Selling guide
Tips for professional sellers
Once you’ve got the basics of creating great listings sorted, these tips can help you to take things further.
Multiple-quantity listings
MQLs, or multiple-quantity listings, give you the opportunity to list more than one of the same item, within the same listing.
You can easily create an MQL by clicking on ‘Add a quantity to this listing’ during the listing process. Or, if you’re using My Products, select the ‘List as Buy Now only’ option.
MQLs are Buy Now only, which means quick and easy sales for you. Being able to sell more than one item in a listing also means that you’re able to get more bang for your buck on promotional extra fees.
Another bonus is that each purchase on a multiple-quantity listing will count towards your sales summary, and if there are no sales it will only count as ‘1’ in the number of unsold listings.
Ping
Trade Me’s in-house payment facility is known as Ping.
Ping makes buying and selling easier, faster and safer. Ping allows customers to make instant payments from their bank account, Ping balance or credit/debit card.
We are able to set you up with Ping with either a New Zealand bank account or an overseas bank account. There will be differences based on which bank account you provide so please get in touch with your Account Manager to fund out more.
For overseas sellers Ping and Afterpay will be the only payment methods available.
Auto-billing
Auto-billing is a great way to ensure your products continue to relist automatically without worrying about your account balance.
Once set up, auto-billing will automatically charge your credit card on a weekly basis for the fees you’ve incurred. Every Tuesday, we check your balance and if you’re in debt, we’ll pop you an email with a heads up on how much you’ll be charged. Then on the Thursday of that week, we’ll automatically charge your saved credit card.
If you credit your account between Tuesday and Thursday, we'll deduct that from the amount that is due to be charged. For example, if Tuesday's account balance was -$200 and you topped up by $50, we'd only charge your credit card $150 on the Thursday.
Throughout this process, as long as auto-billing is active on your account, you’ll be able to relist while in debt.
If your credit card declines, your auto-billing is turned off and you'll go back to the usual prepaid process. You're able to enable and disable auto-billing at any time via your My Trade Me page.
Combined shipping
If you’re using My Products or Tradevine, you’ll have access to combined shipping. This enables your buyers to qualify for free shipping when purchasing from you through the Shopping Cart.
Combined shipping can be tailored to you, either by setting up a dollar value or a number of items a buyer needs to purchase from you to qualify for free shipping.
Any listing with Buy Now and Ping is eligible if you have an offer set up, and if the buyer makes the purchase through the Cart. The buyer simply needs to meet the criteria of your offer, and they’re good to go with free shipping.
Product photography
Making great listings is key, and a big part of this are your product photos. As a professional seller, your photos are even more important.
- To increase the chances of a sale, make sure your pictures are good quality and easy on the eye, and that they accurately portray your product.
- Make sure your lighting doesn’t distort the colouring of the item in the image compared to the actual item.
- Plain backgrounds are best, ideally white.
- Ensure your picture is sharp and in focus.
- Make use of having up to 20 free photos on your listing and take pictures of all angles of the product. Also including extra information like labels and accessories is great.
- Include pictures of any damage.
- If you use images that aren’t yours, make sure you have permission from the rights holder so you’re not breaching anyone’s copyright.
You can see more about the Marketplace photo policies and guidelines here.
Use multi-variant listings
Multiple-variant listings (MVLs) are a collection of listings for a product that has many versions such as different colours and sizes. Each version of the product (variant) has its own listing number, but we treat the collection as a single listing.
MVLs are designed to give you an easier and smarter way to sell variants of a product on Trade Me for example Hoodies that come in various sizes and colours. Using MVL listings will help buyers to easily find the right item.
MVL FAQs
How do I create MVLs?
MVL’s are supported in our Tradevine listing tool and by a number of 3rd Party integrators. We do not yet allow MVLs to be created in My Products, on the Desktop or in the mobile apps.
How much does it cost? Will I pay more fees?
MVLs don’t cost anything extra at all. In fact, managing your promotional spend is easier and better value. For example, if you add Gallery to your MVL group then all of the variants will have the promotion for one fee. You will be paying the same success fee for every purchase made.
How will my Top Seller status be affected?
In terms of Top Seller qualification, each transaction in an MVL (whether you sell one item or many) counts as one ‘purchase’. Sell-through-rate calculation for MVLs is a maximum of 100%. If you sell a red T-shirt and a blue T-shirt, from a MVL collection, that’s calculated as 100% (not 200%). If you only sell a red T-shirt from a single MVL, that’s 100% too. Using MVLs will make it easier for you to reach Top Seller status.
How will the free listing allowance calculation be affected?
All MVLs in a collection are counted as 1 listing regardless of the number of variants. So if previously you had a listing for each of the 5 colours and you convert this to a single MVL then this will now be counted as 1 instead of 5. Using MVLs will allow you to list more distinct products within your allowance.
How are MVLs shown in search results?
When a buyer searches for a product we check which of the variants is the closest match and this is the variant shown to the buyer. We also add text to make it obvious that other options exist. We only show one variant at a time for a collection.
How many variants can be in a group?
You can have up to 5 variant options, such as Colour or Size, each option having up to 30 values giving a total of 150 variants per MVL group. There are no restrictions on what you call the options and their values, however we recommend they are easily understood by buyers.
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