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Mercari is an app that makes buying and selling stuff online as easy as pie.
You probably have a few stuff around your home that you wish to turn into cash but you’re not sure how to go about the whole selling process.
Sure, you could decide to put them up for bidding on popular stores, but thousands (possibly millions) of other people are ten steps ahead of you. As a result, the chances of your item(s) getting noticed are slim to none.
While you can sell stuff at Mercari, you can make some affordable purchases as well. Founded in 2013, the app is currently stationed in the U.S. and the UK.
Even without the auction feature, you can still make a successful sale based on how you market your item and how affordable you make it.
You don’t need much to make money with the Mercari app or any other money making app. Once you install the app and create a free account, you’re all set. When it comes to capitalizing on your products, however, there are certain measures you have to follow.
When you venture into online sales, competition is inevitable. The following are some valuable Mercari tips to ensure you don’t hire any third party to ensure impressive returns from your items.
Table of Contents
1. Price Is Everything
The success of your sales on the app will be determined greatly by how cheap or how costly your items are.
Rarely can you make sales from hiking a product’s cost far from the original price. At the same time, you wouldn’t want to incur losses by selling your items lower than their initial prices.
Perhaps one of the trickiest choices you’ll ever have to make, ensure that your price tag resonates with your buyers. To find out your target demographic for the stuff you wish to sell, perform an extensive amount of research.
Alternatively, you could make a few stops at your local stores for more information. The moment you find the right price for your items, negotiation is not an option.
If you feel philanthropic enough to settle for a fairly lower price, don’t be shy to take the deal.
However, you should first put these four factors into consideration:
- Do you stand to profit in any way from your sale?
- If you put up your item for sale a few days ago, don’t be in a rush to appease your customers by lowering your price.
- Has the potential buyer given a rough estimate of the price at which they which to buy your item? If not, there’s no need to proceed with the bargain.
- Is your potential buyer hesitant to make the purchase even after you’ve both agreed on the price? They could turn out to be scammers out to rob you of your goods without you knowing it.
2. Make Your Profile As Impressive As Possible
How your profile looks will enable the buyer to determine what kind of seller they’re about to get into business with. More often than not, it’s the first place they will look if they’re interested in an item you’re selling.
Mercari works in a style that’s quite similar to eBay, whereby sellers can upload an avatar of their choosing. Don’t go for anything fancy – a clear, well-lit photo of yourself will do just fine. Anything else may leave a bad impression of you on the buyer.
Unless you’re embarrassed by your looks (which you shouldn’t be), you won’t be shy to use your own photo. When you decide to take a professional selfie of yourself, ensure your background is presentable as well. Just cause its professional doesn’t mean that you keep a straight face.
Any extra information you provide using your avatar such as your location and individual preferences may cost you a lot.
Scammers may stalk you to your home and rob you of the items you’re selling or any other valuables. However, you don’t have to worry about that. Mercari has a secure system in place to counter all forms of fraudulent activities by buyers.
Away from your avatar, shift some focus to your bio as well. Keep it simple. Bios with brief but powerful messages make you come across as a straightforward individual. It should include basic stuff such as your shipping policy, whether or not you negotiate your prices, method of shipping and so on.
Your overall profile should look convincing enough. If you wish for someone to buy something from you, give them a reason to feel confident in your personality and mode of operations.
3. Keep Your Descriptions Brief And Easy To Understand
Regardless of what you decide to sell on the Mercari app, it would be awkward not to provide some descriptive information. Newbies to the app might mistake the description for a full review – which is definitely not the case.
If you’re selling a refurbished laptop, for instance, go out of your way to find out everything from its make, memory capacity, battery life, processor speed and so on. Considering there are other laptops for sale on the app, try to be brief but concise with your description.
Your item could either be used or brand new. You know it, but your potential buyers don’t. In case you don’t know, buyers tend to be more concerned with an item’s condition more than anything else.
Be as honest as possible. Negative reviews may hinder future customers from buying anything from you. State how old it is if it’s been used before and, if possible, let the customer know if it’s torn or damaged in any way.
To describe your item, Mercari will provide you with five tags: New, Like New, Good, Fair, and Poor. Each of these tags will enable the buyers to rate your item and see if it suits them or not. Keep in mind that Mercari doesn’t allow you to withdraw items you’ve posted on their app.
Once you’ve posted it without an accurate description, you easily forfeit it to the site. That will further affect your selling potential and your rating as well.
If you’re not sure how to go about the detailing process, it wouldn’t hurt to get a tip or two from other sellers on the app.
