How Mercari US Boosts Sales To Its Stores
Does Mercari have an Algorithm that helps boost sales? - by SellerThink
As an online product reviewer on the former Epinions website for over 14 years, and marketplace reviewer on YouTube and elsewhere for eight years; I have the rare opportunity to analyze the methods used by marketplaces like eBay, Mercari, Storenvy, Bonanza, etc. to bring shopping traffic to sellers.
For example, one reason sellers on Bonanza.com can expect few, if any, sales using a Bonanza free booth, is because Bonanza "Throttles Traffic". This simply means, that their paid booth members receive priority traffic from any websites, advertising and other methods Bonanza uses to bring in shoppers. In the past, and for new accounts, Bonanza has a built-in algorithm that will "de-throttle" a booth a few times, which initially helps a store receive sales. Beyond the first few months however, Bonanza's "Free Booths", will see no sales traffic unless you're lucky and a stray visitor to their marketplace happens to search below their paid memberships promoted products in their search results.
While eBay has always tweaked and toyed with its algorithms, its current rendition at the time of this article, features some of its most aggressive throttling within its history. This began when eBay dropped the ability for sellers to relist and set an end date for the products they placed for sale, and in its place, eBay introduced GTC (Good Till Cancelled) and Promoted Sales.
For the average person and new seller, GTC may seem like a great idea, being that products now never end and simply keep relisting. The Promoted Sales feature may seem like a great idea too, now that both eBay stores and non-store sellers can pay an additional fee to receive higher search engine placement and other on site promotions. In reality, what eBay has done is, they have taken what sellers originally received for free and began charging for it. This is the same exact marketplace killing idea that eventually led to Bonanza being one of the worst marketplaces for anyone who doesn't want to pay for a store or pay to promote. Bonanza created the "Pay for Promotion" strategy that eBay introduced to all sellers in 2019. Unlike Mercari where there at the time of this article, no fees to participate in a promotional event on their marketplace.
eBay and Bonanza have throttling happening in different ways, more than I want to bore you with in this article. You'll have to pay to play. Mercari marketplace gives you a free store/booth, no fees to promote your products, and eventually everyone gets a few sales. How is this possible? Well, I have a theory, and I call it the Rolling Preferential Booster (RPB) Algorithm.
To further explain my theory, based on three years of research, I have created a YouTube video discussing how it appears to work. YouTube censored the video twice so far, suggesting its advertiser unfriendly, which pulls the video out of YouTube search results and suggested videos. Out of 200 videos discussing marketplaces of all kinds, this is the only video this has occurred with on a channel my size. I've disputed the removal of the video from being restricted and limited, not because of the advertising, but because it removes the video from being suggested or easily found on YouTube. The video is already made, the theory is based on three years observation and studying, each video takes two days to make, I just want the video to be available whether anyone believes it or not.
Because YouTube is an advertising business like commercial radio or commercial television, when a video discusses something on YouTube that one or more of its advertisers do not like, YouTube throttles it and removes all commercials from the video killing its viewer reach. They also do this when a video contains topics, keywords or triggers that they have determined could make advertisers not want to have their advertising on it. All of this began thanks to two YouTuber's who created enormous amounts of bad publicity for YouTube and Triggered YouTube Advertisers. Pewdiepie and Paul Logan will go down as the YouTuber's who ruined it for everyone. In response to some very disturbing and unfiltered videos YouTube allowed them to post because of their channel size, popularity and tons of money these two YouTubers provide to Google Inc. they let the videos remain until advertisers boycotted YouTube, thus pushing YouTube to the other extreme side of censorship, and creating algorithms that prevent videos that an advertiser doesn't like or might be offended by if they found out YouTube were showing their videos on it.
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That hasn't stopped this Mercari video from reaching a considerable amount of views, despite YouTube marking it advertiser unfriendly more than twice.
I have already created the video and can present my theory about Mercari app and website marketplace rolling sales boosting algorithm, so I will simply post the link here to the video https://youtu.be/XZL68PmYgh8 and I'll embed the video here as well. I think you'll be surprised at the very least, especially if you have been selling on Mercari for a while. For many viewers, it has caused a little light bulb to click on in their head as they suddenly saw how my theory has already happen to them.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. I think its a great thing, especially since it brings sales eventually to everyone on Mercari who presents their products in a desirable manner. Even former eBay sellers, who to be error on the side of being over zealous about their sales history on eBay, will eventually get sales. Assuming they do not get kicked off Mercari for breaking their rules. Something that happens way to often, considering Mercari actually enforces its policies, where as on eBay, sellers really have to mess up bad to get kicked off the platform. I've said it many times before, don't come over to Mercari with an eBay mentality, because you won't survive. You have to approach Mercari, despites some similarities to eBay, for what it is; an entirely different marketplace.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. I think its a great thing, especially since it brings sales eventually to everyone on Mercari who presents their products in a desirable manner. Even former eBay sellers, who to be error on the side of being over zealous about their sales history on eBay, will eventually get sales. Assuming they do not get kicked off Mercari for breaking their rules. Something that happens way to often, considering Mercari actually enforces its policies, where as on eBay, sellers really have to mess up bad to get kicked off the platform. I've said it many times before, don't come over to Mercari with an eBay mentality, because you won't survive. You have to approach Mercari, despites some similarities to eBay, for what it is; an entirely different marketplace.