The days of dodgy transactions, scammers and scalpers are over as TicketTrade aims to create a safe and fair secondary ticketing industry.
Launched in July 2018 and based in Cape Town, TicketTrade was created to address a very real issue many event-going South Africans have to deal with – conveniently buying or selling an unwanted ticket. The current options to do so are littered with scammers and touts wanting to sell at inflated margins. The founders identified this need, which led to the development of TicketTrade, an online secondary ticket marketplace where fans can go to buy and sell spare or unwanted tickets to any live sports or entertainment event – safely, easily and fairly.
It works simply: Sellers, the people who have spare or unwanted tickets, search on our website for the event they want to sell their tickets for. They then upload their PDF tickets, set the price they want to sell it for (capped at 120% of face value) and wait for the ticket/s to sell. Once the tickets sell, payment is made into the seller’s bank account within three working days. Buying a ticket is just as easy: Fans search for an event they want tickets for on our website, likely because the event is sold out or maybe because they are looking for cheaper early-bird tickets. Once they find a ticket, they add it to their cart, pay directly on the site and when payment has cleared, the tickets are downloadable immediately.
What sets TicketTrade apart from other platforms out there is that direct interaction between the buyer and seller is eliminated. This means the transaction is controlled and traceable, minimising and almost completely eliminating fraud. Buyers pay directly on the site and receive the tickets as soon as payment clears. And sellers get paid by TicketTrade as soon as a ticket sells. In addition, Facebook is used as the only way to log in, which means users are verified along with the tickets they upload. Real people with real friends, and most importantly – real tickets. Although TicketTrade encourages the selling of unwanted tickets, it does not support scalping – when someone sells tickets at massively inflated prices in order to make a profit. TicketTrade eliminates overpricing by capping resale prices at 120% of the original face value of the ticket – keeping things fair to all involved.
“We wanted to create a platform that removed the stress associated with selling or buying a second-hand ticket. Worrying whether or not the tickets you bought are legit, or having to wait for an EFT to clear before sending your tickets to some random, are just some of the hassles we wanted to remove to make it as easy and safe as possible for fans to transact.” – Jason Russell (Co-Founder / CTO)
The South African entertainment industry is growing every year. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers showed consumer spending on live music tickets in South Africa is forecast to increase by 7.2% to R1.146 billion in 2019 – with the upward trend expected to continue. Unfortunately, no secondary ticket business exists to support this growth. The largest event and ticket providers in South Africa do not allow reselling, and the only recourse available for fans is to cancel their tickets – albeit at a hefty cancellation fee. TicketTrade would like to form strategic partnerships with these companies to give fans a fair opportunity to sell their tickets.
“When we started developing TicketTrade, we were surprised to realise there are no platforms to protect consumers against the high rate of scamming in South Africa. We have a live entertainment industry that grows at an average 8% per year, one of the largest trance scenes in the world, and yet no established way for fans to sell unwanted tickets. We believe everyone should be able to recoup costs for something they no longer need, and we believe TicketTrade is the right step towards creating a healthy secondary ticketing industry in South Africa.” – Deán de Klerk (Founder/CEO)
