Ping, AfterPay and Cash now only options from November

Michelle, our voices are clearly not of any importance to you whatsoever, although the 2.1% Ping surcharge is very important. Better get some more sellers out of China to clog up the categories with plastic drink bottles & novelty key chains. Perhaps you can offer them free shipping.

Why is PING only being forced on one group of TM sellers? Is it even legal to discriminate between groups on how they prefer to accept payment for goods? Smacks of cartel type behaviour as TM is the single player in this online market in NZ! Sellers are being forced to accept payment options they may be unable to or unwilling to implement.

While I appreciate that TM management has weighed in on this, I still am left with distaste. I have sold on this platform for over 10 years. Never once has there been any issue with having to bring TM into any of my trades. As a responsible business owner, my transactions, over 2500 and counting, always go perfectly. So now, I am being punished for the other ones that may go awry. Yes, Ping and Afterpay offer Buyer Protection, and they should be offered by the Sellers, as an OPTION. As a buyer myself, I make informed decisions based on Reviews and Feedback, not some paranoia about things going wrong. You may as well no longer have Feedback for In-Trade as well then. Further to this, if there is likely to be any unscrupulous sellers out there, is it not WAY more likely they are not In-Trade? Casual sellers receive impunity from this Mandate? Puzzling to say the least. And, call me paranoid, but I feel, once the anchors are in place, the Ping fee will rise over time. If it is still 2.19% this time next year I would be surprised. Again TradeMe, you are creating a lot of negative feelings amongst your trusted Sellers here. This latest debacle has at least given me the fire to create my own Website. I will be selling less and less on TradeMe should this unwelcome and frankly thinly-veiled "for safety", just a fringe benefit TM will receive more income from this, maneuver become a reality. Educate your Buyers that they have the option of Ping and Afterpay. Do not make this an obligation for us. Maybe time to vibe code some more Marketplace options out there eh fellow TradeMe sellers? TradeMe is clearly going downhill and they do not seem to appreciate all we In-Trade sellers give them.

'Your voices are important to us and as always we listen to and take on your constructive feedback. However, our commitment remains to ensure Trade Me is the safest, most trusted, and most successful platform for you to sell on.'

What a complete crock. If our voices were important we would have been asked before this decision was made so that we could have our say.

So basically saying that 'In Trade' members are the least trusted and some how by us getting paid via Ping is successful for us? This is a joke. We loose out the most..

There are a lot of general traders out there with really bad feedback and are allowed to still trade yet TM seems to think this is OK. Where is the safety, security and success there? They rip people off and get away with it. 

And again I will bring up the numerous traders that should be in trade. They sell huge amounts more than some of us and pay less fees. Maybe you should be looking at sorting them out to increase your revenue. 

Can see a lot of us leaving TM given we feel like the ones being discriminated

Banks recently made changes so that account names and numbers can be checked in an effort to increase safety. Bank transactions leave a trail which also contributes to safety. Banks transfers are now pretty fast, certainly faster than Ping payments and bank transfers don't get chipped away in the process. Banks are also in a much stronger position to provide updated and reliable tech for their customer base,and while that updating may be an ongoing process, you don't see Under Construction signs on their sites on what appears to be a permanent basis. They are also less likely to apply surprise new fees, experimental or not, or increased commission rates, to their accountholders transactions without notice.

Maybe the banks respect their account holders more than TM does. 

In TradeMe's own words: (my highlights)

"We provide an online venue to introduce Members in various ways, and to allow Members to advertise all sorts of items, vehicles, properties, jobs and services.

In providing the Trade Me venue, we don't participate in the actual sale of Items or the transaction itself. We don't own any Items listed on our Site and don't offer them for sale, nor do we act as an agent for either party. We also don't take part in the actual provision of Member Services.

Please everyone…lodge a complaint with the Commerce Commission. It’s easy and quick. Google “Commerce Commission Complaint” and you’ll find an online firm to fill out. The more people that complain, the more likely they are to investigate.

