Vehicle Trader Terms and Conditions


  1. General

    1. These Vehicle Trader terms and conditions (Terms) govern your use of Trade Me's services; of DealerBase; of the services described in these terms which are generally delivered through DealerBase, via a third party inventory management system, and / or the Trade Me Motors site at www.trademe.co.nz/motors and its associated apps; and any other relevant services we offer to you from time to time (the Services).

    2. These Services are provided by Trade Me Limited (Trade Me, us, we etc) to registered motor vehicle traders (each a Dealer or you).

    3. By using the Services you agree to comply with these Terms as well as Trade Me's general terms and policies, including our Motors Listing Policy. To the extent that there is any conflict between these Terms and any other Trade Me terms or policies these Terms will prevail.

    4. We may change these Terms from time to time by updating the Terms on our website. For significant changes we may notify you directly via email. Occasionally urgent changes may be required, but we'll generally give you at least two weeks' notice of any material changes to give you an opportunity to review the changes before they go into effect. Once any updated Terms are in effect, you'll be bound by them if you continue to use our Services. If you don't agree to any updated Terms, you must stop using our Services.

      We encourage you to view this page from time to time for the latest Terms.

  2. Using our Services

    1. In order to access the Services, you must be a registered motor vehicle trader and always maintain your RMVT status. You authorise Trade Me to search the register of motor vehicle traders to check your RMVT status from time to time.

    2. If you operate more than one dealership location (being the physical location where your vehicles are located for viewing) you will need to have one account (and therefore one dealer package) for each location. Similarly, you will need to have one account (and therefore one dealer package) for each dealership brand or logo that you wish to use, as we are unable to apply different logos or branding to listings from the same dealership account.

    3. You confirm that you either own or have permission to use all of the content that you upload to our site or otherwise make available via our platform when using our Services, and that you (and Trade Me) will not infringe the rights of any third party by making that content available. You agree to indemnify Trade Me from any liability whatsoever arising from your use of the Services to display content.

    4. You acknowledge the exclusion of liability and the indemnity contained in Trade Me's general terms and agree that these apply to the Services and are incorporated into these Terms.

    5. In the event you use any Services that have their own specific terms (for example, Services like Dealer Analytics, Sitelink or Dealership Finance Tool which are covered in these Terms), you agree to comply with those specific terms.

    6. If you breach these Terms (or any of our other terms or policies), we may take action and you will need to accept how we proceed. We may, for example, remove or edit your listings, remove your ability to automatically upload listings, or suspend or terminate your access to Dealerbase and / or Trade Me.

  3. Fees and payment

    1. The fees payable by you for each Service (the Fees) are the Fees communicated to you by us from time to time. We will always communicate our Fees to you in advance of you ordering or using a Service. If you are unsure what the current Fees for our Services are, get in touch with your Account Manager or our Dealer Support team.

    2. We may change our Fees. We'll usually notify you about fee changes, and we'll generally give you 2 weeks' notice. If we introduce a new Service, the Fees for that Service will be effective at the time the new Service is launched.

    3. We'll invoice you monthly and payment is due and payable on the 20th of the month following the invoice date. If you wish to dispute an invoice you must do so, in writing, within 10 working days of the invoice date. We will consider any issues raised and act in good faith to reach a resolution with you. You will pay any undisputed amount on the due date for payment.

    4. If payment is not received by the due date, or you're otherwise in debt to us under this agreement or any other, we may take action that we consider appropriate. For example, we may:
      (i) suspend or terminate your access to our services;
      (ii) adjust your listing in search results (even where you have paid for a premium product);
      (iii) remove your ability to automatically upload listings;
      (iv) charge interest on outstanding amounts not paid by the due date at a rate that is 2 percentage points greater than our bank's unarranged overdraft interest rate, starting from the due date of the unpaid invoice;
      (v) set-off any amount you owe us against any amount that may be due from us to you (under any agreement); or
      (vi) pass your account onto a debt collection agency. You agree that any costs incurred in the collection process, including legal fees, can be on-charged to your account.

    5. Where a court or tribunal rules against you in any dispute with any Trade Me user, you agree that we may in our absolute discretion apply any money we receive or have received from you to make reparation to that user or other users.

    6. You agree that you are responsible for the security of your account, and liable for the price of any Services requested through your account, regardless of who accessed your account to make the request.

