New Shipping Templates

OMG, didn't realise they have made such a drastic change to shipping template. IMHO it's not increasing "transparency" for the buyers, but increasing "traps" for the sellers, so much details have to be included in the shipping options now. I wouldn't want to promise a buyer the parcel will be delivered in 1-2 days, give the state of the courier network now, I'm not even sure whether it's going to get delivered in 4-5 days. Cut off time is also making no sense, we can't decide when a parcel gets picked up anyway.

Oh well, I guess there's no going back now, I might just use "to be arranged" for a while...haha

Yep. If only they would consult with some of the long term sellers beforehand, just to get some feedback on how things could be improved before they go putting there big foot in our smooth running plans.

It is forcing us to lie to customers in a way, not everything fits in a box but that looks to be the way of the future and damned if it isn't morally right. I hope TM take responsibility for deliveries and times stated as it's there form boxes that are telling the story now, not our own details any longer. At least before we had the area for free comments on shipping but nothing there now.

How can Trade Me make such an important change as this with zero prior communication with sellers?

I see they've now added a "combined" option on the templates, but it doesn't even have NZ Post Courier as an option - you have to pick NZ Post Standard, which makes it sound like it's being sent by mail.

Also, what exactly does this mean: "Using the new shipping template will provide buyers with transparency about delivery time and total cost of purchase. Plus your listing will get a boost in search"? If we don't use the new templates, are we going to be somehow disadvantaged in search results?

What idiot thought up this new system?  It's going to be a nightmare!  I live rural, so I send all my parcels via NZ Post (I have free 5-days-a-week pick-up), but the delivery time options are nowhere near what NZ Post cite.  Firstly, there is only one delivery time-frame, Fastpost on both letters and parcels no longer exists, and NZ Post state 2-5 business days as normal, but there is no option for that in this new system, so I have to guess which one of the several WRONG options to use.  Also, I have a shipping option of $0.00 to allow buyers to pick up, but that's not possible now.  I already use shipping templates created in My Products for various items, why can't I continue to use those?  And why is it only In Trade sellers that are stuck with this nightmare?  While this new system is so badly flawed, making it compulsory - but not allowing us to post listings without it - is totally unreasonable.

While it's good to see Trade me trying to improve the buyer experience, I hope they learn from the mistake they've made here.

The email has just arrived with some details about what they're doing, although there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

However, the email says "we have an exciting programme of work planned this year with a focus on improving the buyer experience".

I hope they let us know about changes in advance rather than implement them, wait for the confusion, and then start to communicate. Changing the buyer experience also changes things for the seller. As sellers, we can't effectively embrace these changes unless we understand what's happening.

Trade Me, please communicate better with your sellers!

I have just attempted to use the new template as well. All ok for the standard shipping stuff but I want to continue offering a $0.00 with the wording: Combined, postage must be paid on one auction only. If I use the area in the template I will have all customers selecting the 0.00 and not paying postage at all. Can we not have a area that we can add comment or instruction in please. Cheers

Totally agree with Kate. This is the silliest move that Trade Me has made yet - and there has been more than a few lately!

If I was slightly cynical I would suspect that Trade Me has introduced this system to ensnare fees from traders who state 'pick up only' in their postage options and in the auction description state that delivery can be arranged (thereby avoiding success fees on postage).

And I've just found another problem - many of my listings are MQLs, and shipping rates change depending on how many of that item a buyer chooses.  With my existing templates it has been easy to specify how many can be shipped at a given price, but that has vanished too!!  Sure, the different shipping price options are there, but the info that said how many could be shipped for that price has gone.  Well done, TM - a total bollox from start to finish.  And I'd bet my mortgage I'm not the only thoroughly p*****d of Seller - over 15 years on here, and this is the biggest stuff-up yet (and that's saying something!)

