That’s bad. Hope it isn’t like that now. The brand  Ping implies simplicity and speed. Not two weeks. 

mattwnz:

 

That’s bad. Hope it isn’t like that now. The brand  Ping implies simplicity and speed. Not two weeks. 

 

Ping has been around since 2017. This happened 18 months ago, so admittedly at that time they'd only had 7 years to get the process right 😂

Wheelbarrow01:

 

Ping has been around since 2017. This happened 18 months ago, so admittedly at that time they'd only had 7 years to get the process right 😂

 

obviously, your experience with Ping had some packet loss!

the success fee was paid by the seller, as well as Ping charges.  obviously, this move is to attract more sellers, as buyers would now have Ping charges on top of shipping charges on top of the purchase price (and whatever credit card fees their bank charges). the max fee of $4.99 is not too bad, but this still appears to be buyer's tax straight to TM for a service they're now mandating. it remains to be seen how long it stays at this rate for.

of course, workarounds have already been mentioned.

I have in the past always avoided ping as a buyer as it was just giving trademe more money. Hardly bought anything on there recently as its full off too many dropshippers and crap.

They are using the used option to get around people filtering on that now. Reporting those listings gets total silence from trademe.

I would say that this is probably the end of me using it, but that seems to have already happened.

I wouldn't use Facebook Marketplace to buy or sell anything, I think of it as like the wild west of trading. If things fall over and the seller vanishes (after you've paid)...good luck getting Meta to do anything.

Having said that, Trademe isn't perfect either - there's a few things they could do better.

quickymart:

 

I wouldn't use Facebook Marketplace to buy or sell anything, I think of it as like the wild west of trading. If things fall over and the seller vanishes (after you've paid)...good luck getting Meta to do anything.

 

Having said that, Trademe isn't perfect either - there's a few things they could do better.

 

Yeah I've only used it for stuff that I can pick up. Same with selling, it's weird how it works. Listed something, couple of inquiries or bots, then nothing. About two months later a flurry on the same day. It's like the algorithm bumped it up that day.

The other side is just the complete lack of response, and I suspect that was from when messages from strangers went into that strange hidden inbox. 

Honestly my advise for Facebook Marketplace is to not get your heart set on buying something, and when selling just be patient. So if you've got a couch or fridge you want gone before you move, use trademe. If you've got some small niknak that doesn't take up room and you don't mind how long it takes, use marketplace. 

Ping generally works very well. Incoming payment sits on your Trademe account for an hour or two (which is helpful if you want to use that to pay for a courier for whatever was sold), then automatically transfers into your bank account. Never had an issue with it, and used it quite a few times.

I'm very curious to see how the math for this works out for casual traders.  Knowing how corporate profit taking rules all, my gut reaction is that this will end up costing me more than it did with success fees. I have little confidence that this isn't just a money grab and will make trademe even more expensive for me.  Has anyone really crunched the numbers?  I've got 500 auction sales under my belt and the average price of things I sell runs between $50-$200.  I never use ping because the fees are so high and have always used bank transfer or cash and never once had a problem.

spacedog:

 

.....  Has anyone really crunched the numbers?  I've got 500 auction sales under my belt and the average price of things I sell runs between $50-$200.  I never use ping because the fees are so high and have always used bank transfer or cash and never once had a problem.

 

I'm sure they have. Paying a service fees has become more normal to purchasers, and allows the headline price to be lower.

Seller pays less so more reason to sell, which drives more items on the marketplace (Trademe), and possibly at lower prices as the success fees don't get baked into the sell price. Buyers clamber over lower buy prices making them feel like they're getting a better deal.

As someone who pretty much only sells expensive items, this is a win. I'm often paying $100+ in success fees and used to generally wait until they had free selling promotions. On the flip side this is bad for my gear acquisition syndrome...

Now that ping is enabled by default on all listings, how would you as a seller protect yourself when selling goods? Especially electronics?

Ping appears to be protection for the buyer and not seller.

For example, selling a stick of RAM. If a buyer fraudulently claims the RAM is faulty or damaged upon arrival, i assume Trademe would automatically refund them?

To protect myself as the seller - all i can think of is videoing and photographing (for my own record) the product (RAM) functioning in a pc, but also photos capturing all angles and pins to show condition, incase the buyer suggests I shipped them a faulty or damaged item? And also photos and videos of the item packaged securely and safely?

Is there anything else I as the seller could do to protect myself from being scammed?

the question raised by @EviLClouD about seller protection seems a valid one to me (who has sold only a handful of items and never via Ping). then again, there must've been hundreds/thousands of items sold via Ping, even before this change. i've certainly used it as a buyer.

there's a newsroom article about this that rationalizes this move - one that has already been presented in the replies to this thread. as stated previously, for me (who has bought more than sold) it had the feeling of a buyer's tax being installed. 

dont mistake trade-me's business move for an act of generosity

• Trade Me’s response is rational and the new structure may well be fairer in practice, but we should be clear-eyed: a fee structure that was becoming a competitive liability has been restructured, redistributed, and rebranded as a safety feature.

• “We’re removing seller fees” lands very differently from “we’re introducing buyer fees”.

Something I realised yesterday, which I'm not sure whether anyone has mentioned yet, is a huge benefit of the buyer fee — this means that buyers will need to pony up with some kind of credit card info, giving Trade Me and/or Police an avenue to identify people doing dodgy stuff. We've all heard of the scams some people pull, and this will make it a lot harder to hide behind digital anonymity. I like it!

Wheelbarrow01:

 

The one and only time I sold an item with Ping as a payment method was an utter disaster. I didn't realise that the Ping payment method defaulted into the listing, so I was initially surprised when I got the email from Trademe stating " your item has sold via Ping". It was an expensive item (ie over $1000) so the Ping fee was not insignificant for something that was picked up in person and could have been paid for in cash at no cost to me. Combined with the success fee, Trademe's cut of the sale was around 11%.

 

Annoying, but Trademe has always touted "Ping - the quick and easy way for sellers to get paid" so at least I had instant access to the money right?

 

Yea nah. That same day I logged into my Ping account and attempted to transfer the proceeds to my bank account. Queue an email from the Trademe Trust Department a few hours later asking me to verify some security details - which I promptly responded to. No further contact or reply from them and no money despite me replying to them again. Several days later, my query via the contact us button on the website also went unacknowledged.

 

I finally used their chat function to ask where my money was (at this stage it was over a week since the trade). I was told a "special" department would reply asap - that also never happened. I fumed as I thought how much money in interest Trademe must be creaming if they are doing this to thousands of Ping users every day - taking money from their Ping accounts, putting it on ice in Trademe's own interest bearing account for as many days as they can get away with, before finally paying it out.

 

The money finally landed in my bank account around 2 weeks after the sale, with no explanation from Trademe. Never again....

 

That sucks. I've only received payment via ping once (about $60) and after I requested a payout it was in my bank account within a couple of days. 

Yeah, if they are delaying settlement, they are making money on float that their customers are providing. 
I'd expect that if Ping is now mandatory, I get the same convenience that bank transfer gave me. Same day payment, when I request it. I'm not OK with TM holding onto MY money for a day or two. They don't hang about when asking for their money for fees owed.