Mercari: Tips for Selling on the Mercari App

Mercari is a mobile selling platform which emphasizes on a more friendly buying and selling interface. If you're new to the platform, welcome. If you're a current buyer and looking to sell or a veteran seller, then I hope this post can be informational and helpful. 

Requirements

• Smart Phone (Android / Ios)
• Bank Account ( Optional, but highly recommended for Direct Deposits)
• Shipping Supplies ( Tape, Packaging Bags, Labels )

Selling your Item(s)
Posting an item for sale is really easy. Make sure you take well lit, visible pictures. Pictures pre-taken have to be cropped into square formatted pictures. So if you want to take pictures before posting, use an App like Instagram where you can take and save pictures already in the Square Format. From there, you can upload those pictures to Mercari.

For your Item Name, you only have 40 letters to quickly describe your item. Use brand names, Color, Size, New / Used terms in this area.

Make sure you make type up a well done description. Leaving very little to describe you item will not help with actually selling your item. Items with informative descriptions often sell a lot more then ones that are very bare. This is fact.

Category helps define what the item is and where it should belong, just like on Ebay or Amazon. In some Categories, it will request a 2nd option, a Brand Option. This is optional, but if it can be filled in then it might help people locate your item.

Condition is pretty explanatory. Is it New, still in package or used. This option is required to be put in, even if you don't know the condition.

Shipping Fee is requesting if you want to use Mecari's Shipping Label System, wither if you want to charge the customer for shipping, take on the shipping charges yourself, or select you own process for shipping outside of Mercari. If you have a Paypal account, you can print out your own shipping labels by going to Paypal.com/ShipNow. Also, be sure that your item is properly weighted with its packaging. If you ship anything that is more then what you have printed on your label, your buyer will have to pay out of their pocket for the extra charges from their post office. Which is never a good thing for either party.

Concerning Labels from Mercari itself, there seems to be a misinterpretation on their labels when they are printed out. For example the USPS Label that covers .5-3lb actually covers 5lbs. The list follows:

• 0-.5 lbs $4 USPS (prints a First Class label that covers 8 oz)
• .5 - 3 LBS $6 USPS (prints a Priority label that covers 5LBS)
• 3 - 10 LBS $9 USPS (prints a Priority label that covers 12 LBS)
• 10 - 20 LBS $15 USPS (prints a Priorty label that covers 22 LBS)

Items under 1 lbs (16oz) can be shipped under First Class (Domestic) through the PayPal option mentioned above and can save you 40 cents or more depending on the weight. So if you item weights under 1 lbs, aim to use PayPal shipping labels as you'll be saving money. Anything about 1 lbs, Id recommend using Mecari's Priority Labels.
(Side Note: If your item has value to it, Priority will give $100 of coverage. If you need more then $100, follow through with PayPal as you can apply a larger insurance amount then the standard Priority Insurance coverage.)

Pricing is the last thing to type in. This is where you select how much you want to charge people for the item you have. Keep in mind, some users will want to buy things at $2. This is impossible as the system won't allow anything to be sold under $3. Many New users don't know this.

Repost! Repost!! Repost!!!
Repost items that haven't had any comments posted on them! After a few days, your item loses view ability on the platform. The only way someone finds your item is if they are looking for what you have by name or via category. Deleting and reposting the item will give it a fresh new start on being viewable again and gets a better chance of being purchased.

I recommend saving the images you used for unsold items so you don't have to keep retaking the pictures over and over again. Also, copy and paste the description of the item that you're going to repost. This will also save time from having to retype everything, especially if you made a very detailed description of your item.

Price Change Requests, Free Shipping, Lowballers
Due to the way the platform runs. Users will often ask for lower pricing for items and often, free shipping. I feel like its important for this to be brought up due to the fact that it can feel like being pressured in selling an item that is less then its value. The pressure of wanting to sell an item can be very intense, especially if you have an item that hasn't sold like you would like it. Don't let lowballers effect you. Be firm.

If you feel like you can haggle with users, then do so. Just remember to keep your pricing on the higher side of things compared to their requested pricing. It is always a gamble, but if you're successful, you can get a profitable sale.

Getting Funds Released to your Mercari Balance
Before you can get money sent to your personal bank account, you have to get your buyers to release the funds to your Mercari Balance. In order to have your funds released into your Mercari Balance, your buyer must rate the transaction after they receive their bought item. It is highly suggested that you have tracking for the items that you sell. This is because sometimes, your buyers might forget to rate you, even after they've received the item. There are a few ways to solve this problem:

1. Send a Message to your buyer asking if they have received their item ok and if they have, to rate the transaction so you can get paid. 
2. Send a Message to Mercari to have them rate the transaction for you. You will need to know the item number for the sold item, which will be on the item purchased page. Once you have this item number, go to Help Center > Contact US > Listings > Start New Conversation. Ask Mercari to rate the sold item, tell them that the tracking shows it was delivered, and the buyer has not responded to your messages. Personally, Mercari Staff will finalize the transaction within 1 hour to 24 hours. 
3. (*If you have more then one item having the same issue, get every item number and supply those numbers within the same message. Mercari Staff should then go through each item and finalize them all)

Getting Money to your Bank
At the time of this posting, Mercari does not charge for making a successful sale on their USA platform. They also currently do not charge for posting items onto the platform. Which is a Win/Win when it comes many other platforms such as Ebay, Amazon, Etsy, and other Selling Mobile Apps. The only thing you'll need to keep in mind is that you'll need to acquire at least $10 to make a free bank deposit. Anything less then $10 and you'll be charged $2.