Trade Me is no longer the friendly helpful site that it used to be when I joined up - the current owners are just plain hungry for profits forgetting that this business was built on providing a service that allows sellers to sell direct to buyers at a reasonable cost. The claim that "Ping" is safer than direct credits to a bank account is not borne out when Trade Me happily allows some Traders to continue Trading while abusing their purchasers with poor service and lack of a response to enquiries about delivery of their purchases !! Also the continuing charge of Ping fees on shipping/postage costs is and has always been a total ripoff. Ping has obviously become such a great profit taker that compulsion is now the plan - what about the drop off of existing sellers/buyers as occurred in the recent past when the constant updates to systems began !!

callum

re your reply to my comment saying If a buyer pays with Ping and lodges a dispute, they still have to send the item back to you (tracked) so you can assess the item before making your decision on refund/repair/replace.,i think you will find that in that situation if the item is found to be not faulty then nothing will change,i for one would not pay for return shipping until after i received the item and i doubt that trademe would have no legal authority to refund more than the original ping payment if the item is found to be not faulty,and that would still leave the seller out of pocket for the original shipping cost,i think the reality is that trademe dont really care too much about fraud or do so only when it suits them,a little while back i sold a item which was pickup only and the buyer lived in invercargill(im in auckland) they asked me after using buy now to ship the item as they were happy to pay the cost,,i was happy to do so as it was the weight of the item that made it pickup and not the cost,packed up and quoted from nzpost at $50,iinformed the buyer of the cost and informed him i had a friend driving up from invercargill to auckland in about 6 weeks and then back down to invercargill 2 to 3 weeks later and he would be happy to drop it off to save the buyer money,he gratefully accepted,paid the money for the item into my bank account and passed on my mates number so he could liase with him to sort as it was easier than doing through me due to me having multiple trades running,all should have been good,id gone out of my way to help him out and saved him some money and both buyer and seller should have been happy,but no,3 to 4 weeks later i woke to find 3 early emails from him,saying its taking too long,abusing me,accusing me of ripping him off,telling me i havent supplied him with a shipping quote and a dispute email that had been lodged with trademe saying that i had failed to supply the items,all within a 10 minute timeframe at 6:30 without even waiting for a reply from me,as you know you cant reply to a trademe dispute application email,so i replied to the buyer saying i didnt appreciate the way he talked to me after i tried to help him out,he already knew previously both my mates timeframe for his trip and the cost to send these items by post and as he already knew these before we agreed on my mate delivering the item i didnt appreciate him lodging a dispute with trademe over this item,a week later i got a email from trademe saying they had refunded the buyer the $40 he paid for the item (non ping payment),i replied to them telling them that the dispute the buyer lodged with them was fraudulent as he knew exactly what was happening with this trade and delivery of item,told them what was said above and that i replied to the buyer re this matter once getting the dispute email and i can back up everything i said with email screenshots and the reply i got from them was not important,buyer has been refunded,case closed,so they didnt care that the buyer had lied to them to get a refund from them,but if it had of been the other way round they would have penalised me the seller,so yeah,they dont always go by the due process of the dispute setup and with not being able to reply to a dispute lodgement email is poor customer service,in fact i find their overall customer service pretty poor when it comes to contactability and as intrade traders we pay lots more in extra fees and get nothing in return for it,theyve removed the itrade contact number,their chatbot is useless and in my experience of dealing with it seems unable to answer the most basic of questions,we get non of the perks that casual sellers get like the no fees specials,all in all its a pretty poor way for a company to look after the sellers that are the backbone of its profits

As a Casual sellers, we have also been hit with automatically having payments made using the FINTECH option of PING with recent listings so it's not just InTrade users.

