Ping not all it is made out to be!

Yes ping mght be a "money making ploy", but removing the success fee for casual sellers means that in most cases, casual sellers will be better off, so a loss for trademe.

Yes, sellers are not paying because the charge has now been switched to the buyer, who is now worse off.

Well they are only paying a small fee, not the complete success fee. I doubt most will think $0.99c extra for a $99 item is the end of the world

Its not designed to benefit the average Trademe buyer/seller, its to get the flow of money through the hands of the owners, who are money traders. If they go bust, the funds trapped in the system will be gone.

AJ, the small fee that was paid by the sellers was not the end of the world either.

Having Ping as an option is fine but forcing sellers to use it is not.

The success fee was not small for high priced items - 7.99% on $100 or $250 or more is not insignicant

As I was never selling anything that expensive it was not a problem for me.  It is however possible to fix the success fee without forcing Ping on us.

Look at it this way.

Based on any number of factors that are applicable to you, you can choose which bank you wish to bank with, choose who handles your Kiwisaver, or your investments, choose a credit card company or finance company.

But you can't choose to not use ping. Try and not use ping by offering bank deposits in the text of the listing and you'll be banned. Just smells off to me. But each to their own.

Let us not forget that you will be charged when you win an item and then you are charged again when you use Ping to pay for you item - a double charge is just wrong.

No, as a selling, you are only charged for ping. There is no double charge

50bmg

My bank used to have a secure id token for accessing my online banking on my laptop, they got rid of that and enforced me to use the app to access my online banking on my laptop. If I dont like this, I can use another bank.

If you dont want to be forced to use ping, you have the choice not to use trademe

Okay AJ, so I read wrong?... You are telling me that there is no charge to the buyer who wins an auction, the only charge is when Ping is used? 

And yes, after twenty loyal years with Trade Me I shall be leaving.

Buyers pay a small service fee if using ping and over $20

Service Fee tiers
$0.00 - $20.00 = Free
$20.01 - $100.00 = $0.99
$100.01 - $250.00 = $1.99
$250.01 + = $4.99

Kia Ora simon277,

Yes! The Buyer pays a service fee on purchases from Casual Sellers in most Marketplace categories on items over $20. only if they choose Ping as their payment method. - Cheers.

There are also exclusions from the Service fee...

A Service fee is not charged on Marketplace items sold by In-Trade Sellers or Stores - Cheers.

So if Trade Me is only charging a tiered fee on purchases, then what is the following from the email Trade Me sent...

'Ping carries a 2.19% transaction fee to keep your money safe, and will be available on every listing...'

This means that there is still a percentage charged on the amount paid for an item. 

If you purchase is over $20 Trade Me is double dipping.

AJ has a good point....If we don't like the new rules, then we have the choice to not use Trade Me. I've heard that message before, but never so politely :)

AJ does have a really good point & that is why unfortunately so many buyers have already left. 

Funnily enough, when you tell people to F off if they don't like it....sometimes they F off, then you're left with nobody.

I genuinely hope Trade Me gets back on track, and I hope people can see the positives in this change.

With that in mind though, I'm a casual buyer, and for me, the change isn't ideal, more so with the bank transfer change. The service fee/charge is neither here nor there, but not being able to bank transfer by default is a bit of a hurdle.

Kia ora everyone, our 2.19% Ping fee is a competitive transaction fee that covers the cost of processing payments This ensures your money shows up  immediately and that the trade is fully backed by our protection policies. Buyers prefer Ping too, because if a trade goes wrong, they’re covered up to $5,000.

We removed the 7.9% Success Fee for casual sellers to put that profit back into their pockets and help more Kiwi bid goodbye to their unwanted things. We’ve also doubled our Buyer Protection coverage to $5,000. The Service Fee on casual purchases helps keep our platform operating, and enables us to provide local, NZ-based support. It averages to be about $0.99 per purchase. 

Michelle, as I said at the beginning - my visa account on Ping was hacked and that is why I do not trust Ping.  Selling and buying with my bank account has only once been a problem in twenty years.

I am surprised by how many of my buyers tell me they do not like or want to use Ping.  I assume that we are being forced to use Ping because so many of us have refused the option up till now and Trade Me needs it to be a 'success'.  

Kia ora simon277, sorry to hear that you had that experience. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a significant rise in bank transfer related scams and that’s not a risk we want for our community. While most fraudulent activities on Trade Me are resolved quickly, 90% of the scams that we couldn't help our members with last year involved bank transfers. Moving to Ping is the only way we can confidently offer you protection (up to $5,000) and ensure the Trade Me Marketplace remains a safe place for everyone.

Aloha Michelle, great to hear that Trade Me is so concerned about buyer protection & for it to be a safe site to buy/sell on. Hopefully Trade Me looks into removing members with terrible feedback ratings, other than letting them to continue on their merry way & waste further peoples time. & if Trade Me was so concerned about keeping things safe, then surely there'd be no international sellers. I'd love to see Trade Me tidy up customer complaints from wares bought out of China. Ping = revenue. No more, no less. You don't really believe that members believe your Luxon spin, do you?

Kia ora yestergear, we do keep an eye on memberships that accumulate lots of negative feedback, you can also report members you are concerned about via Community watch and the team will look into them and take the appropriate action. By using Ping, buyers can pay instantly and securely via card and sales are backed by Buyer Protection and our dedicated support team. 

Michelle, it is sad that those of us who dislike using Ping are not offered the choice of staying with Trade Me and continuing to use our bank accounts.   Yes, you say it is because Trade Me is concerned about your customers but that is a choice your customers got to make.

What kind of a deal does Trade Me have with backers of Ping that makes it necessary for you to force this change on us?  Some data would be nice to see - before this push for a change, what percentage of Trade Me sellers/buyers were using Ping?   What percentage do the backers of Ping require you to have or how many do you need for this to make you money?

Kia ora simon277, unfortunately, we’ve seen a significant rise in bank transfer related scams and that’s not a risk we want for our community. While most fraudulent activities on Trade Me are resolved quickly, 90% of the scams that we couldn't help our members with last year involved bank transfers. Moving to Ping is the only way we can confidently offer you protection (up to $5,000) and ensure the Trade Me Marketplace remains a safe place for everyone.

Ping is Trade Me's own built-in card payment system, you can learn more about it here. 

There are so many of us that do not what you protecting us and we want to use bank transfers.  Ping has been an option for sometime for those who fear being ripped off.

Your protection sucked when our card was ripped off on Ping.  I had to battle with Trade Me to get the refund in time to pay the Visa account.  So no, Ping is not the great thing your keep saying.

What happens if a buyer purchases an item but is not joined to PING or does not want to join.. is the sale in limbo or does TM cancel the sale?