Mercari Review : Is Legit or Scam? 2024

Mercari advertises as “the selling app”. It adds that it makes it super easy to sell virtually anything. If it is a platform to sell products, then it is also a platform to buy products. Thus, Mercari is an online marketplace; a place where independent sellers can list their products for sale, and where persons looking to buy items online and go to for their purchase.

The big question is whether using Mercari is worth it? As a seller, can you easily list products? Does the platform have the traffic needed to maximize sales? What about the costs of using Mercari, hope Mercari has reasonable charges?

As a buyer, can you easily get needed items in Mercari? Does it give a top buying experience? For example, does it offer a good range of high quality and affordably priced products? Also, does it offer top services like fast delivery, easy returns, effective customer support service, etc?

In the first place, is Mercari legit, or is it just another scam platform out to rip off unsuspecting customers.

Yes, Mercari is legit. It is not a scam because they will never steal your money or refuse to ship the products purchased from its store. But that does not mean they are perfect, continue reading to know what customers are saying about the quality of their services and out findings.

This Mercari review will examine Mercari in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.

Mercari review at a glance

• Website: mercari.com
• An app-focused online marketplace
• Allows selling and buying of virtually everything, including pre-owned and new items
• It is 100% free to list items
• Fees only apply when an item sells, and the applicable 10% sellers’ fee is relatively low
• Has strong buyer protection, ensuring that you’ll receive delivery of orders and that items will be as described
• Ships to only the 50 US States
• Returns are possible for “not as described” and damaged orders if Mercari is contacted within 3 days of the delivery date

What is Mercari?

Mercari is a Latin word that means to trade, and it is the root of the English word mercantile. This tells you that Mercari is all about trading. That said, Mercari was created as a trading app in Japan (in 2013) by Shintaro Yamada. It launched one year later (2014) in the US. Mercari calls itself the selling app. It’s clear that it is an app-focused platform where people can buy and sell virtually anything.

We have things we don’t use, never used, or simply outgrew. Mercari says that if any of that stuff still have value, then you should be turning them to cash by easily listing them for sale in the platform. This means that Mercari is one of the online marketplaces for selling and buying pre-owned items. However, merchants can also use the platform. Thus, Mercari also holds new items.

It should be said that as a marketplace Mercari does not own the items listed in the platform. However, it directly receives payment for orders; and will release funds to the Seller only when the buyer confirms delivery and that the item is as described.

Is Mercari legit?

Using a legit eCommerce platform is a no-brainer. There are just too many stories of unsuspecting customers being ripped off by scam eCommerce platforms. Thus, the big question is whether Mercari is legit. The simple answer to that is “YES”.

Our first check of a legit eCommerce platform is legality. This is because the platforms that are powered by 100% legal companies are less likely to be a scam. Thankfully, Mercari ticks this box. It is owned by 100% legal company (Mercari Inc.). This company has gone through five rounds of funding from top investment institutions such as the Development Bank of Japan, World Innovation Lab and more. Suffice it to say that a scam platform that is not 100% legal cannot get funding from such high profile investment institutions.

Another check of a legit eCommerce platform is visibility and industry-wide recognition. This is because the scam stores operate in the shadows. Thankfully, Mercari ticks this box. With over 45 million downloads in the US, Mercari is an eCommerce platform that has been featured by top publishers and media houses that include Bloomberg Business, teen Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, Huff Post, CNBC, and more. Also, Mercari is a multi-award winning selling app, with such awards as “Best App” and “Forbes Japan’s Startup of the Year”. Suffice it to say that a scam platform cannot earn the recognition of high profile industry watchers.

Another check of a legit eCommerce platform is the test of time. This is because the scam stores are usually short-lived. Thankfully, Mercari also ticks this box. Starting up in 2013 (2014 in the US), it is relatively young, but its circa 5 years of operation is enough time for it to be called out if it were a scam platform.

However, the ultimate check of a legit ecommerce platform is fitness for purpose. The purpose of an ecommerce platform is to provide buying and selling services. That is, Sellers can actually list their products and actually get paid when a sale is made and the product is delivered; and Buyers can actually receive delivery of real and functional products when they place an order and make payment. Thankfully, Mercari ticks this box. Sellers can easily list items for sale; and when buyers place orders, they are delivered real and functional items.

