PLUS: Some brickbats, bouquets and free advice for the budding Trade Me rival. UPDATE: Frustrated Wheedle boss promises "We'll be back by 11am", reveals traffic stats. Rivals raise Indian outsourcing issue.
UPDATE: Wheedle general manager Carl Rees told NBR ONLINE the auction site, down since breakfast, would be "back up by 11am" [and it was].
The Trade Me rival has been offline on day two of its full frontal assault on Trade Me, backed by Rich Lister Neil Graham (estimated worth: $65 million), a TV campaign and a $10 million-plus budget.
LATEST: Wheedle lets you see - and change - the reserve price on someone else's auction
"This is a frustration time for us all at Wheedle, as we have experienced a massive member uptake and the interest in our site is growing," Mr Rees said.
He told NBR that according to Google Analytics, "From launch October 1 to this morning we have had 79,800 individual hits to the site and over 1 million page views."
"We are only human and we have made some mistakes.
"Nevertheless, we are committed to Wheedle."
The GM said problems had not been caused by Wheedle's server infrastructure (40 servers hosted by IBM), which were "robust and fast."
But "We have identified some back-end coding problems, these were slowing down the functionality of the site and our tech people we have been busy overnight rectifying the problems."
NBR readers have complained about intermittent access to the site, plus problems accessing their accounts. Wheedle's Facebook page is also crowded with complaints.
Mr Rees many hours of pre-launch testing in controlled live and virtual environments was carried out. "However the only real test happens when your product goes live to the market."
Rivals, and some on social media, have pointed out to NBR that Wheedle appears to have offshored some of its software development (see this job advertisement on an Indian website). Mr Rees did not immediately respond on that point.
If Wheedle's issues are related to Indian outsourcing, they echo those suffered by 2degrees with its website when it launched in 2009.
Trade Me shares [NZX:TME] rose 4c or 1% to $4.04 yesterday.
ckeall@nbr.co.nz
NBR readers offer Wheedle some free advice
8.30am Trade Me rival Wheedle started day two like day one: offline.
Social media complaints began around 8am, with the site displaying a Down For Maintenance message. At 10am, it was still down.
Yesterday, general manager Carl Rees told NBR that Wheedle was taken down briefly for "fine tuning and fix a few small areas."
He did not respond to a follow up query about traffic numbers.
NBR reader reaction was mixed. Some didn't rate its chances; some welcomed the competition; some gave it go but said they had problems logging in or using ther accounts. A couple complained there was apparently no filter on usernames, with "NZPolice" and "F**K" (NBR's asterisks) being registered.
Others had some free advice.
A number, including Institute of IT Professionals NZ head Paul Matthews, and guest columnist Dylan Bland, suggested a connect-with-Facebook option (already used some sites) for instant authority and user-friendliness.
Mr Matthews also suggested a function for importing a person's Trade Me reputation.
But while such an option could help jump-start any new auction site, it would also "put you in court really quickly," according to another commentator, Lance Wiggs (an advisor to Trade Me during its sale to Fairfax).
A number of commenters also suggested free shipping as a point-of-difference with Trade Me - more so given Wheedle backer Neil Graham made his fortune as cofounder of Mainfreight.
On Sunday, Mr Graham told NBR Wheedle was "over-geared with quality servers. We can take a huge amount of hits at once" and had recruited top tech staff.
A second Trade Me rival, Christchurch listeselltrade (which has now delayed its launch to October 4) told NBR its site was superior because all of its development work had been carried out in New Zealand.
Trade Me shares [NZX:TME] rose 4c or 1% to $4.04 yesterday.
ckeall@nbr.co.nz