    7. You agree that Trade Me may conduct a credit check on you, and may collect and hold information about you, which may be passed on to a credit reporting agency for the purpose of conducting a credit check.

  4. Monthly Vehicle Listing Limit

    1. If you exceed the number of vehicle listings allowed under your monthly vehicle limit, we may upgrade your vehicle limit.

    2. Although we may upgrade you at any time once you have exceeded your vehicle limit, we will generally:
      (i) Notify you via email that you have exceeded your vehicle limit, reminding you to promptly reduce your stock to within your vehicle limit.
      (ii) If you do not reduce your stock to within your vehicle limit, we will send you an email giving you 48 hours to reduce your stock to within your vehicle limit.
      (iii) If, after the expiry of the 48 hour notice period, you are still exceeding your vehicle limit then we will upgrade your vehicle limit to accommodate the excess stock on site.

    3. If you are upgraded:
      (i) in the month you are upgraded you will be liable for the Fees applicable to the vehicle limit used, for the period used. We will send you a part-month invoice for the additional Fees associated with the upgraded vehicle limit for the number of days of the month you have access to it; and
      (ii) you will remain on your upgraded vehicle limit (and will be liable for the applicable Fees) unless you request to be changed to a different vehicle limit in which case the timeframes in clause 5 will apply.

  5. Suspension, downgrades and cancellation

    1. Trade Me may suspend or cancel your use of any Services immediately by notice to you if you breach any of these Terms.

    2. We may add or remove features or functions and we may suspend or stop providing a Service altogether. We will endeavour to give you notice in advance if we intend to change or stop providing any Service.

    3. If you wish to stop using the Services, you may provide notice in writing to us. If you provide notice to us on or before the 15th of a calendar month, then that notice will be effective on the last day of that calendar month. If you provide notice to us after the 15th of the month, then that notice will be effective on the last day of the following calendar month.

    4. If you wish to downgrade any Package, vehicle listing limit or other subscription Service, and the downgrade is one that we allow, you may provide notice in writing to us at any time, and that notice will be effective from the 1st of the following month. To check what types of downgrades are permitted from time to time, get in touch with your Account Manager or our Dealer Support team.

    5. If your use of the Services is suspended or cancelled the provisions of these Terms relating to payment, debt collection and any other provisions intended to survive suspension or cancellation will remain in force and you remain liable to pay the Fees for all Services up to the effective date of cancellation or suspension. If you have paid Fees in advance then Trade Me will repay to you any Fees paid in respect of Services due to be delivered after the effective date of cancellation or suspension.

    6. If you haven't used your account for more than 18 months, your account will be suspended and any unused credit will be forfeited to us.

  6. Sitelink

    1. If you use our Sitelink product:
      (i) you must only use it to link to a relevant external website;
      (ii) we reserve the right to reject any website you propose to link to; and
      (iii)you must not link to any external website that, at any time, has a greater number of vehicles listed for sale than you currently have listed on Trade Me.

  7. Dealer Analytics

    1. Dealer Analytics is a Service provided by Trade Me which allows Dealers using DealerBase to access information about the performance of their Trade Me advertisements, and anonymised aggregated information about other sellers of motor vehicles on Trade Me. No personal information about you is made available to other Dealers who use Dealer Analytics.

    2. If you pay for access to Dealer Analytics, Trade Me grants you a limited, revocable, non-transferable, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, New Zealand-only licence to use Dealer Analytics for the purpose of understanding the performance of your inventory and business advertising on Trade Me. The parts of Dealer Analytics you are allowed to access under this licence depend on the type of Dealer Analytics product you purchase or which you are entitled to access (for example, under a free trial). Your Dealer Analytics licence expires upon the cancellation or suspension of your access to Dealer Analytics, DealerBase or Trade Me.

    3. If Trade Me grants you access to Dealer Analytics as part of a free trial, you agree that this clause applies with any necessary modification and that Trade Me may suspend or cancel your access to Dealer Analytics at any time.