To request a Direct Deposit, you must have an active checking account, from which you'll need to get its account number and routing number. This can be set up and added in Setting > Balance > Request Bank Direct Deposit.

Deposits can be requested at any time. However, the ideal time to request a deposit is on Sundays before 11:55pm (PST). The reason behind this is due to the fact that they only process deposits on Mondays at Midnight (12am PST). Depending von your bank, it usually takes 3 or 4 days to be received by your bank.
However, if you miss that deadline, then you'll have to wait until the following Monday/Week for money to be sent to your account.

Conclusion
While not trying to have a bias opinion of Mercari (which is very impossible right now), we enjoy using Mercari very much. We have been using it for over a year (opened our account in 2015) and have sold more product on there then Ebay and Etsy combined. More like 7 times more. Which is no joke. We have had more then 300 sales in one year on Mercari when it took 3 years to get that much on Ebay & Etsy combined.

10 Ways of Better Selling on Etsy

Index

Know Your Competition | Product Photography | Variety in Products | Figure out your Brand | Advertising / Self Promotion | Etsy Teams / Forums | About Page and Policy Page | SEO and Tags | Pricing | Have Fun

Etsy is the front lines of Online Hand Craftsmanship and you're on the front line of that battlefield (assuming you already have a shop open). You can either fail or succeed, but only a certain level of hard work and determination put into what you do will be the key to your success or it will be your downfall.

In order for you to also be successful, you must understand how Ecommerce (Etsy specifically) works and how to use that knowledge to help you tweak your online personality and your product listing to bring potential customers to YOUR table.

1.) Know Your Competition

Knowing your competition is key to having a selling success story, not just once, but multiple times over. This applies on real life retail or online retail situations. This involves knowing your competitions product, selling strategy, and pricing (especially if they have any deals).

Research! If you're selling on Etsy or any other platform (eBay, Amazon, Bonanza), you need to research and see how people are describing their items, how they are tagging their items, and what they are using as their item's titles. If your doing that already, then you're already on the right track.

Knowing what others are selling and how they are presenting their product is key to knowing how to present your own products!

2.) Product Photography

Having a well photographed product/listing is key bringing a potential customer into your online shop or even view a product listing. Proper lighting, backdrop, environment, and stand (if you plan on selling jewelry or very small items) will help with your presentation of your item.

Unless your direct linking people to an item they are already interested in, they majority of your views to your listing will be because of your Main Picture for that listing. If its a dark picture, is crowded (has competing colors in its background), or just bad resolution quality, then you most likely wont get as many views to said listing, which means less chances of a purchase.

There are many tutorials out there on the web, with a good portion that are actual videos, that can help in taking decent product photography.

• How to create product images with Pure White Background
• Table Top Studio - Product Photography Tips

3.) Variety in Products

Grow! This one word, is one of the things, especially if you're new, will be a struggle. You have to constantly be growing your shop by uploading it with new products frequently.

The reason behind this need is that if the potential customer doesn't have much of a selection to choice from, then they wont think you have something to offer them. Variety in quantity (without the loss of Quality) is key to having a successful online shop. The more you have, the longer a customer will browse your shop and brand. The longer they are with you, the greater chances they'll make a purchase from you or better yet, contact you if something custom can be made based on what you have already offered in your shop.

4.) Figure out your Brand

Before or after, depending on if you have a game plan on what you want to do or if your new at it all, you need to figure out what your brand (aka your product and your style) is trying to represent.

Branding can be multiple things:

• Type of the Product being Offered
• How you Showcase it
• How you Personally Represent it

Type, Display, and/or Personality; these are the three kinds of branding you can represent. Wither you choose one, two, or all three is up to you, but it very important to be able to signify what your shop is about.

( Business cards, Logo Style, Name of your Shop, and any other Graphical add-ons that apply to your shop is Branding as well. These should fit together as a set and should never differ from each other or cause confession on your Brand's Identity.)

5.) Advertising / Self Promotion

Promoting yourself is just as important as being able to sell yourself and your brand. If you aren't promoting and advertising your product, then you are just stabbing yourself in the foot.

Advertising your product isn't as hard as it seems. Sometimes is might cost you some out of pocket cash, but the main focus here will be advertising on a free market.

The free advertising market, which includes primarily many social networking sites, is the focus of this section. In fact, you most likely use one of those sites (if you aren't, then you should!) on an almost daily basis.

These websites include:

• Facebook (primarily Facebook Pages)
• Google +
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Youtube

This is just a short list of 7,  but this is a strong short list of social media websites that are constantly waiting to be filled with new content, especially pictures and video.

Handling all these sites can be a handful. Luckily, there is an app/website that makes it simple to.

