NZAP Reverse Auction
Old Stuff and Good Stuff (and some junk) We Want Gone

. . . we haven't sold. We have some items that were discontinued by the manufacturer and others that we overstocked either by mistake or because we misread demand for an item. Other items have encountered some distress in shipping and others have been returned by customers in less than new unopened condition. We have used items we have taken in trade, and we have items that have been used in our shop as demonstrators. All of these items are in good serviceable condition but because the packaging may be a bit grubby or sun faded, or a minor part may be missing or some superficial cosmetic flaw exists, we don't want to sell them for full price.

The problem is, how do we get rid off all this stuff without resorting to an ordinary boring sale, and we think we have hit upon a novel and fun solution; one that will clear out all this junk . . . . Oops, I mean good stuff . . . and provide some genuine bargains for our customers. We call it a "Reverse Auction" and here is how it works:

Several times a week, as workload permits, we will list an item on this page at a slight reduction from the original price, then if the item has not sold within a certain period of time, the price will drop by a certain percentage and the new discounted price will be posted. Say for example, we post a new but slightly soiled quiver that originally sold for $119.95 at a starting price of $100.00 with a periodic discount of 20% every five days. If the quiver didn't find a buyer after the first five days, the price would drop to $80 and then five days later to $60.00 and so on until after twenty days it reached $20.00. Now here is the fun part: when the item reaches the last discount increment ($20.00 in this example) the price box will flash "FREE" and the first person to click on the item gets it, not-quite free as you still pay our normal $9.50 postage charge plus a nominal $5.00 handling charge.

As far as we know, the NZAP Reverse Auction is unique. We didn't borrow it from some other web site but thought it up right here at NZAP all by our overworked and underpaid selves. Thus it is entirely experimental and everything about it is subject to change without notice. We are going to give it a go and see how it works so there are going to have to be some changes as we go along. If you have any comments or suggestions that you think might be helpful, we would love to hear them. From New Zealand, you can ring us on the freephone or call collect from Australia; or you can send us an email. In the meantime, here are a few ground rules.

Reverse Auction Rules

• One item will be posted several times a week, except when we run out of items (unlikely) or when we are overworked (very likely).
• The discount increment will never be less than 10% or more than 25%.
• The discount increment will not be announced so you will have to do some maths if you want to know how much the price will drop at the end of each discount period.
• The discount period will be from one day to one month and this won't be announced either. If you want to know how long you have to wait for the next price drop, you will have to pay attention.
• When the last discount increment is reached, the item will be not-quite "FREE" to the first person to click the buy button.
• We say "not-quite free" because there will be our standard $7.50 postage charge (unless your total order is more than $250.00 and qualifies for free shipping, of course) and there will be a additional $5.00 charge to cover handling and GST where applicable.
• Most items are one-of-a-kind, but there will be instances where a listing will have more than one item. In this case, the discount will continue until all items are sold or given away.
• All items listed will be available to all our customers in Australia and New Zealand. The standard discount of 20% will be applied to items being sent to Australia.
• Because there can be a delay of up to 24 hours in removing an item that has been purchased, duplicate purchases of a single item are inevitable. When this happens, the first purchaser will receive notification of success and the rest will receive a conciliatory email.
• All items are sold as is, except that we guarantee that any defects in an item will be fully described and the item will not be misrepresented in any way.
• The NZAP reverse auction works on-line only. We won't be able to accept telephone or in-shop purchases of these items.*
• Your return email must be filled in correctly on the order form. If it is not correct for any reason, the sale won't go through.(NZAP keeps your email address and all other personal information strictly confidential and only uses it to contact you.)
• Successful purchases will be treated like any other on-line purchase and can be combined with larger orders.
• Our $250.00 limit of free shipping also applies to Reverse Auction purchase.

* We aren't being arbitrary here. This entire process is automated by Javascript functions, and once an item is placed on the Reverse Auction page we can't intervene until it is sold. All this cyber-magic was developed for us by our friends at Web Tonic by the way.