Read through their descriptions and take note of how brief their descriptions are. In case of any information you feel you need to add, the internet is your friend.
4. Free Shipping Is An Option
No one likes extra fees on their purchases. High shipping fees are a major drawback to customers who want to buy a certain item that’s within their financial reach. In your case, you’re not a customer. You’re the one supplying goods to customers either locally or overseas.
Since you’re in a field where competition is bound to be tight, you need to give your buyers more reason to buy from you. What better way to woo them into your store than shipping your products to them at no cost?
Making free shipping an option as a seller has several perks that can extend to the long-term. Among them, your items will receive positive reviews, thereby catapulting it to the first search results in the ‘free shipping’ category.
Shipping fees are just one of the many costs that come when you decide to sell stuff on the Mercari app. Unlike most shopping portals, Mercari lets you decide who will cater to the shipping fees between you and the buyer.
If you cater to the shipping fees, you will be provided with a list of options if you decide to pay the shipping fees. The Ship On Your Own option is ideal for large or bulky items. For this option, you’ll be tasked with the option of finding an ideal shipping label.
Have a Paypal account? Use that to print your label. You could alternatively ship via online postage like Stamps.com.
If the buyer will take care of the shipping payment, you’ll be asked to select the item’s carrier and weight. Though the prepaid shipping label will be made available to you via email, it’s the buyer that caters for the charges.
Before you offer free shipping to your products, it would be wise to first think about your listing price.
5. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. The pictures you put up of your items can easily entice a random shopper to purchase one or all of your items. Worse still, they could be a complete turn off to the buyer and opt for something else on the app.
To set up photos of your item on Mercari, head on to your phone’s bottom right-hand corner and tap on ‘Sell.’ Your phone’s camera will then pop up for you to capture 2-5 photos of your item.
If your phone doesn’t have a good resolution, you could take it from a phone with a better camera and upload them from your gallery instead.
Taking photos of your item from different angles with nothing in the background is a highly recommended strategy.
Also, try not to use or rely too much on software like Photoshop to enhance your photos. Take a clear shot of the item in favorable light (not too much and not too little).
Though the final photos may not look as captivating as you expected, someone may find them pretty attractive and buy your item.
The following are a couple of other tips to consider if you want to boost your chances of achieving successful sales:
- If you’re standing at a close-up range of the item, DON’T use the flash option.
- Polish your item before taking a photo of it. Good cameras can capture even the slightest details.
- If you have shaky hands, hand over your camera to someone who can take steady shots. Even better, use a tripod or place your phone/camera on a flat surface.
- Include both the nice parts and imperfections. That way, the buyer can know what to expect when they purchase your item.
- Don’t include unnecessary spaces for small items. If you notice your photos don’t entirely focus on the item, use the cropping feature on your camera app.
What Are The Pros And Cons Of The Mercari App?
1. Pros
Anyone Can Sell Their Items On The App
The Mercari app has a relatively simple interface and a straightforward layout that the old and the young alike will find easy to use. All that’s required from users is a little tech skill. Finding the various features on the app may be easy for some, but complex for others.
Commendable Customer Service
Perhaps the best thing about this app is its swift-to-act customer support team. Mercari seeks to ensure that all its customers are comfortable regardless of whether they’re buying or selling stuff. For now, they’re mainly accessible via email.
You Can Sell As Many Items As You Want
You don’t worry about selling too much or too little on the app. Heck, you could even sell your whole house (just kidding). As you sell, you don’t have to do it on a one-by-one basis. Just make a few tweaks on your items if need be. No penalties will be issued to sellers with excessive items.
No Payment Necessary For Item Listing
Yes indeed. You don’t need to pay a dime to list any item you want to sell. However, you may need to shorten your items’ description. No need to count the characters when Mercari can do it for you. You may need to practice before doing it on the app.
You Don’t Need A Smartphone
No smartphone? No problem. Though it’s an app, you don’t need a smartphone to use it. Log on to Mercari’s official site and create your free account from your desktop or laptop.
If you do have a smartphone, you’re better placed to sell considering you can receive real-time updates of your sales progress.
Items Can Stay On The List For Extended Periods
Before the purchase of any of your items has been made, you don’t have to worry about them being shelved off any time soon. Though other online sales platforms undergo what’s known as a ‘relisting process’, luckily for you, Mercari doesn’t.
2. Cons
Frequent Cases Of Scamming
Scamming is a common plague to all buying and selling platforms. Unfortunately, Mercari hasn’t devised a workable solution to tackle this issue. As the number of users grows by the day, the more rampant the scamming cases become.
