Trade Me hikes charges

Trade Me is under fire from online traders after hiking charges - just 21 days after Fairfax spent $700 million to buy the auction website.

From tomorrow the company is halving the number of items that can be listed for sale at no cost.

Business manager Mike O'Donnell said the move was designed to clear up the often-clogged site and was aimed at professional sellers.

But the Trade Me message boards were running hot with criticism. And Australian media company Fairfax was the target.

"Not a happy trader here," said one. "What's this? The new Aussie rules coming into affect [sic]?"

Customers can put as many as 100 items up for auction without paying. For those who sell large volumes, the free limit is five times the best sales week over the last four weeks. After that, listings cost 25c each.

But from tomorrow only 50 free listings will be allowed.

"The more Trade Me change things like this, the less I use the site - it is always finding ways to suck money from us," said one trader.

Mr O'Donnell said the change had nothing to do with Fairfax and had been part of the business plan "for some time".

"Basically it means you can list 50 items at one time for free, but if you go over that - and you don't have a decent sell-through rate - you will pay 25 cents per item," he said. "It's designed to deliver a healthy marketplace and stop the site being clogged with unrealistic auctions."

The change was one of a number under consideration for a while and would affect about 1200 people who had more than 50 listings.

"Against a membership base of 1.2 million it's not huge so it won't affect the vast majority of people."

The $700 million sale of Trade Me this month shocked the industry and elevated 30-year-old founder Sam Morgan to the country's richest person in the technology sector.

The site receives about 60 per cent of local internet traffic and it is expected to host about 35 million auctions this year. Last year it generated sales of about $300 million.

There were some supporters on the message boards yesterday.

"If you can't sell at least 20 items that you have listed out of 100 then there is something wrong with you," said one.