About Zillion

Zillion is an online auction site 100% owned and run by New Zealanders, for New Zealanders. We have a strong focus on innovation and combining world-class features with friendly down-to-earth customer service.

Our goal is to provide New Zealanders with a strong alternative to Trade Me, and to make buying and selling faster, easier and more fun for everyone.

Unlike Trade Me and most of New Zealand's biggest web sites, Zillion is a small privately owned company that's 100% owned and run by New Zealanders.

The people who run Zillion also own Zillion - this means that our decisions are guided by what's best for our members, not what's going to return the biggest profit.

As founders, we started Zillion because we believed we could make an auction site that was faster, easier and more friendly to use than Trade Me. This remains our focus today.

As a seller, you'll enjoy significantly lower fees, no "sell through rate" requirement, use of our automated shipping and payment process and much more!

As a buyer, the first thing you'll notice is that all our auctions are "no reserve" meaning everything on Zillion is for sale at the price you see - no more guessing what the seller really wants for their stuff. You'll also find great stuff for sale that isn't available anywhere else, and thanks to our automated payment and shipping process, you can arrange delivery without sending a single email.

Basic economic theory suggests that companies with a monopoly will charge the highest prices they possibly can. On the other hand, competition results in lower prices, better features and improved customer service - all good things for consumers.

We believe that it's important for New Zealanders to have a strong, viable alternative to Trade Me to keep prices and service in check.

The team is made up of Simon Barton, Dylan Bland, Shane Langley, Ruth Higgison and a bunch of (mostly unpaid) friends, family and supporters (thanks Mum and Dad!).

In addition to Zillion, we also run happysheep, Mighty Ape, Gameplanet and nzflatmates and between us we've won seven NetGuide Awards.

Zillion launched in July 2005 with the goal of combining world-class features with friendly down-to-earth customer service to create a strong alternative to Trade Me.

In 2006 we won the award for "Best New Site" at the 2006 NetGuide Web Awards.

In 2007 we hit 50,000 members and aim to end 2008 with 100,000 members.
Not a member? Join now - it's free!

Zillion is run from a small open plan office in Freemans Bay, Auckland and our servers are located in a data centre in Albany.

Zillion runs on LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. The site is powered by two database servers (dual CPU, Dual Core Xeon processors) a dedicated search server (single dual core Xeon) and three web servers (Pentium 4s).

Over 150,000 people visit Zillion every month (source: Google Analytics).

Keeping Zillion privately owned with low overheads has helped us to keep our fees low too. However to keep a roof over our head and the servers humming we make money by:

• Charging a small success fee on items that you successfully sell (no sale, no fee)
• Providing you with optional "listing upgrades" to help your listings stand out
• Displaying relevant, non-intrusive advertising on the side of most pages

Zillion will never share your personal information with any third party unless required to do so by law. Your details are safe with us, read our privacy policy for more information. We hate spam as much as you do.

If you love Zillion, the two best things that you can to help us is to run an auction and tell your friends. The more people that join Zillion, the better it works for everyone!

Whether you love Zillion or you think we could do better we'd love to hear from you.