Not all sellers can be trusted. As a matter of fact, a number of them are only out to scam unsuspecting buyers of their hard-earned cash. There have been plenty of complaints among users of items being contrary to what they ordered.
Sellers who have fallen prey to such fraudulent buyers have no chance of getting their items back. Though customer support is very effective, it may not be as helpful when such cases are reported.
You may be refunded by the company, but no legal action will be taken when it comes to retrieving your items.
Unless Sellers Have Been Rated By A Buyer, They Can’t Get Their Payment
As a seller on Mercari, you need to be careful of who you do business with. A few buyers with ulterior motives may look for ways to disrupt your business at all costs.
If, for instance, you sold like ten items to one seller and they haven’t left a review, you may never get your money – unfortunately.
As if that’s not enough any poor rating you get has the potential to paralyze any chance you have of selling other items if you’re a seller. If you’re a buyer, you have zero chance of purchasing other items.
In most occasions, most users will end their contracts with sellers after a series of negative ratings. The worst thing is that it’s next to impossible to get negative ratings based on your profile alone.
It Is Limited Only To U.S And UK Residents
It’s a good app, no doubt about that. However, if you’re not a resident of the U.S or the UK, you have no chance of making a few extra bucks from it. Currently, they’re situated in these two countries alone. It’s unclear whether they plan on expanding their territories or not.
Sellers Will Have To Part A Portion Of Their Money
It’s a common belief that Mercari seems to burden the sellers financially more than the buyers. If you want to sell on Mercari, don’t fall prey to the ‘free-to-list’ strategy. It only works for the buyer.
Yes, registration is absolutely free, but you’ll have to part with a tenth of your earnings from every sale you make. If you don’t mind parting with the stated amount, then this is for you.
Complicated Return Policy
All Mercari users are given at least three days to request either a return or refund of any item buyers may have purchased from the app. Whether you’ll get a refund or not solely lies on the item’s price tag. In such a case, you can receive credit rather than cash compensation.
What Modes Of Payment Does Mercari Accept?
When it comes to methods of payment, Mercari is very flexible. It primarily accepts PayPal along with a list of other credit cards including MasterCard, VISA, and American Express.
For any payment you need to make via credit card, you’ll be required to submit your credit card number. Along with your credit card number, they will also need its expiry date and security code.
The Mercari app also features its own payment system known as Mercari Credits. This becomes useful when you want to pay for a section of your in-app purchases. There are a number of ways to earn Mercari credits.
The company runs occasional promotions. The more you take part in them, the more credits you earn. Also, inviting new members to the app can earn you credits. Each approved invitation will earn you $2 worth of Mercari credit. The minimum withdrawal amount is $200.
You’ll be wise not to let your credits accumulate without making use of them. Considering they have an expiry date, there’s no chance of getting them back once they’re gone.
After How Long Do You Get Paid On Mercari?
Of course, the buyer has to confirm whether they’ve received the package or not. What follows is the rating (1-5 stars) of the item, transaction, then you, the seller. As soon as the buyer is done with the rating, you will then receive your funds.
For a smooth transaction, you need to have a valid bank account in your name and no one else’s. Your bank account should also contain the checking account number as well as a routing number.
The Verdict: Is Mercari A Legit App?
Honestly, it may be hard to determine that if you’ve never used it before. The millions of users who have used it before have mixed reviews about it. However, a majority of users are content with certain features, its ease of use and best of all, the fact that it pays.
The fact that most people are making money from it is more than enough reason to join. If you have a lot of items in your garage, bedroom or anywhere around your house that you don’t use, try selling them on Mercari.
Getting rid of them is not an option. You know what they say about one man’s trash. Though it has a number of drawbacks that need to be addressed, that’s relatively common in every app today.
Mercari has assisted individuals, young and old alike, to gain some quick cash. If you don’t have a job or you seek to make something extra, don’t look any further.
If you’re a U.S or UK citizen and you want to start selling on Mercari, here’s a tip: use Poshmark and eBay especially if you want to sell clothes. That will maximize your chances of making any sales.
The Ball Is In Your Court
After reading this lengthy post, it all rides on whether you want to start making some quick cash. By following these Mercari tips, you can make money in a way that you’ve never have before.
The decision to try it out and see how things go is the best decision you can ever make.
If you’re not pleased with the results, you have the option to terminate your account at any time. You have Nothing To Lose. Alternative sites to sell your items online include Dealo, OfferUp, letgo, VarageSale, and Carousell.
