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...

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 c...

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...

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?

I'd be able to use the new templates if they simply added a product called "Non-Rural" to go with the destination of "Nationwide". They don't need to change anything that's already there, just add this extra product. It's quite understandable that rural people would assume "Nationwide Standard" is a valid shipping choice for them. It's such a basic and obvious oversight in the development of these templates, it really is incredibly frustrating!

Thank you Lucy, that's very useful. My main gripe with the new templates is the use of the term "nationwide" in the shipping description. That implies a parcel can be sent to any address (including rural) for the specified rate. For me, it makes the new templates unusable. I've tried them, and it's causing too much confusion for my buyers, with an increase in buyers specifying a rural address but choosing the "nationwide" rate. I would be able to use them if there was specifically an option for non-rural deliveries (in addition to the rural option). Perhaps also keep the "nationwide" option...

Yep, that bug seems to have been fixed now. The implementation of the shipping templates still seems a bit slapdash, but at least it's good enough to be broadly usable now. I wish they would use the same product names that NZ Post now uses for courier services (i.e. Courier Economy, Courier and Express) instead of inventing their own names.The destination should really be where they indicate rural or non-rural rather than the product name. Also, I can't see the purpose of the cut-off time on the template. I anticipated it would change the estimated delivery time depending on the time of day...

There does seem to be a bug with this. I can use the new non-rural options if I don't have a combined shipping option on the template. As soon as I add a combined shipping option, it won't save. I've emailed Trade Me with the details, and hopefully they'll be able to get this working correctly.

James, do you have any more details of this update? I might be missing something, but I can't see anything different on my templates at the moment?

I was pleased to see we finally get an option to include a combined shipping option in a structured way with the new templates. I offer free combined shipping on all additional purchases, but yet the shopping cart still allows a buyer to purchase only one item and choose this combined option. Lucy, is there a plan to finish the job and make this work correctly so a buyer can't purchase without paying any shipping at all?