With Mercari operated by a 100% legal company, widely recognized, and with a half-decade operating record of helping Sellers turn their items to cash and delivering real and functional products to Buyers, there is no doubt that it is a legit eCommerce platform.

Is Mercari safe?

Mercari is safe. To use an eCommerce platform, you’ll submit sensitive information like your contact details, and payment instrument data (e.g. credit card details). With many fraudsters out there, you’ll want an eCommerce platform that’ll adequately protect the sensitive data that you share with it.

Thankfully, Mercari ticks this box. It says that it takes “required steps to protect” users’ data. This includes the use of SSL technology, which is the industry standard for protecting data being transmitted over the internet. Mercari also says that it does not share your personal information with third parties, except it is to improve and personalize your Mercari experience.

With the use of SSL amongst other measures, it is safe to say that Mercari is safe.

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Products

The “products” that an eCommerce store supports is an important consideration when planning to use one, whether as a buyer or a seller. As a buyer, you’ll want a one-stop-shop where you can buy all your needs, as that will be more convenient that researching and visiting different stores for your purchase needs. Also, as a Seller, you’ll want a platform that allows you to list a range of products, as that will be more convenient that listing in different niche platforms.

Thankfully, Mercari ticks this box. The categories (and product you can list for sale (or find for buy) in each category) is as follows:

• Women – Dresses, Athletic Apparel, Sweaters, Jeans, Pants, Skirts, Coats & Jackets, Suits & Blazers, Tops & Blouses, Swimwear, Women’s Handbags, Women’s Accessories, Jewelry, Maternity, Shoes, Underwear, Other
• Men – Tops, Blazers & Sports coats, Sweaters, Jeans, Pants, Shorts, Coats & Jackets, Sweats & Hoodies, Suits, Athletic Apparel, Swimwear, Men’s Accessories, Shoes
• Kids
• Home – Kids’ Home Store, Kitchen & Dining, Bedding, Bath, Furniture, Home Décor, Artwork, Seasonal Décor, Home Appliances, Party Supplies, Storage & Organization, Cleaning Supplies
• Vintage & Collectibles – Jewelry, Paper Ephemera, Home Décor, accessories, Housewares, Supplies, Antique, Clothing, Serving, Books, Bags & Purses, Electronics, Furniture, Trading Cards, Others
• Beauty – Bathing and Skin Care, Car Seats & Accessories, Diapering, Gear, Health & Baby Care, Nursery, Potty Training, Safety, Strollers, Others
• Electronics – Cameras & Photography, Virtual Reality, Cell Phones & accessories, TV & Video, Video Games & Consoles, Car Audio (video & GPS), Media, Computers & Laptops, wearables, Smart Home & Security, Speakers & Audio, Headphones & MP3 Players, Tablets & E-readers, Drones, Others
• Sports & Outdoors – Exercise clothing, Footwear, Golf, Outdoor, Fan shop, Others
• Handmade – Housewares, Art, Woodworking, Ceramics & Pottery, Glass, Music, Weddings, Holidays, Needlecraft, Geekery, Paper goods, Candles, Art, Crochet, Furniture, Quilts, Accessories, Pets, Knitting, Bags and Purses, Jewelry, Books and Zines, others
• Other – Pet Supplies, Daily & Travel Items, Office Supplies, Musical Instrument, etc

Mercari – For Sellers

Selling With Mercari

Mercari advertises with the tagline “the selling app”; adding that it makes it easy to sell almost anything. Like any online marketplace, you’ll need to register and create an account as a seller. Mercari advertises that using the platform as a Seller involves three simple steps – sell it, ship it, and get paid.

Sell It

This simply means creating your listing. You’ll want a platform where it is hassle-free to create a listing. Thankfully, Mercari ticks this box, as it is relatively easy to list items in Mercari. As Mercari advertises, listing involves three simple steps – take good photos, describe the item fully, and price fairly.

As we’ll find in the “Mercari for Buyers” section, Mercari supports the “Make an Offer” feature, which allows buyers to negotiate. However, Sellers will take comfort in knowing that Mercari allows an offer price to only be at least 75% of the listing price. So you can be sure that you’ll not get ridiculous time-wasting offers.

Shipping

When a customer places an order for an item you list in an online marketplace, you’ll have to package the item and ship it to the customer. Thus, shipping is an important consideration when using online marketplaces.

