General Marketplace photo policy and guidelines
This policy applies to all 'in trade' sellers on Trade Me, and is as follows:
Acceptable:
- Large, clear images of the item for sale.
- Small, transparent watermarks used to show ownership or attribution only. As a guide, watermarks should be smaller than 5% of your photo, and more transparent than 50%.
- Photos clearly showing any product flaws or defects.
- Other items in the photo are only there to help the buyer (e.g. to show scale/sizing).
- Videos comply with the Marketplace video terms and conditions (video available to Top Sellers only).
Unacceptable:
- The main listing photo does not show the item for sale.
- Photos that don't accurately represent the product for sale (e.g. using stock images* for second-hand, damaged or faulty items).
- Photos that use watermarks, logos, artwork, photo borders or text to convey messages, e.g. that there’s no image available, low stock availability or any other marketing messages.
- Photos that include contact details, website addresses or any other branded marketing.
- Watermark or logos that obscure or interfere with the item in the photo. As a guide, watermarks should be smaller than 5% of your photo, and more transparent than 50%.
Non-compliance may result in:
- Immediate removal of offending photos/videos by Trade Me.
- Adjustment of listings in search results until listings are acceptable.
*Stock images may be used with the rights holder’s express permission for brand new products and "as new" refurbished products, if the product has no visible flaws or defects and the image accurately reflects the product's quality.
What's the minimum photo size?
Photos need to be a minimum of 500 pixels on the longest side in order to be uploaded. The larger the photo, the better experience it is for your buyers.
What are pixels?
The word 'pixel' means a picture element and they are the smallest unit of information that makes up a picture – every photograph in digital form is made up of pixels. The more pixels you have, the more closely the photo resembles the original thing you have taken a photo of. The more pixels you have, the clearer the zoom quality will be.
How can I check if my current photos are the right size?
If you use My Products or Tradevine, you can check the dimensions of your photos by going into the product and clicking on the photo. To the right of the photo you’ll be able to see the pixel dimensions.
For any photos in your My Photos folder (found via My Trade Me), you'll see the dimensions of your images. If they meet the pixel requirements you’ll see a green tick, but if they’re not quite big enough we’ll highlight the measurements and show a red cross.
If you need to resize your images, there's a bunch of websites you can try. This website will give you a rundown of those.
I’ve checked my photos and some of them aren’t big enough – what do I do?
We recommend taking new photos, rather than trying to resize old ones. The main aim is to improve photo quality for buyers – if you’re just making smaller photos bigger, this can dramatically affect the quality of them.
If you use a smartphone or digital camera to take the new photos they should be the perfect size.
Please don’t use photos found on Google, as often these won’t be large enough and you may be infringing on other people’s intellectual property rights – our terms and conditions require that you hold copyright over, or have permission to use, any photos uploaded.
What are the specifications for photos?
Photo file format: .gif, .bmp, .png, .jpeg or .jpg format
Photo size limit: under 5MB file size
Photo quality: at least 500 pixels or more on the longest side
What happens if I don’t stick to the policy?
Please make sure all your listings adhere to the policy. If they don’t, your photos and/or videos could be removed or adjusted in search results.