Marketplace
RNZ article here: Trade Me drops success fee, Facebook 'snapping at its heels'
More info from TradeMe
They're also getting rid of bank transfers as a payment option.
TradeMe Dropping Success Fees for Casual Sellers
TheDealMan on 05/03/2026 - 07:38
Last edited 05/03/2026 - 07:39
Last edited 05/03/2026 - 07:39
Related Stores
Comments
adding in service fees paid by the buyer for items selling over $20
Is that only if they choose to pay by Ping?
I took it to mean all sales over $20 have a buyer service fee added regardless of payment method, although not sure how that is enforced for cash.
TradeMe will get the fee from Ping paid by the seller.Okay - thanks.
Seems like it's only on Ping.
"To keep the platform running and provide local support, we’re introducing a tiered Service Fee on casual Ping purchases (excluding shipping).
Service Fee tiers:
$0.00 - $20.00 = Free
$20.01 - $100.00 = $0.99
$100.01 - $250.00 = $1.99
$250.01 + = $4.99
"So you get double charged if you use Ping, 2.19% transaction fee plus service fees. Good for cash buyers. I guess it's hard to charge them when the payment transaction doesn't go through the Trademe system.
@felixfurtak: That makes more sense, although you don't get double charged.
The seller pays the Ping fee and the buyer pays the service fee.
It's been slow and painful to watch.
I haven't sold anything on TM in years and have only very occasionally purchased anything. I have had excellent success on Marketplace.I think a lot of people have stopped using it. Always seems to have less stuff, priced way higher than Marketplace.
Can't beat it for getting stuffed delivered though. I'm lazy and hate picking stuff up so hardly use Marketplace. I'm not sure if anyone would ever get something delivered they bought from Marketplace right?
I've had a few items delivered via. Marketplace (and also sent items).
Apart from the items for delivery, I'm more likely to buy expensive stuff on Trademe due to buyer protection via Ping. I've also purchased Mitre10 digital vouchers on Trademe a few times ($70 - $80 for $100 worth). I won't do that on Marketplace for obvious reasons.
@xsolider: I've had one expensive item delivered via. Marketplace ($2k+). Initially I was a bit worried about being scammed. So I did my due diligence (checked Marketplace history, how long they had their profile for, what they had on their profile…even a Google search of the name), and there were no red flags. Even asked them to take some photos of the item and add them to the chat (wanted to clarify some things, but was also a good test of reliability on their part). The seller seemed genuine. The seller asked me to do a few things (screenshots of transfer etc) and admitted they had checked out my profile because they didn't want to be scammed. We had a good chuckle. I figured things were as safe as they could be in my situation.
The item was delivered the following day.
Yeah but they make up for it with thousands of listings of AliExpress and drop shipped stuff that will take 3 weeks to arrive and makes it impossible to find stuff you actually want to buy.
I, personally, love filtering through 10 pages of new products from China to find one used item locally on a used goods platform.
I totally agree with you. Just a tip you can actually filter by used listings and that helps me filter out most of the dropshipping slop.
@Pandyplaz2: I do use that, but sometimes people also sell New stuff casually, such as unwanted gifts.
Also some sections you can't filter by Used, such as generators, which annoys hell out of me.
https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/business-farming-ind…
In the past I was looking for a broken, used 3-phase diesel generator and sorting lowest to highest just results in thousands of part listings.
What I learned is that you can filter that section used if you use the main search, not in the section but when people sell cheap stuff, their descriptions are always terrible so searching specific terms always misses, and TradeMe search as a whole is utter trash (it only searches titles, not descriptions, has no functions and it's strict) so "3 phase" misses "3phase" and "3-phase" and people who just list "generator" or "broken generator"
Seller has a spelling mistake? Well, buy a new one.
I filter by Most Bids so piggy back off what other people think is worth buying. Also seeing how many people Watchlist an item. Of course that means the price might be higher but I'm OK with that.
And my general rule of thumb is avoid anything that has a clean white background because casual sellers ain't got time for that.
There's going to be a lot of items being sold for $20 soon.
I’ve got an iPhone 15 pro to sell and the $80 or so I’d expect to pay on trademe is why I haven’t intended to list it there (new phone arrives today )
This will be nice. Marketplace has eaten their lunch
Hey - how do the fees get to $80? I'm not entirely sure how they work, but to me, it looked like $5 (for over $250 item) + 2.19% for ping?
On a $1000 phone (for example) isn't that $27 ?
I might misunderstand the new fees!
He's referring to the old fee structure, not the new one.
I am totally in agreement with Ping fees being 100% paid by the buyer. Along with the singed for courier that it would require. After all it's them getting the protection. And I've no issues documenting it getting packed. I already do for the most part.
Other than that though buyer fees are ridiculous. Actual auction houses double clipping the ticket is already bad enough (and why a bunch of them are no more I am sure).
NZPost has compensation cover without signature up to $250
https://www.nzpost.co.nz/personal/sending-in-nz/cover-loss-d…
Compensation Cover Limit
Economy $250
Courier (including Signature required service) $2,000
I see they are also making bank transfer against the terms and conditions. Hmm.
I bet they are only doing it to
1) make more money
2) make it more appealing to sellers , to compete with facebook marketplace .I call BS on removing bank transfer : " to make trading safer"
At least cash is still an option .I bet they are only doing it to
1) make more moneyI certainly hope so - they are a business, that's what they are supposed to do.
2) make it more appealing to sellers , to compete with facebook marketplace .
Yep - I agree, competition is a fantastic thing!
And adding in service fees paid by the buyer for items selling over $20