Newspaper publisher Fairfax has made a bold move in purchasing New Zealand most visited website, Trade Me. This is a coup for Fairfax and helps put to rest the jokes about their missing out of a piece of Seek back when it was available years ago.
Trade Me is a very successful business and kudos to Fairfax for negotiating the deal. While the announcement says it will operate as a stand along business, I would expect to see integration with the broader Fairfax offering.
The Fairfax announcement provides no indication as to whether Trade Me will open in Australia nor whether the investment has any relevance to Australian newsagents. The latter is important to me because Fairfax demands a lot from its newsagent channel in support of challenged product (newspapers). Newsagents could reasonably ask if they fit with such an acquisition. The reality is probably not and that’s okay – newsagents need pursue their own future in response to the disruption to their core products of newspapers and magazines.