There's serious problems with Automated systems when they lack Human Intervention.
Have a read of the DUA 2025 Act UK relating to Data User Access.
Wouldn't trust any FINTECH intermediary as there's a vast range of non compliance with them.
They merely gaining access to our private sensitive information, no doubt with Reseller options so are putting us all at risk.
Just because "Deregulation" came into play in the 1980's it definitely didn't mean application of Legislation doesn't apply.

Frankly as a Causal user we have found this website more and more frustrating to use, it used to be "streamlined" so saying it's to make it more streamlined is utter poppycock.
Any "Merchant" of old will tell you that those of today are clueless about Customer services or how to conduct Trade with Trust and Safety and obviously Good Faith.

People also need to be awake to "Open Banking" with using PING... What are the implications there?

Note also Judicial cases internationally using related keywords to FINTECHS.
They don't have access to undertake Due Diligence, they are merely using an algorithm that comes up with Match, Partial Match and No Match...
Human Intervention and "Opt in" is a fundamental right in New Zealand.

This change smells like Nudge Theory rot.

surely some of these rules that trademe put on the intrade sellers can't be legal, it really does discriminate us against the everyday kiwi casually selling their own items, and trademe sometimes have specials for non-intrade sellers of paying no fees certain weekends etc, I wonder if the commerce commission could do anything on our behalf

Unfortunately not. As they are a Private company they make the rules. Perhaps we could have a boycott day. Pull all of our listings for one day. Then they may actually listen.

I am not sure if other sellers like me offer this - I allow my loyal customers to have a rolling credit system. Some of my buyers pay a few weeks later for their items as I can combine shipping and hold items and ship at once. If they are FORCED to use Ping, they no longer can be offered the credit I offer them  = less sales for me = less commission for TradeMe. I know I am only a small seller amongst many, but..TM will get less money from me from Commissions (10% success fee on a credit purchase I offer is better than the 2.19% they get for forced PING yeah?).

I wonder to get around having no bank transfer from November, if we choose "cash" as an option, have a footnote re bank transfer, then correspond via email with purchaser?

Pulling down your listings for a day will result in Trade Me charging you withdrawl fees. In our case we will cease listing on November 3rd. End of story. Trade Me is such a small percentage of our sales we're not going to miss them. Our own website is miles ahead in throughput.

Diana. Yes, I'm sure there will be workarounds for those who simply MUST use bank deposit. Probably couldn't overtly state something like that in a footnote though. I'm sure TM would remove that if reported. 

It's likely to drive sales offsite as well

Q: Can I pay with bank deposit? A: Yes, contact me on.....

@Diana, Your footnote idea is pretty unworkable. The presence of Ping will catch buyers' attention and hijack the payment process. Lets face it, the average buyer here is not very tech savvy. We have buyers that keep paying our higher Trade Me prices despite our email contact with them including a direct link to our website where the products are cheaper. 

Robert  Over the years it is the casual sellers that I have raised disputes with, even some that used Ping, goods not as described or received, not Intrade Sellers, and yes some of these should Indeed be Intrade, a couple of years ago got sent a box of rubbish I wanted to return for refund, seller refused & sent nasty E-Mails & I was left out of pocket at Xmas, these are the sellers that should have ping forced on them, 

So why Jump on all Intrade Sellers?, we all do not fit in the same Box?, By forcing Ping on us we are getting branded as bad sellers?, No we are not, If I can not offer Bank Transfer, I am a dead duck out of water, a lot of my customers and groups do not have Credit cards,

They need to review accounts of Intrade Members, some of us are totally honest sellers, force Ping on the bad eggs, not all, and casual sellers should be Included too, as a lot of them don't give a dam, they are ones that cause most issues, and do not take responsibility because they are not Intrade, and some Casual sellers sell a lot more than I do at higher prices on a weekly basis?

Tony at Harm Less Solutions  There is a thing called closing them early, think outside the box, 

Most popular post ever. But not for a good reason. Hope TM is listening here.

Sorry dixie. I found your post very hard to read.

