The size of photos you allow in listings

That's such a good honest review Sharon - I hope it is taken onboard - Cheers.

This a bugged me for years as well, we get told to provide the best possible photo's so buyer can make the most informed bidding/purchasing choices, but the photo quality limit is tiny!

I spent time taking a bunch of photos.  By default, my phone camera was on the rectangular (4:3) format.  When I uploaded the photos, TradeMe's system cut them down to squares.  No use.  So I had to take new photos.

Just now, I wanted to advertise a motorbike accessory.  Before I took any photos, I was careful to switch my phone camera to the SQUARE format.  Then I spent time taking a bunch of photos.  When I uploaded the photos, TradeMe's system cut off the tops and bottoms to fit a rectangular (16:9 landscape) format.  No use.  I will have to take them all again.  Meanwhile, the sun went down...

Is there any method to this madness?

Kia Ora Mark,

I hear your frustration there!

Refer to Post: Photos - there are a few workarounds given to resize photo's to fit the TM platform - if you still have your original photo's taken test one out - if you save any edits you do with a different file name you will retain a copy of the original to save you from having to retake pic's again.

All the Best - Cheers.

Thanks, I did read that post, but it was about photo file SIZE - which is a completely unrelated issue.  My issue is the aspect-ratio (square or rectangular).  The TM platform insists on square photos in some places and rectangular photos in other places.  It's nuts!

Unfortunately Mark there is nothing you can do other than to Contact Trademe and add your voice. Like you, I don't know why they have so many different viewports on the site. Although you can upload any format and ratio you want, how TM display it is another matter. They should all specify the same display parameters, but some are crop, some specify a max width then shrink to fit, others have max height then shrink or crop to fit and others have different aspect ratios and then fill blank space with an average colour of the photo. There is no consistency through the site unfortunately, so it's a matter of trial and error to see on what pages and in what format and viewports your product photos look best/show all that's needed. Best of luck.

To clarify, TM don't crop or change the aspect ratio of your photos when uploaded, it's just the viewport that displays them to buyers that changes depending on what page and how the buyers view the photos. If you click on a photo to enlarge it on a listing page, then right click and open image ina new tab, you will see the original size photo in it's entirety, although the image compression will be different, which is something TM do do.

Cheers Gary - WoW! I have often wondered why through Desktop view some listings have coloured background edges and others don't in same view mode! - Much appreciated 😊

Fully understand your frustration. TM please do something about the size you accept for images. Your sellers are who keep you going and if you frustrate them enough, they will advertise elsewhere. The 5mB limit has been around for years when mobiles were just toys but now, they can create some very good images and buyers want to see what they are bidding on. 

How do you resize a phot from a cell phone

Trade me is harder to use now we have bots.
Stuff the bots . And the photo criteria is harder as well .
Will not take a lager than 5 size .
I give up !

Kia Ora BARRY,

Sorry to read you're having such a hard time there,

To Resize your cell phone photo's...

Thanks I'm old.

Agreed. The 5MB limit would have been fine but phones tend to take higher quality. So many times i have now just gone somewhere else to sell as its just too restrictive.

A few questions back, TM you gave a 4 or 5 step process about how we can down size pics by emailing them to ourselces.
It appears to me that you dont understand that any process past one step is cutting tm out of the market.
What you need to do to keep sellers, and we know you make millions and can afford to do it is, make adding pics a one step process.
Another new feature I see is, you are charging buyers a fee to buy from us now.
I saw that come up on a listing I was looking at and without even knowing what that fee was, which will be on top of the shipping fee we pay, which is outrageous in its own right, out prices the item and I dint go any further here. Went to market pkace and the groups Im a member on there instead.

The firstcmistake the new owners madecwas to take Trade Me from the simple working format it was, and change it, and change it again and again and you might be able to see by looking, howcmany regular sellers you lost by doing that. I used to be a regular seller here but rarely list anything here now.
We get ONE LIFE and we cant be wasting a moment of it wandering around trying to figure out how to do stuff that shoukd be simple, in the escape room TM have created. No one has time to jump through 5 hoops to get one pic loaded for starters.
I dont know what more I can say in a bid to reach y'all.
Youre losing us and you must be able to see that trend?

Some very good points made here. TM needs to take note or their shareholders will start selling and the company will fail.

Kia ora sharon.nz, thanks for the feedback, I've passed this on to the team. You can send feedback to us directly via "Tell us what you think" towards the bottom of Trade Me pages.