Question for Trademe - business versus personal selling

If you are selling your own things that you just no longer want, you are not a business.

If you buy (or make) something with the intent to derive a profit in doing so, then you are in trade, a business, and you are required to do the necessary things such as but not limited to...

  1. pay tax on your profits, and ACC levies on your income

  2. abide by the Consumer Guarantees Act

  3. potentially charge and remit GST on your sales

  4. potentially get a 2nd hand dealer's licence

In terms of #4, see this page from the Police for the specific criteria.... https://www.police.govt.nz/advice-services/businesses-and-organisations/secondhand-dealers-and-pawnbrokers/secondhand-dealers

Thank you so much, I learnt more here than on the IRD NZ website. Cheers

James has covered it well, but if you want any extra information we do have these help pages on the topic as well: https://www.trademe.co.nz/c/trust-safety/news/how-do-i-know-if-i-m-in-trade-on-trade-me-
https://help.trademe.co.nz/hc/en-us/articles/360007263511-Becoming-a-professional-seller 

Hi

I am selling on behalf of a registered charity op shop and because I am putting through a reasonable number of sales I am classed as "In Trade" which means we get charged a higher success fee. I can accept that but I want to know why the success fee is also charged on the shipping charges which have nothing to do with Trademe. Charging a success fee on  the shipping price means that on some recent sales the success fee is as high as 23.8% of the selling price. If this was a conventional 'in person' auction  this would be the equivalent of charging commission on the selling price as well as on what it cost the buyer to ship  his purchase home. It seems inequitable, especially when we are trying to raise funds for a welfare charity.

Have you registered as a Charity with Trademe? If so, you can get a 50% rebate on fees.

See this page for info.

Charities and fundraising – Help - Trade Me

 I want to know why the success fee is also charged on the shipping charges

Because before the fees applied to shipping as well people used to dodge fees by inflating the shipping and reducing the item price -  like Product $5 and Shipping $15 instead of Product $10 and Shipping $5.  So the fees were put on the whole lot to make that no longer and useful fee-dodging technique and make sellers be more honest about shipping costs.

When I was selling for the Richmond branch of SVDP we had no trouble registering, and automatically received our 50% when an item sold, so go ahead and register. When I did, they even refunded past fees for us!