holds for the leading mobile phone device. HTC, Nokia, Sony and Google themselves might also be quite interested! ;)



The full story can be found here: http://gizmodo.com/5520164/this-is-apples-next-iphone


Until Apple confirm whether there's any truth in this or indeed actually launch the much talked about iPhone 4G, the best you're gonna get is the 3GS model.

check out the Apple iPhone 3G and 3GS phones currently available on Trade-It.

Everybody loves a car boot sale!...

...Or so it would seem if the traffic coming to Trade-It is anything to go by!

One of our popular visiting terms from Google to Trade-It is for 'Car boot sales in Bristol'. We quite like this fact as like a car boot sale, on Trade-It you can find thousands of bargains and sometimes, if your the early bird, you can uncover some real gems.

We have a number of Car Boot Sales already advertising on Trade-It, so check them out and find those local to you.

Regular Car Boot events such as the Wooten Monster Indoor Boot Fair and up and coming events such as the Goosewell School Car Boot Sale are great events to visit or be part of. If you've got lots of items you'd like to sell then why not try them as well as advertising for free on Trade-It.co.uk.

Planning a car boot sale? Then make sure everybody knows where to find you by advertising your car boot sale or local boot fair event for free on Trade-It. Place Your Ad Free Today!

Happy selling! :)