Trade Me users going postal over prices

If you want to get a sense of the mood of the nation, an idea of what's getting people talking, the message boards of auction website Trade Me are a good place to start.

And there are a few message board threads at the moment which are attracting a large number of comments as Trade Me users vent about the impact New Zealand Post's new pricing for letters and parcels is having on the cost of sending goods around the country to fellow Trade Me users.

New Zealand Post changed its pricing to a "Pricing in Proportion" model late last month. As NZ Post explained: "This means letters and parcels sent within New Zealand are now priced in direct proportion to their size and weight. Previously parcels have been priced mainly on weight."

What it has also meant for people shipping parcels is that they are in many cases more expensive to send. It's also led to a lot of confusion in New Zealand Post branches around the country as postal workers are left to make judgement calls down to the millimetre over the size of parcels and therefore how much is charged to send them.

All of this has left many Trade Me users, some of whom run their businesses through multiple listings on the website, in despair at the price hikes they've been hit with. Apparently Fair Go is working on a piece on this and Trade Me users have been falling over themselves to be interviewed on the show such is their outrage.

Certainly, from the posts on the message boards, there seems to be some pretty nonsensical scenarios emerging with the new pricing. Here's a sampler:

- "Can you please get NZ Post to explain why an auction I sent to Perth Western Australia at a cost of under $25.00 dollars was cheaper then the same item being sent to Nelson. Not only that, but it reached Perth quicker then auctions I sent within the North Island. As Perth is an 8 hour flight away, I cannot find any reasonable explanation when comparing the Postage."

- "The lovely ladies in my Post Shop say the system is 'ridiculous'. They can't get it right either - they argued black and blue with me last week about my $6.50 parcel to the South Island being $12.50. They just haven't got a clue. Stood there with their measuring chart and tape measure and just couldn't make up their minds what to charge. I felt sorry for them. They had practically no training for this."

- "I am a collector of vinyl records, 33s mainly, and am astounded at the shocking price increases that New Zealand Post has adapted to its services. Just 12 months ago I would pay anywhere from $1.50 to $3.50 for postage of my LP purchases. However, I am now forced to pay phenomenally more - up to $12.50!! This means that I cannot buy a lot of records that I would like unless I can combine the auction to make it feasible (a very scarce occurrence) simply because the postage costs defeat the "bargain" purchase from Trade Me's service."

Let's face it, New Zealand Post is reliant on transport to ship mail and parcels around the country and therefore has been hit harder than most companies by the soaring price of fuel. It's fair enough that some of that increased cost be passed onto consumers - after all we're facing price hikes in every other area.

But consider how important Trade Me is to NZ Post. In 2005, NZ Post's chief executive John Allen, said trading on Trade Me had helped boost NZ Post's parcel volumes by 7 per cent.

The question now is whether NZ Post will effectively kill the growth it has been for years enjoying through Trade Me customers, many of whom are now looking to courier companies to send their parcels instead. The confusion around costs, which seem in many cases to be varying radically between the estimates given on the parcel calculator on the NZ Post website and what is actually being charged by Post Shop workers, is also creating headaches for Trade Me members wanting to make timely and cost-effective deliveries.

Other companies have also spoken out about NZ Post's new pricing. Freightways has pointed out the above scenario, where couriers are increasingly used as an alternative to the postal service:

"As these price hikes close the gap between standard post pricing and courier rates, many companies will look to increase the business they do with courier-service providers. In doing so, a business would also enjoy the added benefits of door-to-door pickup and delivery, item tracking, and much higher insurance protection," a press release from the company said.

So what's to be done? Are Trade Me users just going to have to wear the price hikes and curtail their trading as a result? Couriers are also at the mercy of fuel prices, is it just a matter of time before they hike their charges too? Is the Trade Me community big and powerful enough to force a change in NZ Post's pricing? How has the new pricing affected you?

Tomorrow: How the escalating price of spare electronic parts is making it much more expensive for you to have your TV, microwave or stereo repaired.