Ease of Shipping

In this regards, Mercari does not let your ship the item yourself. It supports two shipping options, and it allows Sellers to choose a preferred shipping option or leave the choice of shipping option to the Buyer. In either case, when your item sells, Mercari will send you a shipping label, which you can print and attach to your package for easy shipping. There’s no doubt that the shipping label makes for relatively easy shipping.

Shipping Costs

However, another important shipping consideration is cost of shipping, as this can affect the profitability of sellers. Yes, shipping costs are most often than not borne by buyers, but if they are too high, they will cause total cost to be high, and it’ll be difficult for your item too high.

Unfortunately, Mercari does not shine in this regards, as its shipping costs are relatively high. Mercari has recently introduced a calculated shipping rate, where shipping cost vary depending on the weight of the item; and this only shot shipping charges upwards.

Getting Paid

If you want to use a marketplace, it’s because you have items that you’ll want to turn to cash. So how and when you’ll get paid is also an important consideration. In this regards, Mercari does not particular shine, as payment options are limited, and the payment is relatively slow in coming.

Payment Options

As mentioned earlier, Mercari receives payment directly from Buyers. So when it’s time for it to release payment to you, you’ll want to find different payment options. Unfortunately, Mercani only pays Sellers via ACH Direct Deposit to their checking accounts.

Speed of Payout

Needless to say, after waiting and waiting to make sales, when you finally do, you’ll want to receive the payment as fast as possible. Unfortunately, the buyer protection of Mercari means that payment may be slow in coming.

Because buyers will not pay you directly for purchases, unlike many online marketplaces, payment for purchase will not hit your account when the order is placed. Also, even after the buyer receives delivery of your item, you still won’t get the payment immediately. This is because Mercari gives buyers three days from receiving delivery of your item to rate you before your payment will be received.

Don’t expect every buyer to rate you immediately after receiving delivery. In fact, many buyers will “forget” to, letting the three days run out. Thankfully, if the buyer does not rate you in the allowed 3 days, Mercari will auto-rate you and release your payment to you.

Fees

Where fees are involved, Sellers almost always want platforms with fees that are as low as possible. Thankfully, this is one area where Mercari shines.

First, it is absolutely free to list items in Mercari. This is one feather on the legit cap of Mercari. Since there are no upfront fees to list items and sell them in Mercari, if it does not work out as expected, you can simply walk away and not lose anything (financially).

However, it is not completely free to use Mercari. Sellers’ fees apply when a sale is made. Interestingly, the fees that Mercari charges are low – only 10% of the items price. This makes the pricing of Mercari one of its strongest points. Not only is it free to list your items and get sales, but the commission you’ll have to pay on completed sales is relatively low.

Fees that you’ll find in marketplaces include payment processing fees. Sellers generally don’t like that they have to pay extra to get paid, especially after paying the marketplace its sales commission. Unfortunately, the payment processing fee applies in Mercari. This fee is $2.00. The good thing is that it applies only when requesting payment less than $10. Thus, you can simply avoid it by earning more than $10 in your Mercari seller’s account.

Selling Complaints

What Sellers in a platform has to say about it gives valuable insight into how well the platform is for Sellers. Thus, the complaints section is an important part of our reviews. For this section, we checked the independent customers’ reviews platforms like Sitejabber and Trustpilot.

Unfortunately, Mercari was not highly rated on these platforms. For example, at the time of writing this review, in Trustpilot, Mercari had an average rating of 1.9 out of 5; and in Sitejabber, it had an average rating of 1.6 out of 5. Many complaints accounted for the relatively poor rating. These complaints as they concern Sellers include: high shipping costs, poor customer service, and poor Seller protection

High Shipping Costs

Another complaint you’ll find among Mercari’s Sellers is that shipping costs are high. For example:

• Tianna in Trustpilot says “Started off Amazing… shipping was simple with few options and the rates were very fair. Then… the convenient ease of shipping took over. I went to list a vest that was 1lb 2oz just to find out it’ll take $10.77 to ship, a lamp that was 5lbs 2oz and it was $25 to ship. I exited the app after that to let it sink in. The shipping options are EXTREMELY minimal with an OUTRAGEOUS expense added to it. They have the audacity to want sellers to include free shipping. In other words, they appear to have 0, zero, ZERO consideration for sellers…”
• Ezra Raith in Trustpilot says “Mercari was my go-to the site to sell until their calculated shipping was introduced. It says 60% cheaper labels but does not allow exact measurements/ weights. To ship a pair of jeans that weighs 1lb 2oz costs almost $11 (USPS) due to this change, whereas I was shipping jeans for $5.25 (USPS) months ago! …It constantly promotes free shipping for the sellers to us, but in using this new calculated shipping method, AND mercari’s 10% tax on sales, sellers will not make anything! I had to list a brand new pair of jeans for $5 because the shipping was $11 for the buyer. [Had] I listed them higher (to cover shipping costs) with free shipping, there’s no way the item will sell. Not when Amazon, eBay, Poshmark and Depop all exist! The calculated shipping is a joke, and is definitely not worth it for sellers…”
• Blkstrmshep in Trustpilot says “What a joke” The review continued “Ya, if you want nothing for the item, Tried to post a rice cooker for $15, and the shipping was around $12, and my cash to make after all said and done was around a dollar”

The high shipping rates of Mercari means that items you list will be difficult to sell. If you leave shipping costs to the buyers, it jacks up the total acquisition costs. If you want to provide free shipping, as Mercari encourages, you’ll have to raise your listing price in order to cover shipping costs; the result is that your items may no longer be competitively priced. Considering the relatively high shipping charges of Mercari, so that the total price of your item to the customer is still competitive, you may have to floor your listing price. While this increases the chances of your item selling, it significantly erodes your profit margin.

No Seller Protection

Another complaint about Mercari amongst the many sellers in the independent customers’ reviews platform is that Mercari is biased to buyers, meaning there is no form of Seller protection. For example:

• Mena Ro is Trustpilot says “Mercari is not just bad it’s worse. I’ve never dealt with anything worse, no customer service, anyone to contact when an issue arises… All you need is a shady person that buys something from you to say that the item is “in their opinion” not accurate or fake. Well, in that case, Mercari closes “without investigating” the seller’s account, leaving the seller without the item and without the money. It’s actually made for people that are smart and want to take advantage of others. There’s a whole community of people that have been scammed this way and Mercari has done NOTHING at all to help; they didn’t even have the decency to call a lawyer back when they were asked to. Worst business ever”
• Emma in Trustpilot says “This app is a joke! I sold an iPhone XR within minutes but then the [buyer] didn’t want it for no good reason; she said she didn’t like the colour. It’s white! All details were in ad. I [shipped] it the same day; paid $30 for shipping bcus I bought extra stuff to make sure it wouldn’t break in the mail; even sent the phone with a brand new case, and Mercari approved the return for that bs reason! Then the buyer sends the phone with no case or headphones. I mean yes headphones aren’t that expensive but I want to sell the phone with them! So now I lost my $30 for shipping, no case, and no headphones, and still have this mink condition phone…”

As we’ll find in the Buyer’s section, Mercari has a strong buyer protection. However, the Sellers reviews suggest that some buyers easily use this to scam Sellers. The complaint here is that after an item is sold and duly shipped, some “dishonest” buyer will contact Mercari that it is “not as described” or damaged, and Mercari without investigating will proceed to refund the buyer.

Some Sellers report being blocked which means they’ll not only get their payment for the item, but they’ll also not get back their item. Other Sellers did get their item back but will lose the money spent on shipping.

Mercari advertises that it has a Seller Protection of shipping insurance to the tune of $200 for every item shipped using its prepaid label. However, when a Buyer claims that the item received is damaged, even if the Seller has evidence that the item when dispatched for shipping was undamaged, Mercari refunds the Buyer, leaving the Seller with no resolution.

Abysmal Customer Support Service

Another complaint loud among the Sellers is that reaching Mercari for support is difficult, and where contact is made, there is hardly any assistance obtained. For example:

• Hillary in Trustpilot says “Don’t love nor hate it” The review continued “I buy and sell on Mercari and I neither love nor hate it. It most definitely has some flaws… customer service is abysmal”
• Christina Calhoun in Trustpilot says “Not the App I thought it was” The review continued “At first I loved this app thinking it was best selling app but I was quickly surprised by the lack of support for the transactions on this site…”

Given the complaint of “buyers trying to scam sellers by claiming receipt of not-as-described or damaged item”, it’s not surprising that Sellers bombard Mercari with support submissions. Unfortunately, the reviews suggest that, most often than not, they (Sellers) do not get expected assistance.

The poor customer support mentioned in complaints includes basic failures such as not responding to submissions, and not investigating Buyer’s claims before proceeding to “punish” sellers.

