Hi everyone! GameTrader.SG has been operational for a period of time now and we would just like to share some tips with all members (and visitors) with regarding how to effectively use GameTrader.SG. So we summed up all the tips we have for buyers, sellers and traders. Check out the tips below:)

1. Seller
i) Entering title:

We have been observing the titles that our members gave to their posts. Here are what we can share with you. Some members posted very long title and descriptive for their games, consoles or accessories. Long titles like “For Sale – Dead Rising 2 CHEAP and no scratches” make it difficult for buyers to search for your games. The title should be kept short and simple. It is unlikely that buyers who want to buy Dead rising 2 will type such a long search. Instead, put all these information in the description of the post.

In case some of you aren’t aware of this, GameTrader.SG will send out notification based on the members WTB (want to buy) should your post is relevant to them. So unless there is really really someone who want to buy “For Sale – Dead Rising 2 CHEAP and no scratches” and type this exact same title for their WTB, chances are your “For Sale – Dead Rising 2 CHEAP and no scratches” will not be matched to their WTB.

If you really really want to enter a few more words of description in the title, using brackets will be recommended as words in bracket will be disregarded by GameTrader.SG when doing matching.

ii) Providing good ways for buyers to contact

So a buyer looks up your post and is interested to buy your game but alas no contact number! Buyers usually prefer quick dealing via SMS so providing a number is a good way for quick deals. We understand that some of you may be  comprehensive about entering your personal contact number into GameTrader.SG, so we did not make it a ‘must’. You are also welcomed to put your contact number in the description. If you decided to show your contact number in  all your posts, you do not have to edit each of them individually. You can make use of the default setting overwrite feature at the ‘Post Settings’ page to overwrite all posts with your default settings. See v) below for more information.

Also, in the past, the contact numbers are display blatantly on the game post. But now, we tried to sort of ‘encode’ it a little so that at  least people can’t google up your contact number easily and crazy bots that rip handphone number off websites cannot easily detect your contact number.

In some cases, emails are not check frequently and the buyer fail to get to the seller. The next natural thing to do is either to PM them here on GameTrader.SG or post a question on the game post page. If you leave the profile default setting, you should have no problem receiving an email notification of the questions that a buyer has posted on your post, however, some email filter may place our system email as Junk. To ensure that this does not happen, put admin@gametrader.sg under your safe list as this will be the email used by the system to send out emails. Also if you disable ‘Receive email updates’ under ‘Edit Profile’, you will not receive such notification.

For PM (private messages), no email notification will be send out to you. So do log in regularly to GameTrader.SG to check for PM. Any new PM will be shown in the top bar.

iii) Updating item status

We really appreciate all sellers effort in updating the status of their posts whether it is ‘on hold’, ‘Sold’ or available. Sometime, buyers looked up a post that has already been sold and starts to email, SMS, PM, post questions to the sellers only to get a negative reply (or no reply). This will definitely frustrate the buyer and also the seller sometimes since you start to get SMS, email for items you already sold. By updating your posts as sold, your contact number or email will no longer be shown and will be hidden to protect your privacy. Well there is really no need to delete the post but you can still do it if you want to do some housekeeping for your profile page.

iv) Updating your post

At any point of time, you can easily edit your posts by either going to your profile page or the specific post page. You should revised your price periodically. In case you missed our previous blog post, check out the Seller Tips post here

v) Default post settings

Are you tired of re-filling the entire form again at the start of each new post? You can actually set the default setting for their post. Simply go to ‘Post settings’ found at the top bar and default value for attributes such as ‘negotiable’ price, ‘tradable’, ‘contact method’, ‘meet-up area’ and ‘description’ can be set at that page. Furthermore, you can overwrite the contact method, preferred meet-up area and description of ALL your posts at this page. So should you decide to show your contact number at all your posts, you do not have to edit each posts individually. Simple overwrite the old settings with the default setting under ‘Profile Settings’.

vi) Placing images

You have two options in choosing an image for your post. Either you can choose to upload your own photo or simply select an image from GameTrader.SG’s auto online image search. Posts without images will not be place under the ‘latest post’  section of the main page. Adding an image will increase the chance of your sale, especially if the image is an actual photo of the item you are posting.

