More New Seller Features Available on Mercari Marketplace Website
This is a continuation of the original announcement from January 22, 2018 here on the SellerThink blog, about Mercari's obvious commitment to fulfill its promise to bring shoppers and sellers a version of the Mercari Marketplace app that could be used on a computer or web browser.
Several New Features
Several new features have been discovered on the Mercari Website while I was working on fulfilling a customers purchase that will greatly benefit sellers.MESSAGING
First I noticed that full implementation of the Messaging system is now enabled. Previously only non-sale related messages were viewable. Now, all messages are viewable via the website with the ability to respond.I love this new ability, because most of my business time is spent in front of a computer working on product photos, listing to eBay, eBlueJay, Bonanza or creating and processing new sale orders for shipping. Prior to this new integration of messages into the Mercari Marketplace website, when a message about a product on Mercari was received, I had to stop what I was working on, find my smart phone, open the Mercari app and check the messages. A distraction, especially since 98% of Mercari messages from potential customers are a waste of time with questions dealing with the price of the item for sale.
Mercari messages are notorious for the following questions, "What's your lowest price", "Could you donate this to me", "Can you model it", "You're really cute", "Do you have more photos". The reality is, a lot of a Mercari seller's time ends up wasted on answering really ignoramus questions via it's messaging system. Now, If had nothing better to do, than engage in answering stupid questions, I'd be fine with its entertainment value, but when it interferes with business, it might as well be someone crank calling me, because it has about the same amount of value and results. However... I can now turn on Notifications on the Mercari Marketplace via my web browser, that I can pop over to the Mercari window to answer and check messages. That means, I am not wasting time finding my smart phone, opening the app, checking messages and typing on a tiny keyboard. I can type 200% faster on my full sized keyboard than I can on my smart phone virtual keypad. That makes this new feature a WINNER!
ORDER DETAILS
Order details is also now available to sellers via the Mercari Website. For my small business, this will reduce the steps required to process Mercari sales for State Sales Taxes and IRS taxes, and accounting purposes.
Previously, (even the sales order being processed at the time I discovered this new feature on the Mercari website); Information about the customer, item number and ship-to address had to be screen shot on the smart device, uploaded to Google Photos, then a PDF created for storage. A screen shot was also taken of the items description text and photo using the same process. Next, the customers name and address and Item number would be selected and copied on the smart device and pasted into Google Keep, then on the computer, copied from Google Keep to a Text File where the information could be easily copy and pasted to my Packing Slip/Invoice template and to Shippo.com where I process all of my shipments.
While going through so many steps for each sale on Mercari was time consuming, it was necessary for documentation purposes. However... now that Mercari has made Order Details accessible directly on it's website, half of those steps are now eliminated since I can now simply create a PDF of the Order Details from the website and copy the details for my invoice and Shippo.com on the computer without having to go back and forth between the smart device as before.
ORDER STATUS
Last but in no way least, is access to the Order Status via the Mercari Website.
Order Status is part of the final process of a sale on the Mercari Marketplace.
It's where I confirm any shipments I ship myself via Shippo.com have been completed, and where I click to initiate the creation of a Mercari shipping label when a shipment is being sent via Mercari's discounted labels causing an e-mail with the shipping label to be sent to my e-mail account for downloading and printing.
I offer free shipping on Mercari and process any of the labels which I can purchase for less on Shippo.com, so after I create a shipping label, I still have to submit my packages tracking number. I think that has often been one of the more tedious steps to complete via the smart devices I own. First I have to copy the tracking number from Shippo, then past it into Google Keep on my computer. Next, I'd go to my smart device and copy the tracking number from Google Keep to be pasted into the Mercari app tracking number field, and that's where the problem happens. Getting that little field to allow a Paste to happen has often been a frustrating chore, usually requiring multiple attempts. Thank you Mercari for making this a thing of the past, for this particular seller on your Marketplace.
Again, this is a giant step forward towards Mercari's website becoming a fully enabled computer accessible marketplace platform, and a significant time saver for those of us who sell on eBay, Amazon and other marketplaces, by eliminating the tedious steps required via a smart device.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I honestly didn't expect to be writing another update about the Mercari website so soon. I figured it would be several months, maybe around May before any additional updates would be noted. Perhaps, I simply missed these updates when I wrote the original article about the Mercari website, or maybe and more likely, Mercari is wasting no time in moving things forward in making their website a direct competition to eBay and Bonanza.com I do not know.
I am happy to be able to write about the new features I discovered, and who knows! Maybe Mercari will complete the transition of their Marketplace Website so quick, I'll run out of new updates before summer. That would be a good thing.
As always, stay posted for more updates and announcements from SellerThink here on the Blog, on Facebook and on YouTube.