Assessment of Mercari for 2023: Is It Beneficial for Sellers?
Mercari reviews are generally mixed on the Better Business Bureau and Trustpilot, but over 20 million monthly active users are selling and buying on this online marketplace.
Mercari is an online marketplace and platform for selling a variety of different items, including electronics, toys, and apparel. It’s easy to get started as a seller on Mercari, and the seller fees are competitive with other platforms such as eBay and Poshmark.
With over 20 million monthly active users, there’s no shortage of people to sell to. But watch out for the confusing shipping options, and don’t plan on selling big-ticket items worth more than $200 since Mercari offers no shipping protection for them.
Let’s jump into how Mercari works and what online Mercari reviews say to see whether it’s worth it for you to sign up as a seller.
What is Mercari?
Mircari is an online marketplace for selling and buying items between individuals. It offers a method to turn old stuff into extra cash, which Mercari capitalizes on with a slogan about making secondhand your first choice.
Mercari was founded in Japan in 2013 by Shintaro Yamada, who remains its CEO. Mercari arrived in the U.S. in 2014 and has become one of the most popular online marketplaces in the country, with over 20 million users. It is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, near San Francisco.
Mercari has an average rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot but an A rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Negative reviews on Trustpilot are often related to Mercari’s poor customer service experiences.
How does Mercari work?
Mercari is an online marketplace similar to Amazon, eBay, Poshmark, Etsy, and many other platforms. You can participate as a seller or buyer. As a seller, you list items for other users to buy. As a buyer, you purchase items from other users.
Mercari has a huge range of products you can sell and buy. In fact, you can sell just about any item. This includes clothing, electronics, toys, collectibles, home decor, sports equipment, handbags, tools, and much more.
Mercari for sellers
Selling on Mercari only takes a few minutes. You simply need to set up an account and list an item.
You can sell just about anything you want except for prohibited items, including:
- Anything illegal
- Medicine
- Food
- Weapons
- Alcohol
- Tobacco
Listing an item requires uploading photos and filling out product information. Make sure you upload clear photos of each item you list and write out detailed descriptions to help your items sell.
Keep in mind that Mercari provides shipping protection of up to $200 for its shipping options. This is why Mercari may not be the best option for expensive items. Imagine sending out a gaming console or something similar that’s worth well over $200, and it gets damaged en route. You’d be out of luck for some of the cost if you relied on Mercari shipping protection. Here is our latest article about businesses like kraket
Another potential drawback of selling on Mercari is that the return policy can be abused. This is an unfortunate and common occurrence for many online marketplaces.
Mercari for buyers
It’s straightforward to set up an account and buy items on Mercari. You can freely browse the marketplace, save items, and chat with sellers. When you’re ready to make a purchase, you need to add a payment method.
Note that sellers have three business days to ship an item after it’s purchased. You can request a refund if the item isn’t as described, is damaged, or never shipped. But you have to request a refund within three days of confirmed delivery. And make sure you don’t rate the seller until you’re happy with your purchase since taking this action will mark your order as complete.
Who can use Mercari?
Mercari is available to U.S. residents who are 18 or older in all states except Alabama and Nebraska, where the minimum age is 19, and Mississippi, where the minimum age is 21.
Mercari can be a good fit for dedicated sellers who want an easy-to-use platform to list their items. It also makes sense if you simply want to make extra money selling your secondhand stuff because it’s free to sign up and has a large user base.
On the other hand, Mercari may not make sense for people who sell expensive items because its shipping protection only covers items up to $200.
The platform generates a Form 1099-K for any seller who meets the threshold requirements for taxes in a calendar year. This means that making over $600 in sales from Mercari in a year produces a Form 1099-K to include with your tax filing.
How much can you earn with Mercari?
The sky is often the limit for how much money you can make on online marketplaces. However, that doesn’t mean these platforms work well for everyone. It can take dedication and motivation to find items that typically sell on Mercari and for your listings to have more visibility than your competitors.
That being said, some sellers claim they made tens of thousands of dollars on Mercari. Let’s break down some math to show you what it takes to make $20,000 on Mercari as a reseller.
Say you have a product that regularly sells for $50 that you can buy in bulk for $25 per item. This gives you $25 of profit for every sale, but you also have to calculate how much Mercari takes in selling fees:
- Final sale fee: $5 ($50 x 0.10 = $5)
- Payment processing fee: $1.95 ($50 x 0.029 + $0.50 = $1.95)
So take $6.95 off, and you’re left with $18.05 in profit. Still not a bad return. This means you need to sell about 1,108 items at this price to make $20,000.