Nope, the new stuff is still on my listings.  They need to take it down, take some advice on what would work, then then create something that just might work.  I would have thought that consulting with In Trade sellers - those of us who are on here every day! - would be a no brainer!  JMTCW

Still on mine too. There is no way to be honest  with this system or be sure we can offer buyers the best delivery option. We can no longer  pick the best delivery option for each purchasers address after getting courier quotes, and there is no clear way to offer a $0.00 option for multiple purchases. The only way to even  show $0.00 as an option is to choose ''generic", and then use the  listing footer to explain that ( and hope the buyer will read  the whole listing). As someone else mentioned, many will choose the $0.00 option because we can not qualify it.

Even some urban address's will only attract quotes from either Aramex or NZ Post, so having to  name one or the other sets sellers up to breach the agreement with the seller based on the shipping options published in the listing.

What are the legal breach of contract potentials here if we have to use a different courier, or if we cant get an item picked up because we booked it same day, or  we can not control  couriers pick up or delivery time frames. Even NZ Post  allows itself quite some flexibility with its 'target' delivery times, but TM is requiring us to offer better???

Big old can of worms, with no clear benefits obvious for buyers or browsers.

TM phoned me today after my problems with it. I detailed my problems and the shortcomings the new system had. They have disabled it for now (no longer showing in my My Products), so hopefully it's the same for everyone now and back to normal till they maybe work through some of the problems.

My main problems were that I had recently added a line to all my templates and had the $ sign in the text of the shipping option to make it abundantly clear, and this was not liked by the new template system, causing all of mine to not list and give the std listing failure error.

Unfortunately they had disabled the old template editor so I could not edit the templates to remove the offending $, and the new system did not carry through the old template text when doing an export to csv to enable me to bulk edit them. I noticed some time later the old editor was back and the new templates gone so was able to edit my templates to correct the problem. I then noticed that TM had manually edited my templates although I didn't like what they had done so I deleted that specific line.

Hopefully some of what's been said on the phone and above, will be carried in to the new system. I do like the fact the shipping template has it's own tab, and it should be implemented as a std lookup table now, like it should have been in the first place. Up until now a bulk edit of the CSV meant changing the shipping in each product, rather than just the template, which it looked to be in the new csv export before they reverted back.

They also said the new shipping template system will work better with the apps so buyers can sort by shipping price or something like that. We'll see.

Different day, same old crap.  Yet again experienced sellers have been ignored by the techie types busy with their new creation, and now we have to teach them what actually works in the real world. rather than their fantasy island.  IMO the whole thing should be deactivated while they actually take a look at what is needed to make this system workable, and get it right.  Only then should they look at including it in the new (probably as badly planned) search system, and trialled with a few knowledgeable sellers to check for bugs before it is launched site wide.

Hi Lucy, yes I know that you can have more than one shipping option to cover both rural and non-rural, but that isn't the problem with the new templates.

I end up with a shipping option with a description of "Nationwide 2-3 days, Standard" as my first option. Many buyers are, quite understandably, interpreting that to mean shipping to any address - rural or non-rural.

The description needs to say something like "Nationwide non-rural 2-3 days, Standard".

When trying the new templates, I got a significant increase in buyers picking the first option for delivery to a rural address, even though the second option says "Nationwide 4-7 days, Rural Standard".

For me, and for many others, it's just unusable as it stands.

There are 3 things that need to be sorted before I can use the new templates:

(1)  I need to be able to indicate Nationwide - Urban" and "Nationwide - Rural".  Otherwise buyers are always going to choose the cheaper option, and get grumpy when told they have to pay extra.

(2)  I need a $0.00 option or something similar so that I can allow buyers to pay via Ping but still pick up their purchase.

(3)  I need to be able to indicate different shipping prices on MQL's depending on the number of items a buyer purchases.  One or two items are never going to fit in the same size package as 6 or 8, but the whole point of MQLs was to let buyers choose how many items they wanted, and "one price fits all" shipping doesn't work here.

Have been having a play and  will be reverting to Specify Shipping costs, because this is a total mess, and I obviously will need to change *something* to be able to proceed with listing stock.  How though, do I remove the 'Shipping More than one item - No extra charge'? I have tried removing the $0.00 option, have refreshed the page several times, changed other  shipping options, unchecked combined shipping  - and nope - that line stays there. Where in the My Products set up  is that being  activated? Can anyone help please

I have been told there is an email coming out this morning to all MP users about the new shipping templates. I have been told I have had my system reverted back to std temporarily but I will have to use the new system, I'm still working through changing everything to specify shipping cost rather than use templates anymore, but depends what this email is going to say. I have a feeling it's going to tell us that unless you use the new system your items won't be sortable for buyers in new filters coming out, but no doubt some spin will make that feature sound better for us.

