Trade Me pickups across the Wellington suburbs

A washing machine or a fridge collected from a seller in Johnsonville. A bookshelf, a desk and a bedside table going to a flat in Aro Valley at the start of term. Retro furniture and an amplifier bought off someone in Miramar. A bed frame that comes apart at the seller's place in Newtown and has to go up to a flat in Brooklyn. Sellers post jobs too, when a Wellington item sells to a buyer in Palmerston North or the Wairarapa and the buyer wants it brought over rather than held for collection.

Wellington makes the pickup end harder than the drop-off. Plenty of seller addresses sit on a hill: a Brooklyn street where the house is three flights above the kerb, a Karori driveway too steep to back a loaded van down, a Northland right of way with room for one car. A Te Aro apartment can mean a loading bay, a swipe for the lift and a time limit on both, so say which apply. The Mount Victoria and Terrace tunnels and the Vivian Street one-way pair decide how long a cross-town run really takes, and the harbourside run out towards Petone slows at either end of the day.

Because each driver prices their own bid, the bids on one Wellington pickup are worked out from different starting points. A cross-town run here is priced on tunnel and one-way time rather than kilometres, so a driver who already has a Karori hill job that morning works from a different number than one who would be making the trip only for you. A van with one person on board costs less to run than a truck with a crew, so a driver who can handle your item alone prices it that way. Put the seller's suburb, the rough size and the steps at both ends in the listing.