Selling Pros and Cons

Pros

• Absolutely free to join
• Very easy to list items
• Provides shipping labels to make for easy shipping
• Relatively low commission (charge 10% of item’s price as Seller’s fees)

Cons

• Payment can be slow incoming
• Payment is only via ACH Direct Deposit to checking accounts.
• $2 payment processing fee applies when requesting less than $10
• High shipping costs
• The buyer protection is easily used by dishonest buyers to scam sellers

Mercari – For Buyers

Making a Purchase in Mercari

Yes, you’ll also need to register to make a purchase in Mercari. There are two ways to make a purchase – Buy Now and Make an Offer. The Buy Now button is your regular purchase. The listed items are with a set price, and if you like the item and click the “Buy Now” button, you’ll be charged the set price.

However, the “Make an Offer” option allows you to complete a purchase in your own terms. It brings negotiation into an online purchase. The listed item comes with a set price; if you like the item but not its price, you can then make an offer of a price you’ll want to get the product for. The Seller will have 24 hours to accept, or reject your offer or make a counteroffer. All offers are binding; so if the Seller accepts your offer, you’ll be charged the offer price. However, you can only make an offer if you’re using the Mercari app.

If you like the item you discover but are not ready to “Buy Now” or “Make an Offer”, you can save the item using “Save this search” button. That way, later returning to the item to make the purchase is easy. If you find an item that you like, clicking on it will take you to the item’s description page. There you’ll find every detail of the item. You can “Add to cart”, and then proceed to make payment.

Many times, after placing an order, the buyer will have a change of heart and will want to cancel the order or modify it. It should be remembered that Mercari is a marketplace, and has no right over products being sold. However, for a marketplace, Mercari has a relatively good cancellation policy.

Orders can be cancelled anytime before it ships. However, buyers cannot cancel an order from their end; as a buyer, you’ll have to reach out to the seller to ask that the order is cancelled. Yes, it is up to the Seller to agree or deny the request. If the Seller agrees, Mercani refunds you to the original form of payment. Mercari will also issue the refund if the seller has not shipped the order, and does not respond to the cancellation request within 24 hours.

Pricing and Related Policies

Pricing

You’ll want an eCommerce store that features competitive pricing. Mercari does so-so in this regards. On the one hand, you can find items with great prices; but on the other hand, some items in the platform are not so greatly priced.

Payment

You want a hassle-free buying experience, so you’ll want to find a range of convenient payment methods. Thankfully, Mercani ticks this box. You can pay for orders in the platform using PayPal and all major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover). You also use Apply Pay, as well as Mercani Credits.

With these options you should be able to pay for your Mercani order without any hassle. However, note that Mercani does not accept methods which are issued outside of the US.

Shipping

When making online purchases, the order will have to be moved (at a later time) from the retailers’ facility to the shipping address provided by you (the buyer). Thus, shipping is an important consideration. You’ll want to know: whether the online platform ships to your location, how long it’ll take to receive your order, and how much it’ll cost.

Shipping Destination

If an eCommerce platform does not directly ship merchandise to your location, it’ll be unnecessarily difficult to receive delivery of your items. Thus, world-facing platforms are desired; so that no matter where the customer resides, the location is more likely to be covered.

Unfortunately, Mercari does not make it as a world facing eCommerce store. It only ships to the 50 US States.

Delivery Times

After placing your order, you definitely will not want to be waiting forever to receive delivery of the item(s). Thus, how long it takes an eCommerce platform to deliver is a necessary consideration. Delivery Times is usually an addition of the order processing time and the package shipping time.

Mercari does well in terms of processing time as it requires its Sellers to ship the item within 3 days of order placement.

In terms of shipping time, Mercari has two shipping options – Priority Mail and Home Delivery. However, it should be said that Mercari allows Sellers to choose a preferred shipping carrier (and the carrier determine the shipping option available, because Priority Mail is only available by USPS, while Home Delivery is available via FedEx and UPS). Thus, for some items in Mercari, you’ll find that you do not have a choice of shipping method. However, where the Seller does not have a preferred shipping carrier and gives the Buyer the option to choose, you can choose the shipping option and carrier.

First Class/Priority Mail takes 1 – 3 business days going to the 48 US States, and takes 3 – 5 business going to Hawaii and Alaska; while Home Delivery takes 1 – 5 business days when going to the 48 US States, and takes 3 – 7 business days when going to Hawaii and Alaska.