I'm laughing here Yvonne .... make it easy?  Trade Me?  when have they ever made it easy?  I gave them a list of over 20 things missing from the new sold page 15 months ago... they have added in maybe 2-3 of them since Oct 2020.

Months of testing these new shipping templates and they don't even use the word urban only nationwide.  Nationwide to me means the whole country... everyone!  NOT urban only.

Well, way back when I first joined Trade Me - it was easy. I learned to do it and had few computer skills, just enough to get by. I was reading Gary's instructions the other day in relation to shipping costs and it may as well have been in Chinese. All I want to do is to be able to list the courier/postage costs on my auctions - not complete a bloody degree!

The problem is that the nationwide cost does NOT specify urban only.

I've just found the new help page for the new templates, and it says "we’ll use this info to calculate and display the most appropriate shipping info to the buyer, alongside the full cost of purchase. This can be seen throughout the full buying process."

Can anyone from Trade Me elaborate on exactly what this means? Will search results finally be showing the cost including delivery? Is this somehow viewable now, or is this a new feature which is yet to be rolled out?

What would be cool is if TM's system tracked your order once shipped, and just automatically set the eta, depending on real world data. Then it'll be more realistic when things slow down due to covid or whatever.

Also prevents people from saying they ship faster than they really do.

Hi Lucy

Could we please have another option added to the shipping template. $2.00 - NZ Post - Nationwide - This item only Envelope 1-5 days

Cheers

123kitchens "nationwide" is a dangerous shipping option to use, some people probably don't know until they are caught out by the shipping cost to certain areas of the country...haha

Hi Lucy, where is the "non-rural" or "urban" option? I see only the rural option in the dropdown.

I have just gone into an old multi quantity listing in my products item to add stock,

and got greeted with the " you''re using an outdated shipping option", after reading through these comments, I am not going to update it,

as for having to disclose the carrier we use, I do not want to do that either, Just had a buyer demanding not to use Aramex,

because some one else told her to tell it to seller??, yet was not even stated on my auction that I use them,

this will turn people away from your auctions straight away as so much negative comments about Aramex plastered on message boards etc, yet I have no issues, I use a mix of Aramex & NZ Post (courier post), & my shipping costs set average in between, so if address is rural with Aramex, I will ship with NZ post where it maybe standard Urban & the extra cost is absorbed by me,

Yes if there are issues booking with one, then I just use the other, I have set my self up for flexibility, But if you have to state on auctions which carrier you use, but have to use an alternative for that address, I as a seller would be breaking the contract?, then buyer would complain as not sent by carrier they agreed on,

I never got the E-Mail either, I have been back through and checked,

but after reading here, I am sticking with my old set up shipping templates, delivery time is out of our hands, once it is shipped,

I will not be held hostage, if delivery takes a day or 2 longer than stated,

Sorry Trade Me, but some changes or not well thought out, I want flexibility as to what carrier I use & not have stipulate only one,

so I always have a back up carrier to use, without breaking a contract between buyer and seller,

"You’re using an outdated template

Using the new shipping template will provide buyers with transparency about delivery time and total cost of purchase. Plus your listing will get a boost in search"
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With the new template being very restrictive, it's forcing sellers to promise delivery times that they have no control over.
That message is also a clear threat that your listings won't get the same attention by using the old system

Delivery times have also been randomly badly effected by Covid workloads

Jan I think it's best if you contact TM staff as there seems to be very little we can do to change the shipping options, can't even make up our own now under the old format, have to use there boxes and no free typing area to add our comments or delete there's. Send them a email and fingers crossed they will get right back to you.

Also, this is what it looks like for free shipping once setup, on the app.

PS, sorry it's so huge, I don't know how to change the size on here.