Concerns About New Ping and Marketplace Fee Changes for Buyers and Sellers

I have recently returned to selling on Trade Me after being away for a while. Previously, the model felt straightforward. Sellers paid success fees when an item sold, and that was the primary revenue mechanism. I understand and support the need for the platform to be profitable. However, the current direction of combined payment and listing fees feels like layered charging at multiple stages of the same transaction.

I also noticed this message now appearing under listings:

“To celebrate the release of our seventh Circular Economy Report, from 12–22 February, we are removing Success Fees for casual items in Home & Living and Clothing & Fashion. We are also experimenting with a small Service Fee in these categories charged to buyers for payments made via Ping on casual seller listings.”

Removing success fees for a few days reads more like a short promotional offset than a real saving, especially when new buyer service fees and uncapped seller Ping fees are being trialled at the same time. The net effect appears to be a shift in how fees are collected, not a reduction in total cost.

At the same time, buyers and sellers are increasingly being pushed toward Ping by limiting meaningful support and protection for bank transfer transactions. That effectively removes a no-fee payment path and replaces it with a paid one.

Current payment fee structure

Proposed buyer Ping service fees:
$0 to $20 free
$20.01 to $100 = $0.99
$100.01 to $250 = $1.99
$250 and above = $4.99

Seller Ping fee:
2.19 percent of the total payment amount, including shipping.
This means sellers are paying a percentage fee on courier costs as well as the item price.

Marketplace listing and selling fees now include

• Success fees up to 11 percent for in-trade accounts, compared with around 7.9 percent for casual sellers

• Only 50 active listings free

• $0.10 per new listing above the free allowance

• $0.50 relist fee per listing beyond the free allowance

• High volume listing charges depending on sales volume

• Withdrawal and upgrade fees depending on category

• Extra charges for longer listing durations

Simple volume example

If a seller has 500 listings and only 50 are free, that leaves 450 charged listings.
If those 450 listings are relisted at $0.50 each, that equals $225 per relist cycle. If this occurs weekly, that is about $225 per week, roughly $900 per month, and over $11,000 per year in relist fees alone, plus listing exceed fees. This is before any items even sell.

Optional extras not included in the above totals

• subtitles

• gallery and gallery plus

• feature and feature combo

• reserve fees

• second category fees

• scheduled end time fees

• 10-day auction upgrades

• other visibility boosts listed in the fee schedule

When listing exceed fees, relist fees, higher success fees, Ping percentage fees, Ping fees on shipping, and buyer Ping service fees are combined, the total cost per transaction rises significantly for both buyers and sellers.

Trade Me also earns revenue from advertising placements and promoted visibility across the platform. Given these additional revenue streams, it would be helpful to understand why multiple new per-step user fees are being added at the same time.

Questions that would benefit from clarification

• Why are percentage fees being applied to shipping amounts paid to third-party couriers?

• Why reduce practical support for bank transfer instead of keeping it as a genuine no-fee option?

• Has Trade Me published impact modelling for small and casual sellers versus high-volume or business sellers?

• How is the total fee burden being evaluated against seller retention and marketplace competitiveness?

• How are sellers being incentivised to continue listing under the higher total fee load?

I am not against Trade Me making money. I am concerned about fee stacking and the cumulative impact on everyday users. Greater transparency around the total effective cost per sale would help the community properly evaluate these changes.