Returns

When making online purchases there is the fear that when you order is delivered, it may not be 100% satisfactory. Because of this, online shoppers gravitate towards e-commerce platforms that will allow them to return an unsatisfactory item and get a replacement or a refund of payment.

Thankfully, Mercari ticks this box, as it allows you to return an item in your order if it is not 100% satisfactory.

Eligible Items

You should know that eCommerce platforms usually have return restrictions, which means that it is not everything purchased from an eCommerce platform that can be returned. That said, you’ll want the return restrictions to be limited so that you won’t receive delivery of an item that you’ll rather return but can’t.

In this regards, Mercari does not come out flying. Its buyer protection means that buyers are allowed to only request returns and refunds for items that are not as described. This means that you cannot return items purchased through Mercari for “Buyer remorse”. That is, you cannot return an item simply because you have a change of mind, or you happen not to like the item.

Returns are also not allowed for ill-fitting items. This will disappoint many shoppers of fashion items because “sizing” is one of the main reasons for returns of items in the fashion category.

Buyer Protection

In fact, Mercari comes has a strong buyer’s protection. First, when you buy an item, you do not directly send the payment to the seller. Rather, Mercari receives the payment; and it holds the payment. It will only release the payment to the seller when you confirm that you’ve received your order, and it is as described, and then you rate the Seller.

The last part (rating the Seller) is very important, as it completes the transaction for release of payment to the Seller. If you do not submit the Seller’s rating within 3 days of confirmed delivery, Mercari auto rate the Seller so that the Seller can be paid. When payment is released to the Seller, it’s no longer possible to process a return and request refunds.

Return Process

You should know that allowing returns is not enough; the return process should be easy. This is because a difficult return process can easily add to the frustration of receiving delivery of an unwanted item. In this regards, Mercari does so-so. However, it does not have a “no questions asked” return policy.

So when you receive an unwanted item that is eligible for returns, the first step is to contact Mercari’s customer support service by submitting a request form accessible from its website. However, not offering a “no questions asked” return policy means that you’ll have to explain why you are returning the item, and show evidence of your claims. Mercari requires relatively more photo evidence, as it requires not less than four clear detailed pics of the front, back, and sides of the items, as well as pics of the packaging and the other items shipped in the package.

When your return request is approved, Mercari will send you an authorization email which will carry return instructions as well as a prepaid return label. You can then proceed to package the item appropriately, attach the return label to the outside of the box, and send it to USPS for shipping back to the retailer.

That Mercari sends a prepaid Return Label is a big plus of its return process. Prepaid Return Labels makes for easy returns. Being pre-addressed, you won’t have to worry about return addresses and related issues; and being prepaid, at the time of making the return you won’t be out of pocket.

Return Window

However, you don’t have forever to request the return of an unwanted item. Usually, retailers will only accept back items that are returned within a specified period. In this regards, Mercari allows 3 days from receipt of the item to be contacted about a return.

If you fail to contact Mercari within 3 days of receipt, sales become final, and the item cannot be returned any longer. However, if you think 3 days is not enough for your return-decision, it is possible to request an extension. For that, you’ll have to first contact the Seller, before contacting Mercari using its online contact form. However, know that extension is not guaranteed.

If the return request is put through within 3 days (or within the extended period), and it is approved by Mercari, you’ll receive a return label, and you’ll be required to ship back the return package within 3 days of receiving the return label.

This means that the return window of Mercari is relatively smaller than what’s often seen, as many online stores usually offer a return window of “30 days from the delivery date”.

Cost of Return

When you receive an item you’ll like to return to its retailer, you’ll not want prohibitive costs of returns to stand in your way. Thus, the ideal eCommerce platform should offer return costs that are as low as possible. Thankfully, Mercari aces it in this regards.

Cost of returns seen in eCommerce consists of restocking fees and return shipping fees. The former (restocking fees) do not apply anywhere in Mercari. Also, the Return Labels that Mercari provides are not only prepaid but free, meaning that you won’t have to worry about return shipping costs ever, not just at the point of shipping the return package. So when you use the return Label of Mercari, nothing will be subtracted from your refund for the cost of the return label.

