Trade Me scales New Zealand’s largest online marketplace with Contentstack

By 2019, Trade Me had outgrown its monolithic, internally hosted CMS. The platform was difficult to maintain, lacked scalability, and created inconsistent digital experiences across multiple business units. Marketers faced slow turnaround times for content updates and promotions, while developers struggled to integrate modern tools and deliver at the pace the business required.

As Lynette Thomson, Head of Satellite Business Technology, explained, “Before Contentstack, our CMS platform was difficult to use. It was hard to maintain, and the user experience didn’t have a consistent look and feel.”

Trade Me needed a modern CMS that could give them the agility to adapt quickly, support omnichannel personalization, and empower both marketers and developers to work efficiently.

Trade Me selected Contentstack in May 2019 and went live by December, rolling out across multiple content-rich pages , including car reviews, property buying advice, CV and cover letter advice, advertiser best practices, marketplace discover, and dealership insights.

By adopting Contentstack’s API-first, composable architecture, Trade Me decoupled content management from presentation, enabling faster development cycles, greater flexibility, and easier integration with best-of-breed SaaS solutions such as Segment and Google Vertex AI.

The new system gave marketers autonomy to manage and publish content without heavy reliance on developers, while developers enjoyed the freedom to modernize frontends and integrate analytics, search, and personalization tools with ease. Trade Me now manages almost 5,000 articles in Contentstack, with content flowing seamlessly between divisions, from classifieds to auctions.

AI also plays a critical role in Trade Me’s growth strategy. By integrating Vertex AI, Trade Me delivers personalized recommendations within search and article views, improving relevance, boosting engagement, and strengthening SEO performance. Campaigns and competitions can now be launched in a fraction of the time, and the entire system has remained stable and reliable with zero downtime.

With Contentstack, Trade Me has:

• Delivered consistent omnichannel experiences across multiple business divisions

• Launched new promotions and competitions significantly faster

• Improved user engagement with AI-driven recommendations

• Increased website traffic and discoverability through stronger SEO performance

• Scaled confidently with nearly 5,000 articles and no downtime

• Recorded a 17 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of articles on the platform.

• Empowered marketers and developers to work more efficiently and independently.

With a composable foundation in place, Trade Me is expanding its use of AI to further personalize customer experiences, streamline content discovery, and strengthen engagement. Backed by Contentstack’s responsive partnership and Care Without Compromise, Trade Me is positioned to continue leading New Zealand’s digital marketplace with agility and innovation.