2. Buyer

i) Searching for the game of your choice

To search for games, simply enter the game title into the search box.

Refrain from entering long descriptive search. For example, try not to search for “Brand new Dead Rising 2 with manual”. Instead simply enter “Dead Rising 2”. This will allow more matches for your search. Also, should your search fail to return any results, try using keywords instead. For example, instead of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2”, you can try entering “Warfare 2”. Another example is instead of entering “Enslaved: Odyssey to the West “, enter “Enslaved”. Also, some sellers may post the game using the acronym (though not encouraged). If you can find “Pro-evolution soccer 2011”, try “PES 2011” or “PES2011”. If all else fail, you can try browsing by title. Some search may fail due to spelling errors.

To search for consoles and accessories, be sure to select “Console/ Accessories” under the filter of ‘Genre’

Various filters are available to you so you can search for games that are within your budget, tradable, with negotiable price etc. Also, you can specify the preferred meet-up area in the search. So if you prefer to meet in the east, you can use that option to show only posts where sellers prefer to meet in the east. Note that items that are sold or on hold will also be displayed right at the back. However, you can opt to show only games that are available by selecting ‘Show available items only’.

You can also sort the posts using the sort bar found at the top of the display section.

Useful sort options include sorting by price and condition (whether pre-owned or brand new).

ii) Posting Want To Buy (WTB)

At times, you may not be able to find the games that you want as there are no sellers who had posted this item. To monitor future post, you can insert a WTB. To do so, go to ‘My Profile’ > ‘My WTB’ and then click on ‘Post new WTB’. When posting WTB, please refrain again from entering descriptive title. Description should go under the ‘Preference’ field. This is to allow better matching of posts so that you will receive a notification should a relevant posts is created. For example, “Dead Rising 2 no scratch R2” will unlikely to return match with posts compared to just “Dead Rising 2”.

3. Traders

i) Filter game that are ‘tradable’

If you wish to do one-to-one trading, you can start by searching GameTrader.SG for games where the seller expressed interest in trading. Under the filter box, you should see an option whether to display posts that are tradable or not. Next, you can then look through the list for games that you are interested and contact the posters. You can also try accessing the WTB list of the poster to see whether he or she has any game that they want and you have it. This bring us to the second point on WTB.

ii) WTB for traders

At times, we observed how members go onto the post page of others and post question asking them whether they are interested in trading with their games. And most of the time, the seller is not interested. To solve this problem, the WTB is created so that each of the members will have a list of what they want to buy. Note that WTB list is fully viewable by other members. So start creating WTB so that others will know what you want to buy or trade.

iii) Post the games you want to trade away

We recommend that traders post the games they want to sell on GameTrader.SG. Instead of having to PM or post questions to ask whether the seller is willing to trade with your list of games, simply ask him to view your list of game posts. He should be able to view your game posts simply by clicking on your nick. This helps you save time from entering the whole list of games that you want to trade away again and again.

Conclusion

GameTrader.SG platform aims to link up gamers together to buy/sell and trade game. This has always been the our main objectives. However, our system is not perfect and may have some short-coming. However, we are constantly working on the system hoping to better fulfil this objective that we upheld. Feel free to give us any feedbacks! If we can do it, we WILL do it. At times we maybe editing your posts and deleting some posts. We hope you are not offended by it as our sole reason for editing your posts is to better optimize your posts for the system so that buyers can find you game more quickly and easily. To be honest, GameTrader.SG is not earning anything as of this writing, we truly hope that our users will understand that we are operating with a very tight budget (i.e. money from our own pocket) so some limitations are inevitable. Do recommend your friends to place advertisement on our site so that we can keep this site alive. We truly hope that this site has bring about convenience to all fellow gamers.

And thanks for ‘Liking’ our facebook pages as well as supporting GameTrader.SG!:)