IF THIS THEN THAT, or simply IFTTT.com, offers the ability to cause one post, say to Facebook, be also posted amongst other sites. Indeed worth a check. ( I personally use this and I can guarantee it works amazingly) Its available for Iphone and Android devices.

Being able to spread yourself out to multiple locations and trying to get your product out there is so key to success! Its how movies are advertised; through TV, Social Media, Youtube, ect. The more you spread yourself upon the media, the more you'll get out of it in return, and that return being sales.

6.)  Etsy Teams / Forums

Depending if your new or not, You should be checking out Etsy Teams and the Etsy Forums.

The Etsy Forums is a valuable source of information from thousands of users, past and present, filled with their questions and of course, answers. It is also a great place to see what the current buzz is about with the Etsy Website itself.

Besides the later, if you haven't ever noticed, there are dozens of people constantly asking other users, most of whom are sellers as well, to over look their shops and give them (Hopefully you in the near future) thoughtful cortiques from a specific listing to their overall shop.  This in itself is a strong service to take advantage of since this advice is given freely.

Etsy Teams, just like the forums, is another avenue to seeking help from others, but more on the concentrating level. Most teams or groups, have a specific goal in mind, either that being to help others with Tags & SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to helping sellers with having a better item presentation.

There are also groups on Facebook that do the same thing as Etsy Teams, but with the better social interaction interface that Facebook provides. You can either search for them on your own on Facebook or you can check this list of Groups on this blog:

• Etsy Teams
• Etsy Forums
• Facebook Groups for Etsy Sellers

7.)  About Page and Policy Page

I find it really important to fill in your Policy Page (Policy Example of Mine) as many potential customers that are new to Etsy might have doubt in a new shop (or even a well aged shop) and not purchase anything from you. Even if you have a filled Policy Page, look it over again, ask a friend or someone online to over look it and get their opinion. If by chance, one of those options have a conflict with your policies, then potential customers might also have a conflict with them as well. 

Your About Page (About Page Example of Mine) is your place to shine, literally. Its your chance to tell anyone about you and what makes the shop itself tick. It could be your first and last opportunity to express yourself and your craft to those people who seek out your skill without having to talk to them one on one. Use your best pictures, best vocab and grammar, and upon everything else, make yourself sound interesting and unique (without sugarcoating it)!

8.) SEO and Tags

SEO and Listing Tags is crucial and also very in depth in many cases. Whether you're new to it or a veteran, these two things can make make you money or prevent you from making any money at all. 

SEO is what Google or any other search engine uses to figure if your item has what the user of that search engine is looking for.

For example, if you type "Crocheted Baby Cockblock" in Google, you will most likely be engulfed by pictures and links to my Crocheted Cockblocks. This is the power of SEO.

SEO works along with pictures, link address, and the short beginning of a description on a page, in this instance, my Etsy (or any other site) listing.

Tags are used more primarily on the Etsy Site it self. It helps narrow down items and display what is most relevant to you or your customer's search.

When using tags, it is highly suggested to NOT use one worded tags. However, they can still be used, but its better to use a combination of words that help describe your listing/product. If you have issues with figuring what you should tag, go off of this list:

• What is it?
• What is it for?
• Who is it for?
• When can it be used?
• Why does it exist?

Here are also some guides that can help with Tagging and SEO:

• How to tag-o-rama with Descriptive Keywords
• Etsy SEO for Long Tail Keywords

9.)  Pricing

The pricing of your items can attract or can scare away potential customers. Pricing can be one of the hardest things you'll have to decide upon, especially if the priced item in question is completely hand made.

There is a basic model of how to charge:

Material Cost + Labor Costs + Handmade Skill Charge = Pricing

Material Cost is easy to explain. Since you want to cover your purchasing costs of said material, you'll want to add this. This can also, in sometimes, be the most expensive part of the equation.

Labor Costs is hard to define. Depending on your craft, it could be above the standard min wage or it could be way below. This could also change from product to product, from simplicity or stupid difficult.

The Handmade Skill Charge is something I personally tack on to my pricing. My explanation to this when I tell people is that I'm providing a product that requires a certain amount of skill and experience that the normal individual wouldn't have the time or patience to learn themselves. I am providing something unique to the individual because of a Skill I have finely tuned with years of experience.

Last that isn't mention is that of Shipping Costs. Depending on your item, you can either absorb the shipping costs of the said item in question or add it on. This add on can either be on the Pricing itself or as a separate charge, which is usually listed as "Shipping and Handling".

The one thing you must be careful about with charging shipping separately, is that if the cost of the shipping isn't justified or overwhelming to a lot (without justification) then you'll be left with a customer that deletes the item from their online cart or plain out abandons it, which is never a good thing and honestly happens quite often, online and in real life.

10.) Have Fun

No. Seriously. Depending on your mindset or where your coming at, if your new at it all or a veteran, you need to remember to have fun, but still professional of course.

I have found that most of my creations come from me not even thinking about them because I was having fun with what I was doing.

If you tend to stress out or are scared of failure, try not too if its possible.

"One with an ease mind is quicker to react then with a mind filled with doubt and stress." - Amigurumi Man + All those other Wise Men & Women in the World