    4. You acknowledge that Dealer Analytics is generated with the assistance of Microsoft's Power BI analytics software via DealerBase. Accordingly, you agree that (to the extent applicable) Trade Me may immediately suspend or cancel your access to Dealer Analytics if Trade Me becomes unable to provide Dealer Analytics via Microsoft's Power BI analytics software (but, in such case, Trade Me will endeavour to provide advance notice to you), or if Trade Me reasonably believes that you have:
      (i) breached these Terms (including Trade Me's general terms or policies);
      (ii) accessed, or attempted to obtain access to, another Dealer's information held in Dealer Analytics without permission;
      (iii) attempted to re-identify any aggregated anonymised information available to you in Dealer Analytics;
      (iv) introduced, or attempted to introduce, any malicious software or code or otherwise have done anything that could interrupt or disrupt Trade Me's systems; or
      (v) committed fraud or otherwise acted unlawfully in connection with DealerBase.

    5. If you are entitled to use Dealer Analytics, Trade Me will use its reasonable endeavours to ensure the availability of Dealer Analytics, subject to any downtime required for maintenance. However, Trade Me takes no responsibility for any unavailability or interruption of your access to Dealer Analytics, or for any loss you incur as a result.

    6. The information provided to you through Dealer Analytics is updated each working day. Although Trade Me will make reasonable endeavours to ensure the accuracy of this information, to the extent permitted by law, Trade Me does not warrant that the information provided to you through Data Analytics will always be accurate, error-free or up to date.

  8. Dealership Finance Tool

    1. You agree that it is your responsibility that any offers for finance that you advertise on Trade Me comply with the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003 and the Fair Trading Act 1986, including ensuring that any third party finance provider that you link to via the Dealership Finance Tool (Finance Provider) is fully compliant. Finance offers and your use of the Dealership Finance Tool are not pre-screened for content by Trade Me.

    2. You agree that you will not use the Dealership Finance Tool in a way which misleads, deceives or confuses users, or is likely to mislead, deceive or confuse users.

    3. You agree that any information received about a user through the Dealership Finance tool (whether received by you or by any Finance Provider) will only be used by you or the Finance Provider for the purpose of furthering the user's finance application and that you will not collect a user's personal information for any other purpose or use it for subsequent promotion without receiving specific consent from that user.

  9. Drive Chat live chat service

    1. The Drive Chat live chat service is owned, operated and provided by Drive Chat and integrated on to the Trade Me Motors platform (the Live Chat Service).

    2. In order to use the Live Chat Service, you will need to complete an online application with Drive Chat and select the type of service and package that you wish to use. By using the Live Chat Service on your vehicle listings, you are agreeing to be bound by Drive Chat's terms of service (as may be amended from time to time) in addition to these Terms. Trade Me is not responsible for notifying you of any changes to Drive Chat's terms of service.

    3. You agree that any information received about a user through the Live Chat Service will only be used by you for the purpose of responding to and assisting with that user's enquiry, and that you will not collect a user's personal information for any other purpose or use it for subsequent promotion without obtaining specific consent from that user.

    4. You acknowledge that Trade Me will receive transcripts of all chats that occur through the Live Chat Service on the Trade Me Motors platform only, including where those chats are self managed (meaning where they are between you or your representative and a user). You acknowledge that the availability of the Live Chat Service is dependent entirely on Drive Chat. Trade Me takes no responsibility for any unavailability or interruption of access to the Live Chat Services, or for any loss that is incurred as a result. Trade Me may cease providing the Live Chat Service at any time, and / or may suspend or cancel your access to the Live Chat Service at any time.

    5. You acknowledge that the availability of the Live Chat Service is dependent entirely on Drive Chat. Trade Me takes no responsibility for any unavailability or interruption of access to the Live Chat Services, or for any loss that is incurred as a result. Trade Me may cease providing the Live Chat Service at any time, and / or may suspend or cancel your access to the Live Chat Service at any time.

    6. Trade Me has no control over and is not responsible for the content posted by you, Drive Chat or any user in any live chat box.

  10. Boats

    1. If you are using the Services only to list and advertise boats for sale then some of the Terms may not apply to you (for example, the requirement to maintain your RMVT status). It should be common sense which Terms don't apply, but if you are unsure please contact us to check, as ultimately we will determine at our discretion which Terms apply to your use.

    2. If you are a 'Boat Broker' (meaning you advertise boats for sale that you do not own but that you have been engaged to sell) then you may include up to 2 sets of contact details in your listing description (notwithstanding that there are other terms which expressly prohibit this).
      For the avoidance of any doubt, these specific Boat Broker terms only apply to boats you list in your capacity as a Boat Broker. If you also advertise boats that you own on Trade Me, these specific Boat Broker terms will not apply to those listings.