Mercari Marketplace Policy Update 30 Day Listings.
Sellers on the Mercari Facebook Group for Sellers discovered that Mercari changed its 30 Day and over product listing policies without warning or notification on the Mercari App.
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Previously, a seller could list their products and have them available for easy purchase with it's "Buy Now" button, regardless of how long the product had been listed for sale.
In June, Mercari had made all products listed for sale begin showing a notification requiring shoppers to message a seller to ask if a product listed for sale over 30 days was still available. This requirement caused a lot of frustration for sellers who were suddenly inundated with having to respond to the messages from possible shoppers. most leading to few sales.
The new unannounced update gets rid of the June requirement of messaging a seller to see if a product listed for more than thirty days is still available and replaces it with the new restriction that instead of showing a "Buy Now" button, forces a shopper to "Make an Offer".
Many sellers on Mercari apparently already disliked the "Make an Offer" feature because of the extra time it takes to interact with inquiring shoppers; according to those sellers in the Mercari Facebook Group (A group of over 11,000 Members. One of the reasons, is because of the common practice of shoppers inquiring and then never completing a sale. Another reason for it's dislike is the tendency for Mercari shoppers using the Make An Offer feature to make "low ball offers".
A recent conversation in the Mercari Facebook Group where sellers posted screenshots of the offers being made, were generally 50% or more below the asking price, in addition to wanting free shipping.
Historically, Mercari has gained a reputation for being a marketplace app and website where "low ball offers" are common, in addition to shoppers trying to persuade sellers to ship a product for free, make a donation to a shopper due to health reasons, childrens birthdays and broke parents, medical reasons and other ridiculous sympathetic pleas for free products. It must sometimes work however, being that it is a frequent request and story sellers come across while selling on its marketplace.
Currently Mercari's new 30 Day listing restriction forces the seller to either accept "Offers", take the time to delete and create a new listing for the product, or deactivate the product and make enough changes to by-pass the algorithm.
Alyssa Ashley posted a screenshot in frustration of a potential sale on a product she had listed for more than 30 days. Her shopper was unable to purchase the product at the listed $7.00 and instead was forced to make an offer of $5.00. The shopper goes on to say that they attempted to offer the listed price of $7.00 but was prevented by Mercari's Make An Offer System.
Many sellers who have recently moved to selling on Mercari from rival marketplace eBay are extremely disappointed with the new restriction, comparing it as less favorable than eBay for several reasons.
On eBay, listing automatically end in 30 Days, however eBay provides a much more featured editing and relisting system than Mercari.
By implementing this 30 Day restriction, Mercari essentially killed its most powerful and desirable feature of being able to essentially have a store of products that do not expire at no additional charge to the seller. On eBay, even a basic store which offers 200 listings slots carries a price tag of $25 a month.
On eBay, a seller can edit all unsold products at the same time, bulk delete products, use its "Sell Similar" feature to create an almost complete product listing based on other products of the same kind that are currently or previously sold. eBay additionally has a feature that allows a seller to automatically relist a product until sold.
In comparison, Mercari products have no bulk editing features, no relisting features, no automatic relisting features, no ability to reuse a previously created listing and no ability to use a template of another sellers product to sell similar as.
To further complicate the issue, Mercari has no consistency between its smart device app which has had all kinds of limitations implemented on it, but no similar implementations on the website.
Essentially, sellers who are selling exclusively on Mercari's recently released website marketplace can not accept offers, nor counter offers. This inconsistency means that only those using the Mercari App are currently affected in their ability to shop and purchase over 30 days old products.
Unlike eBay where policies and marketplace changes are announced 3 to 6 months in advance on its Marketplace and via e-Mail, Mercari makes no attempt to notify its shopping and selling community of any changes. This is a big disadvantage, considering the chaos the seems to be created every other month when Mercari makes unannounced changes that even its own customer service representatives are often knowledgeable.
After gaining much attention as the eBay Alternative, in a clunky and disorganized manner, Mercari seems to be implementing changes that make itself very much similar to eBay, without offering the transparency and community involvement that eBay has always offered.
Bottom line, in the opinion of SellerThink and many of those participating in the now 11,000 member Facebook Mercari Sellers Group; Mercari needs to begin making announcements of its changes prior to implementing them so that it's community is not left in confusion.
Stay up to date on Mercari changes and updates and more on the SellerThink Facebook Page.