Lisa Stewart: Trade Me Head of Marketplace on the company scrapping bank transfers and dropping success fees

People will have to pay with cash after a Trade Me sale if they want to avoid a fee.

The company's removing its 7.9 percent 'success fee' for casual selling - keeping only a small service fee.

Along with Afterpay and cash, Trade Me uses its own payment system, Ping - taking just over two percent from every sale. 

Trade Me’s Head of Marketplace Lisa Stewart says bank transfers will now be against their policy.

"We've got teams of folks who scan the site to check that nothing dodgy is going on, if they catch that that kind of behaviour's happening, we'd look to educate our customers."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Trade me has made a major change to the marketplace
section of its website. Casual sellers will no longer have
to pay an eight percent success fee when they sell something.
Buyers are going to have to pay a service fee
when they buy something for twenty bucks or more, but
that fee caps out at five bucks. Lisa Stewart is
the head of marketplace for trade me. Hi, Lisa, Hi, Heather,
Are you doing this because the fees that you were

(00:20):
charging were putting people off?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
We are doing this in response to customer feedb We're
constantly listening to what our customers are telling us, and
we hear two things. The first is they really value
the trust and protection that we provide, but that fees
were becoming a bigger hurdle to selling, and so we're
looking to respond to both of those with the changes
for announcing today, how.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Much were people ending up paying in fees?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, let's walk for an example. I've got a stroller
up for sale at the moment, a PRAM, and I'm
hoping to get about one hundred dollars for it. So
at the moment for that one hundred dollars sale, I'd
pay about eight dollars in success fees. With these changes,
that eight dollars will be no more, and I could
pay a round about two dollars in ping transaction fees.

(01:07):
So as a seller on that one hundred dollar item,
I'd be keeping round about six dollars in my back pocket.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Because it's not just the success fees, isn't it. It's
the it's the fees that you charge for listings that
could be like six bucks. Once you've gone for a subheading,
and you've gone for a you know, a reserve price
and all that kind of stuff, and then you've got
then you've got the ping fees as well, So it
could it could end up being what like maybe as
much as sixteen dollars that you're paying for one hundred

(01:35):
dollar prim.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Depends on the choices that you make. So when you
list on trade Me, the success fee has has been
the mandatory bits. Everyone will pay a success fee. I mean,
all those other add ons are your choice entirely, and
so if you don't want to pay any of those
extras at the moment, you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Have to, Okay, but you're keeping them, are you as
they are.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
We are keeping them as choices yet, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
So it's lower, but it is still more expensive than
Facebook Marketplace, which means that it is still maybe too high,
don't you think.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, Facebook, as you say, is free, but it doesn't
offer any of the safety or protection that we offer.
We've got Ping is a really safe and secure way
to pay, and when you pay with Ping, we cover
you with buyo protection, So we're putting that protection up
with these changes as well, up to five thousand dollars.
You don't get any of that on Facebook. We do

(02:31):
need to keep the platform operating though, with these changes,
and that's what the service fee for buyers is going
to cover. It enables us to keep the platform operating
and to offer New Zealand based support.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
So why are you getting rid of the bank transfers?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, the sad fact is that whilst rare, nearly all
unresolved scams on trade me involve bank transfer, and once
somebody's transferred money into another bank account, that money is
often gone forget. We don't have any visibility over any
of those payments, and so if something does go wrong,

(03:07):
it makes it really hard for us to step in
and help. So we're getting rid of bank transfers to
make the site safer for buying and selling.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
But this doesn't I mean, this doesn't prevent let's say
I'm the one selling the pram, it doesn't prevent from me,
the seller of the PRAM and the buyer of the
prem from privately organizing our own bank transfer.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Right. Well, bank transfers will now be against our policies,
and we've got teams of folks who scan the site
to check that nothing dodgy is going on. If they
catch that that kind of behavior is happening, then we'd
look to educate our customers on why our policies are
what they are.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Isn't this I mean, Lisa, isn't this you just funneling
finding another way to make money, Because then you're funneling
everybody through ping, which you own, and you can clip
the ticket with two percent.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
The ping fee isn't changing as a result of these changes.
We've had peing on our site for a number of you,
and the transaction fee of two point one nine percent
isn't changing as a result.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying it is.
What I am saying is, as somebody who recently sold
stuff on trade me, my preference was to use a
bank transfer because then it was in my account. What
you're now doing is saying I can't do that. I
have to use potential after pay or ping, which you own.
Therefore you can clip the ticket again by two percent.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
We're offering three different payment options after these changes, Yeah, Ping,
after pay or cash okay, and so those are the
three options that will be that we'll be offering, and
we support both ping and after pay with our buyer protection.
So if anything does go wrong and you're using those
payment methods, then we've got your back.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Listen, Lisa, I have to put this to you because
it's an idea that I kind of pitched earlier on,
which is is it possible that the age of trade
meet is over? Because it is now possible to buy
stuff for so much cheaper and yet it'd be reasonably
cool at places like kmart.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Millions of key we come to trade me every month
to buy and sal and we're pretty proud of the
role that we've played over the last twenty six years
and helping Kiwi to do that. In fact, something is
bought or sold on trade me about every four seconds,
and so this is really about continuing to improve our
experience and make sure we're really well set up for
over the next twenty six years.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Lisa has been good to talk to you. Thank you
very much for talking us through it. That's Lisa Stewart,
trade me, head of Marketplace. For more from Heather Duplessy
Allen Drive, listen live to news Talks. It'd be from
four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.