Millie Silvester: Trade Me spokesperson on the growing popularity of gold and silver listings

Trade Me’s seeing a rush on gold and silver listings.

Searches for both metals have surged on the site - and are now the second and third fastest-rising terms over the past week.

Gold and silver hit record highs late last month, before dipping and then rallying again.

Trade Me spokesperson Millie Silvester says the spike could be driven by buyers looking to melt the metals down.

"Or maybe they're hoping that actually, this is the start of a boom and they're going to sit on it and hold onto it and maybe accumulate it over time as a bit of an investment." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Looks like gold and silver are the hot new commodities
on trade me. The site has started to receive significantly
more soldiers searches for gold and silver since mid January,
which of course is when both of those elements were
in the news for reaching record high prices. Trade me
spokesperson Millie Sylvester is with us now Home Milly Curder.
So what is it people are searching for? Are they
searching for like chunks of gold and silver or is

(00:39):
it jewelry?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
It's right across the board. I mean, gold and silver
were the second and third fastest rising search terms in
the past week, but then in the top ten we
also saw silver bar and silver billion. So I guess
it's everything whereverbody ever has gold and silver in it.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
What do we think people are doing with it? Like
if I was to dig out my old gold ring
or whatever that I didn't want to seal it on
trade ma A, They're going to melt it down, are they? Perhaps?

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Or maybe they're hoping that actually this is the start
of a boom and they're going to set on it
and hold on to it and maybe you know, accumulated
over time as a bit of an investment. Your guess
is as good as mine.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I mean, they must be thinking that they're going to
sell that that they're buying. Presumably the idea is that
you're buying it at a very heavy discount on trade me.
If you if you're going to sit on it for
a while, right.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, you would think so. I think it's just it's astounding.
You know, we've seen searches for silver were up two
hundred and sixty four percent year on year, like it
is a huge increase that we are seeing more so
actually for silver than we are for gold. Gold was
up about twenty percent year on year, but still really noticeable,
you know, trend in searches. And then what we are

(01:48):
also seeing is in categories like antiques and collectibles and
unsurprisingly jewelry and watches. You know that the spike in
activity there has been incredible, and it's really been in
the past kind of fourteen days.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
It's kind of weird. Now, how do you guarantee if
you are thinking you a start holding based on your
trade me purchases, how do you guarantee that you're buying
what they say they are selling you.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Absolutely, It's really important to ask a whole lot of questions.
Ask for more photos, you know, look for those hallmarks
or any stamps that prove the metal with purity. You know,
you want to make sure you are buying, you know,
something that is authentic. You can pay via ping on
trade me, which means you're covered by buyer protection. So
I would encourage that if you're looking to buy any

(02:33):
precious metals on site, and that means you know, you
can be confident in your purchase.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, brilliant, Mollie, thank you for talking us through. I
appreciate a Milie sylvesta Trade Me spokesperson.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
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