We are changing, with you

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve noticed our site is going through some changes.

We wanted to be transparent with our members and share that we are making some upgrades to the look and feel of Trade Me and our systems.

For example, in My Trade Me, where you manage all your accounts and listings, you’ll see that we’ve introduced the ‘new look’ Trade Me. (and if you haven’t noticed the ‘new look’ Trade Me, never fear, it will be coming your way soon). Naturally, with a change this big, we expect everyone’s first thought to go something along the lines of... “Why is Trade Me different!? It wasn’t broken, why fix it!?” To be fair, that’s a totally reasonable question – one which we’ll try and answer for you here.

While Trade Me wasn’t exactly ‘broken’ it does need a refresh...

The ‘old’ site was built over 25 years ago in a way that’s becoming rapidly outdated behind-the-scenes, and this makes Trade Me a bit clunky – both for you to use, and for us to keep improving on. Our old system has made it hard for us to introduce some new tools and features that could help enhance our members’ experience.

What we are doing

We’ve had to build Trade Me all over again so we can give all Kiwis a useful, fast, and modern web and mobile app experience. What does this look like in practice? We’ve considered a number of key things along the way to ensure Trade Me is even more:

Consistent: we’ll look, feel and (most importantly) work the same way on all devices.
Simple: We will keep the existing experience where it’s already simple and easy to use, and make improvements for areas that cause friction.
Fast: The upgraded system would enable us to share new products and features quicker, speed up the sell process, and fix broken things pronto.
Clever: We’ll use data smarts to simplify the search and listing process, and keep on improving the site.
Visible: Our upgrade will enable us to improve and make our search results more relevant to what members are looking for.
Helpful: Stay up-to-date on the stuff that matters to you with notifications.
Accessible: Built with all Kiwi in mind, we’re doing our best to make the site as useful as New Zealand is diverse.

Here’s what to expect over the next six months

As we’re sure you can imagine, this is not a small task. We’ve been working away on this for a while now, and it’s required a gradual rollout. Some pages are already updated, while others (like the listing details page and My Trade Me) are being updated now. We are rolling out these changes incrementally, so some of your listings might look different to each other.

This is a work in progress, and so there will be some functionalities that aren't available right now. We’re always going to be adjusting and improving, and it won’t be long before we’re fully updated, but as we go we really want your feedback! We can’t respond to it all, but rest assured we are listening and are making changes where it’s needed. Please share any thoughts you have via our feedback boxes at the bottom of the home page on the desktop site.

We know change can be tricky and may take time to get used to, but we’re excited about giving you an awesome new Trade Me experience – and we can’t wait for you to try it!

We thank you for your patience and continued support.