I don’t think it’s casual sellers which are Trademe’s main revenue stream. In-trade sellers being charged 11.9% success fees, plus success fees on shipping, and enjoying none of the historical benefits causal sellers have seen like success fee free weekends, has and will continue to drive in-trade sellers away. These recent changes are either going to make or break Trademe. Unfortunately I think the latter will be true

Robster - my understanding is the buyer service fee only applies when purchasing something from a casual seller. If purchasing from an in-trade seller , a buyer pays no additional fees, as these are paid for by the success fees a in-trade seller pays. I’m quite concerned that many of my customers might misunderstand and think that they are also paying a buyer fee when buying from me, because all that differentiates me is a teeny tiny grey bubble which most people pay no attention to which says I’m in-trade.

It's not really the best result at all. Why should the buyer end up with positive feedback being changed to neutral (simply for not placing feedback), and now all feedback is deleted. The best result would be for the buyer to still have positive feedback, at the end of the day there isn't any fault on the buyers part.  Being able to so easily manipulate the Trademe feedback system seems somewhat of a failure.  

If I've ever had a customer wish to return a item due to a change of mind, I always make it 100% clear that goods need to be returned in as new/unworn condition, exactly as received with all packaging etc. I've had the same occur where despite making the refund conditions clear for a change of mind refund, I've had a watch returned with links removed from the strap and links loose in the courier bag, and missing the user guide, in which case I refused to refund, and shipped the watch back to the customer (at my cost). I kept copies of correspondence and took photos, and Trademe removed nega...

On the other hand, I've had negative feedback left by a customer who hasn't even contacted us before placing negative feedback. Personally I think the feedback system is fundamentally broken. People are reluctant to leave negative feedback when negative feedback is justified, and other people leave negative feedback before even allowing a seller/buyer the opportunity to rectify the issue.

Considering the changes in totality, I’m not entirely against them. I think it will drive more people to the website. What Trademe need to be clear about is how they are going to police the site. No success fees for casual sellers will absolutely drive behaviour from sellers who should be in-trade, but choose to explore casual listings for the fees they save. My personal experience is it has been nearly impossible to get sellers who are clearly in-trade, to register as ‘in-trade’. I’ve used the community watch option, and there is no enforcement. With this in mind, should I just start l...

Simply tell them to win the auction, or select your buy now, you can then exchange details, when they come to pickup the bike, they can view it and if not happy, allow them the option to not proceed. Ask for cash as payment if they do proceed.  Trademe will refund your success fee and you can relist it if the sale doesn't proceed after their viewing

I’m surprised there is not some automatic way for Trademe to identify people posting phone numbers in Q&A. Surely can’t be that difficult, look for a series of numbers, numbers spelt as words, or numbers either side of ‘dot’ . I get it all the time on my listings, people commenting, “can you contact me on zero two one etc etc “

Callum - I’m using desktop Safari. Cleared all browser history, and still no luck. I guess whatever release trademe did recently , they forgot Safari was a thing

Callum - yes, understand. But the risk of having to have a ping option is that it remains an available option, (even after discounting a product to reflect a cash price). Or are you saying ping can be removed as an option completely?