Mercari App Review: Pros, Cons and Discount Code

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Updated: 8/5/2024 | Mercari Review + Best Practices

I am in a constant process of selling my belongings and sometimes purchasing more. I know…what a vicious cycle!

I was recently introduced to the Mercari App by an eBay seller who was willing to negotiate on a handbag that I was interested in and eventually bought.

Here’s what I found out… it works like eBay except the fees are way less than eBay + Paypal’s combined ~13% in fees.

We don’t call eBay, feeBay for nothing!

Here is our Mercari App review plus tips and best practices on how to use Mercari!

What is Mercari?

Mercari is a Customer-to-customer (C2C) online marketplace where buyers and sellers can easily make purchasing and selling transactions. Mercari started in Japan and became such a huge success that they wanted to replicate the platform for US customers.

Want to see what it looks like on desktop? Here is my Mercari account.

How Does Mercari Work?

Sellers list their items on the Mercari App via their smartphones. To date, the app is available on iOS and Android. Mercari requires you to fill out an application form which includes mailing address, credit card information, and account verification. You will need a phone number and e-mail to set up the account.

After your account is verified, you can start selling!

Photos and descriptions are the first things required to create a listing. Make sure you have a decent camera on your smartphone. You’ll then have to list the title, description, price, shipping fees, etc. If you do not know the brand name, you can choose “no brand.”

Once you have your listing up, you’re ready to sell! And here comes a buyer!

When buyers make a purchase, payment is withdrawn from the account via credit from previous sales, credit card, debit card or PayPal.

The seller then ships the item within 1-4 days.

Once the buyer receives the item, the seller and buyer have to rate one another to complete the transaction. Rating is on a scale of 5 stars and buyers and sellers are able to leave comments about the transaction.

After the transaction is complete, funds are released into the seller’s account. The seller has the option to use it for future purchases or transfer it to a linked bank account.

If you are linking your bank account in Mercari, a routing and account number is required for the withdrawal. The withdrawals are processed within 48 hours and there is a transfer minimum of $10. You can also expedite your transfer for a 1% fee if you need cash ASAP.

Mercari Review + Best Practices

Pros and Cons of Using the Mercari

Any time we use a product, we have to weigh the cons and pros. The better we understand a product, the better we can use it to its maximum capacity.

PROS of Using Mercari

Easy listing format. It’s very easy to list your products on Mercari. The App will inform you of what fields are required and make suggestions as to how to price your item.
Make an offer! You can make offers (up to 20% off) on products that you want to buy. Mercari limits the percentage buyers can submit for offers. This prevents buyers from lowballing or making ridiculously low offers.
Excellent shipping rates! Mercari offers shipping as low as $2.99 for items weighing 4 oz or less. See the shipping scale below.
Responsive customer support team. Their customer service is accessible through the App and usually responds within a day or two.
Ability to sort from highest to lowest price. We love being able to sort by price to find the best deals!
Track great deals! You can “like” the items that you’re thinking of purchasing. Sellers have the option to offer discounts to likers. You will also be notified of any price drops on items you like.
Communicate with sellers. You can reach out to sellers via messaging on items that are active. Sellers can only respond to buyers and potential buyers only if they reach out first.
Accepts different forms of payment. Initially, Mercari would only let you use credit from sales or a credit/debit card to make purchases. Now you use PayPal! It’s so convenient and I have not had issues with their payment system yet.
Free to list. There is no cost to list your products.
List as many products as you wish! There is no limit to how many items you can list. I have seen accounts list up to 1,000 items! Enjoy unlimited listing via Mercari!
Listings never expire. I am pro this feature because it is painfully annoying to keep re-listing things that don’t sell (cough cough eBay).
Modify listings. You have the ability to delete or make listings inactive. This is especially helpful for when you go on vacation. Simply select all and deactivate. Reactivate all when you’re ready to sell again.
Auto-rating makes getting paid easier. If a buyer does not rate within 3 days, items are auto-rated with 5 stars and you are PAID! Prior to this implementation, I had to wait WEEKs to get paid. You can also send a reminder for the buyer to rate. If they don’t, you will either be auto-rated or you can reach out to their customer service team to get rated.

