With Gumtree’s exit from New Zealand’s free buy and sell marketplace, Post a Note has quickly gained in popularity.

“It was truly a godsend Gumtree leaving New Zealand. The timing was just incredible, and our growth has been staggering since it closed its doors. I guess it pays to be lucky sometimes,” said Post a Note’s GM, Nathan Weathington.

Weathington would not give any specifics about Post a Note’s growth and cited many examples of start ups which had to spend time and money defending such statements. He said the easiest way to see its growth is in the number of items posted on the site each day, which range from a $65,000 church and a $149,000 tractor down to $1 baby clothes.

“We think the reason it helped us so much is because people coming from Gumtree were already comfortable using free classified websites. So when they learned we were New Zealand based, it was a pretty easy transition,” Weathington pointed out.

Although Post a Note permits buying and selling for free, just like Gumtree, there are some differences with the site and business model.

“Our biggest advantage is that we only operate in New Zealand. Gumtree operates all over the world; New Zealand was just a data point to it. Our site has been designed by our users,  which is customised for Kiwis. Not many websites in the world allow you to buy and sell goods from a place like Tarras, which is a small town in Otago with only a few hundred residents,” explained Weathington.

On an anecdotal level, Weathington describes a women trying to trade her husband for a washing machine after a few drinks. “As for the name, we  asked hundreds, if not thousands of people, how they sell second-hand goods in New Zealand, and 90 per cent of the people said they simply ‘post a note’ on local community boards. And the name really stuck,” concluded Weathington.