But basically you made an error, even if you were trying to be nice. You said pick-up only. Then you bent to a buyer who purchased and asked for shipping. 

If you say pick-up only. That's what it is. Don't change your mind after someone buys it. These lessons are always best learnt the hard way.........

Dixie's case is a prime example of why many of us don't want to be forced to rely on their resolution system by having to accept Ping. Their communication with users of Trade Me is convoluted and clumsy so unable to gain a fair solution in many cases. In our case I have lost count of the number of sales where an approach to TM to sort out a slow payer has resulted in a refunded success fee only to have the buyer eventually get in touch with us and the sale completed. I don't want to be on the losing end of this level of TM incompetency.

TM management obviously not reading the room here - that lackluster response from Michelle just repeats the original notification and justifications and completely disregards all the concerns being raised by In Trade members here. "Your voices are important to us and as always we listen to and take on your constructive feedback". O RLY?

Almost every. Single. Post. in this growing thread here is telling you this is an unwanted, intrusive change.

Don't treat us like we're stupid. You're not listening to the feedback at all. "We're saving you from having to set up your own e-commerce system..." - yeah, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE'RE ALREADY PAYING YOU FOR.

Tony. Being slightly facetious here, but with Ping activated, and buynow items, you will never have a slow payer again.

I notice all your items are buynow. (A few Start=reserve=buynow, it would be better to change those to buynow only) 

If you have buynow only and Ping then a buyer has to pay at point of sale. You will never have to chase a payment again.  

Jeffrey. I'm curious. Could you talk us through the nature of your complaint to comcom? What law within the Commerce Act do you believe Trade Me have broken with this change? It could help people make a complaint who want to do so. 

"Your voices are important to us and as always we listen to and take on your constructive feedback"

The fact this script keeps getting rolled out, is just.....offensive, on every level. These people just sit around in their little department meetings and advise the frontline staff to fob us off with that dribble. 

Just wait until we're forced to watch a 30-second advertisement, before we are allowed to list an item. It's coming, people. 

Callum

What planet do you live on, mate? "with Ping activated, and buynow items, you will never have a slow payer again"

There is nothing to force the buyer to pay immediately. People still take a week to pay (which personally I don't really mind"), and you really think that compulsory Ping payments are going to change this?

Spot on, Kane.

Michelle / Trade Me: There have been numerous very real concerns raised in this thread that you simply continue to avoiding addressing. To the point that I'd say this borders on being in beach of Trade Me's "Don't be a dick" policy.

You say "Your voices are important to us and as always we listen to and take on your constructive feedback". You know what's important to us (apart from our margins which are slim enough as is)?  Communicaiton and dialog. How about actively answering some of the very valid concerns raised here about these two major impositions and the impacts these will have not just on us but on our customers? Heck, you might even get something out of officering to meet with us online. We're worth meeting. We're worthy of discussion. Heck, we work hard to maximize profit for both of us. Show us some courtesy and professionalism.

Callum, it's the fact that it is being forced on some & not all & that there's a 2.1% surcharge. Trade Me clearly feels as though they need to follow eBay's model with PayPal in order to take another slice of the pie. The viewing numbers on auctions are way down & they're never coming back up to what they once were. If you place the same item on Fbook Marketplace, you are going to get a heck of a lot more views & interest for better or worse. Adding a surcharge onto a site, which is already fast dwindling in popularity with Kiwi's, may net some short term revenue but things look bleak for the future.    

Callum - I simply lodged a complaint via this thread:  Concern handling process | Commerce Commission

I don't pretend to be a competition lawyer. But my understanding is that if enough people complain about something like this, Comcom may take a look and decide if its anti-competitive and if they find it breaches their interpretation of the laws may launch an investigation. 

Our job as consumers is to say "Something doesn't seem right here...can you look into it please". Not neccessarily to say "We believe TM are in breach of section X of act Y".