CONS of Using Mercari

They added service and processing fees for BOTH the buyer and seller. Within each transaction, the buyer and seller are paying added fees just to move an item. I am not a fan of these fees, but I guess it’s what’s required to keep their marketplace up and running. The fees make it so that’s fees are on par with Poshmark.
Their customer service team is accessible via messaging only. If you have issues, you’ll have to submit a query and wait for them to respond within 24-48 hours. There is not the option to call or email their customer service team. This can be frustrating when you need something to be resolved ASAP.
Mercari is typically on the buyer’s side. This can be frustrating when you describe something as is and the buyer says otherwise. I had a buyer state the color of something was not what they anticipated and Mercari approved their return. I think this is RIDICULOUS because I had all the other details of the item in the listing per the company’s website. This is one reason why I always list the stock photo AND an actual photo so that there is no confusion.
Forbidden items and activities. Mercari has forbidden certain items from being sold on their marketplace. If you’re looking for a black market, this is not the place for you. They will filter certain words (ie. exchange, trade, and derogatory or drug-related terms like pills or vape).
You can get SCAMMED! You can get scammed by buyers AND sellers on Mercari. I’ve had an experience where a buyer (her name is Yasmin Yatzkan…yes I am name-dropping because I lost $70 dollars on this sale) swapped the item I sold (new condition) for a VERY used bag in the same design. I now record all my purchases during shipping to ensure that no one scams me. You can also join Mercari groups on Facebook to get additional help and see a list of blacklisted buyers.
The desktop version of Mercari is very limited. You can browse products and update shipping information on Mercari’s desktop version. However, you cannot list products. Poshmark allows you to list products via desktop, but their fees are also higher.
Must use actual photos in listings. All images must be taken or uploaded from the App in the smartphone. Mercari also requires that you take a photo of the actual item. This can be good or bad. The listings can be accompanied by stock photos as long as an actual photo of the item is present. Mercari will allow you to load images of varying shapes and sizes onto the listing. You can also drag and drop images in the order of your choice when creating or editing a listing.

Mercari Service and Processing Fees

Mercari Shipping

Mercari works with various shippers to offer a variety of shipping rates.

You can also head over to PayPal.com/shipnow to create your own shipping labels. Sometimes this option is cheaper than Mercari.

Mercari Facebook Groups

Should You Use Mercari?

I highly recommend Mercari for reselling your used and unwanted goods. The fees are reasonable, it’s a great way to unload your belongings and earn some extra cash.

If you have a lot of belongings to sell or shop a lot, eventually it can become a nice side hustle. The money I make from my Mercari sales goes towards my vacations.

The Mercari pros definitely outweigh the cons for me. If you’d like to give Mercari a try, download the app for iPhone iOS or Android, and get $10 worth of credit to use towards your first purchase!

And if you make your first $100+ in sales, then you will receive $20 in credit.

Feel free to ask any questions. If you have any feedback or additional tips on how to maximize your sales on Mercari, please let us know in the comments know!

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kings

Tuesday 16th of July 2024

this is the most fraudulent Market Place online. they are actually in with the scammers. they dont policee them and they dont protect the buyers. and when you are scammed they dont put in any effort to investigate and dont want to refund you. you have to go through your credit card company. They have sellers scamming. who will send you tracking but meanwhile ship a dummy to a a different address and you will get a notification as delivered. Then Mercari will tell you it was delivered so they can't do nothing about it. Meanwhile USPS has a policy they won't tell you where it was delivered to and Mercari won't even tell you the address of delivery but instead tell you it was delivered and we are closing our case. bottom line is dont bother buying or selling with this fraudulent market Place

Schimiggy

Sunday 28th of July 2024

woah i am so sorry you had a bad experience. I once sent a NEW UNUSED purse and the buyer sent back a raggedy old one and I couldn't do anything about it. Now I record everything I do at the post office. hopefully this is something you can do to protect yourself as well. Record yourself opening your package and dispute directly with your credit card company is probably the best strategy.