Return Processing and Refunds

After following the return process and shipping back an unwanted item, you’ll not want to wait forever to receive the refunds. Thus, the ideal eCommerce platform should feature fast processing of returns and issuance of refunds. Thankfully, this is one area where Mercari shines bright.

Usually, retailers will wait to receive the return package and inspect it before flipping the refund switch. However, the refund policy is quite different from Mercari.

For items that are priced under $100, the refund is issued once you’ve shipped the return package, and the return tracking information updates to “In Transit”. This may take up to 48 hours, as USPS can easily take that much time to update the status in their system. However, for items that are priced over $100, the refund is issued once the item has been delivered to the seller.

This is one of the fastest “returns processing time” you’ll find in the eCommerce world. However, after the refund is issued, it’ll take some waiting time for the funds to reflect in your account. This will usually take up to 5 – 10 business days depending on your financial institution.

Buying Complaints

Just like in the Sellers’ section, what Buyers have to say give a real insight into whether the platform will be worthwhile for you as a Buyer. You’ll find different buyers’ complaints of Mercari in the independent reviews platforms, including small return window, poor customer support service, etc.

Small Return Window

One of the buyer complaints that dominate the spaces is that the 3 days that Mercari allows for it to be contacted about returns is largely inadequate. For example:

• Lisa H in Sitejabber says “Not safe to buy on” the review continued “Gives you only 3 days! Sellers do not respond if you have a problem and you cannot even give them a rating, very unsafe. No option to get a refund or replacement after only 3 days! RUN do not walk away! And it floods your inbox with SPAM”

It should be noted that the full return window is not 3 days. You’ll have 3 days (from delivery date) to contact Mercari, and after getting return approval you’ll have within 3 days of receiving the return label to ship back the unwanted item. However, with online shoppers “spoilt” by 30 days return windows, Mercari’s offer is understandably perceived as short.

Unhelpful Customer Service

Again, buyers also complain about customer support service. For example:

• Armineh S in Sitejabber says “…I have been an online shopper for decades. I have never had so much trouble with any of the sites. Their operators are unable to help, they have no person to person assistance, they will only email you… nonsense. I purchased something and needed to cancel right away… for days tried their customer service, 20 emails back and forth, phone calls…until sure enough, the item showed up at my door…”

The reviews quickly revealed that the “poor customer support” complaint had two arms; first is “not getting a response to support submissions”, and the other is that where the response is obtained, it is largely unhelpful.

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Buying Pros and Cons

Pros

• Buyers can make purchases in their own terms by making an offer
• Offers convenient payment methods (credit cards, PayPal, and ApplePay)
• Offers relatively fast order processing and shipping time, meaning delivery is relatively fast
• Has strong buyer protection – payment is only released to Seller when the buyer confirms delivery and that the item is as described
• Offers a return label for making easy returns
• Offers free returns (no restocking fee and Return Labels are free)
• Offers fast processing of returns and issuance of refunds

Buying Cons

• Ships to only the US
• Returns are for only not as described items (buyer remorse or not-fitting items cannot be returned)
• Return window is relatively small (3 days from delivery to request a return, and 3 days from receiving return label to ship the return package)

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that Mercari is a legit selling app. As a Seller, you can list and sell virtually everything using Mercari, both pre-owned and brand new. Listing is easy breezy. Though there are no upfront fees, sellers’ fees that apply when an item sells is only 10% which is relatively low. Also, Mercari sends a Shipping Label for making easy shipping.

However, Mercari’s shipping charges are relatively high; this has the effect of increasing the total cost for your customers and making your item difficult to sell or making you drop your listing price to have a competitive price but eroding your profit. You can receive payment only via “Direct deposit to checking account”; and because of Mercari’s Buyer Protection, it’ll take relatively long to receive payment.

Then there’s the issue of Mercari being biased to buyers. Many reviews suggest that some dishonest buyers use the “Buyer Protection” to scam Sellers; as Mercari automatically refunds Buyers who say their order was “not as described” or damaged, without any investigation.

As a buyer, you’ll find a range of items in Mercari, and placing an order is relatively easy. Pricing is largely competitive, and there are many payment options for paying for orders. Shipping is relatively fast, and there’s a strong buyer protection that ensures that you’ll receive your order and it will be as described.

However, you can only use Mercari if resident in the US, shipping charges are relatively high. Also though returns are allowed, it is for only “not as described” or damaged items (so you can’t return items that do not fit); and the return window is relatively small.