Janet

Saturday 1st of June 2019

MERCARI HAS NOT DONE ANYTHING TO HELP ME USE THEIR APP IN 2 MONTHS. THERE'S BEEN 75 EMAILS BETWEEN US AND THE PROBLEM HAS NOT BEEN FIXED. I HAVE SPENT QUITE A BIT OF MONEY ON MERCARI BUYING ITEMS ON THEIR WEBSITE. FOR THE FIRST 4-5 YEARS THERE WAS NO PROBLEM, BUT NOW THERE IS. I CANNOT NAVIGATE ON THIS APP ANY LONGER. I SUGGESTED CLOSING OUT MY ACCOUNT AND OPENING A NEW ONE, BUT THAT'S PROHIBITED BY MERCARI. I WAS ALL READY TO START SELLING ON MERCARI, GOT ALL MY ITEMS TOGETHER WHICH TOOK A LONG TIME AND THEN MY MERCARI APP WAS UNUSABLE. ANY ADVICE???????????????????????????

Thursday 24th of October 2019

Sorry, I am not sure why the app is not usable? Did your account get banned?

Todd sampsel

Sunday 18th of February 2018

Thank you for the review . I personally feel that mercari is a very good, easy to use sellers app. I feel that some of the cons will be addressed in the future as mercari moves forward. I list about 90% of my items for sale on eBay at this time, but plan to list more on mercari as they gain my trust.. One thing I would love from mercari to help me promote items and even their app is a link like my ebay store

Http://stores.ebay.com/briella252

schimiggy

They have a promotion option which allows u to promote 5 items per day but you'd take a 10% cut for that service. I usually price my items higher than normal then use the promo option. I've sold 2 out of the 20 items I've promoted. I'm still on the fence about whether I like the promo option or not. They also list their items on Google product pages like poshmark and eBay now. Only thing is their desktop browsing site is not user friendly and sometimes does not even load for me. I have another article that lists all the different selling products u can use and their parameters. I can link you later. :) Thanks for your message!!!

smoothology101

Saturday 21st of October 2017

Maybe you can help, I can't find the answer anywhere... Why can't people make offers on items if they are using Paypal? I have had several people ask to make offers on my items today but it says Paypal won't let them.. so I have to go in, change the price and tell them to buy it right away.. or reserve it for them. If you can enlighten me, that would be awesome! Thanks!

Monday 23rd of October 2017

I've tried to do this exact same thing when buying on Mercari. Mercari doesn't allow processing of Paypal payments thru their offer function because the process can not be automated. Which means, when purchasing using paypal, you have to be actively buying the item. It's a security thing on Paypal's end. Annoying but it's what we have to deal with! Paypal works the same way on eBay.

schaltzy

Monday 28th of August 2017

DO NOT BUY OR SELL ON MERCARI! complaint as a buyer; cons: 1.only 4 photos to see what your getting, 2. sellers are usually teenagers who ship in ziplock bags with a label slapped over it.3, items are not usually as described because teens don't describe things well. 4. mercari has little protection fort you, no customerservice besides a vague text through their app to customer service. Selling cons: mercari dosnt protect you. returns are encouraged. (I sold a pair of new expensive mizunos for 79.00 and buyer blocked me and returned old mens tennis shoes beat up.) mercari wouldnt resolve this issu or step in to ban the scamming member of this site who probably has done this multiple times) 2. you dont get paid until a buyer rates you. 3. you dont know what buyer will rate you , they can do anythig to ruin you. 4. only cheap teen shop here and scam artists. 4. you money gets released Once a week.! and you have to constantly ask for it to go into your bank account.

Thursday 31st of August 2017

Thanks for your feedback! There are cons and pros to using Mercari. I still use it regardless of all the silly rules. To combat buyers from returning the wrong items, I have decided to record ALL MY SALES from the packaging to shipping process. I also let buyers know in case they're planning on scamming me. I had one bad experience and made sure that will never happen again!