I haven't tried it yet, as I haven't wanted to lower my prices that much. I need to price them higher to begin with so I can.
*Selling* on Mercari
- Thread starter lauren85
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Well I just had a bunch of questions before I started - I don't want to move there and have it become another Tradesy debacle. They emailed me back targeted responses (not canned responses that are meaningless) and answered all my questions the next day. It seems like a good platform. Whether it has the traffic or not remains to be seen but the setup is pretty good and not invasive. You don't need to reveal SSN or bank information unless you want direct deposit. Buyers have 3 days to return for not as described but Mercari sends them a label for the return shipping so the seller is not out that money, but the seller is responsible if it is damaged or lost in transit & has to take that up with the postal carrier to get reimbursed. What else? They don't have software to transfer listings from Ebay or Tradesy so you have to do it manually but once done, the listings don't expire and there are no listing fees. 10% flat rate commission on sales with a $2 transfer fee for transfers UNDER $10, otherwise no transfer fee. Sounds just about perfect but again - depends on getting its name out so buyers know where to find your stuff. I'm sold anyway. Can't stomach the fees at Tradesy - plus - nothing sells there plus - I've had run ins with their "trust" department removing items without bothering to first communicate with me and not providing records but allowing the same items to be listed all over the place by other sellers and Ebay - well, that's Ebay. It is a buyer's arena there but if you want to move things & can afford to take an occasional hit - its the best game in town - until they start screwing up payments and being responsible for data breaches once they take over as payment processor from paypal. I want to sell what I can before then and at that point, I will be gone because no way am I giving the phillipino customer service reps my SSN & bank infor. to process payments.
Well its actually called negotiating. I'd say most of those people expect you to come back with a counteroffer - somewhere between $100 and $225. They don't really know how much you will take off so they offer something very low - they are of course hopeful you might accept it but realistically expect more of a counteroffer. It gives them a range to work with. If you really want to sell your bag, a little back and forth may be what you need to do to find the sweet spot. If you don't care and just want what you want or don't want to sell the bag, then you can just decline as you do but you lose a customer base. I actually do a lot of negotiating like that and people feel more empowered thinking they got a good deal and are more likely to be happy with their purchases and grateful for the "discount". Maybe set your prices higher then what you really hope to get to make room for the negotiating crowd. Set it at $275. If someone offers $100 go to $200 and tell them you are willing to take off $75 for them. They might accept or come back with another offer like $175. That's how it works.
Also, sometimes people are on a budget and not meaning to be rude - but it really is all they can afford so they figure what the hell - it never hurts to ask. I do that a lot when I have site credits - I will be honest and say I am trying to use up my credits - all I have is X dollars - can you do it for that? Sometimes they do if they had the item sitting around for awhile and really just want to get rid of it. But if they say yes right away, I always buy it right away. I remember once, I lowered the price of something for a lady and before she could buy it - someone else swooped in and grabbed it at the reduced price. There wasn't anything I could do about it.
Can you tell me more about the shipping and labels there and what you consider light weight? I tend to just pack my stuff and take it to the post ofice in person where I buy my postage and get my tracking label - it also ensures that they scan it into the system right away so you can show the ship date right away that is in USPS possession. I sometimes bought labels from Tradesy and only once from EBAY only because the regional A/B was so much cheaper - but most things I ship in a flat rate legal size envelope or similar.
If you have a printer, it is usually cheaper to ship most things that are under a pound yourself rather than using their label. I've never used the $4 label, but if you read their FAQs there is no insurance with it so I think it is the same as first class postage. I really don't think insurance is necessary, but for most lightweight items, you can get first class postage online for less than $4. For example, a scarf will probably ship for $2.66. Until you get up to 13 or 14 ounces or more, it is going to cost you less than $4 to buy postage online. That isn't true if you are buying it at the post office.
If you've been buying your postage at the post office, you are overpaying. The post office offers discounts for buying postage online, no matter where you buy it. Mercari gives even bigger discounts for items over a pound, cheaper than anything you could buy yourself.
My husband says that the buyers that negotiate are more likely to be problems, and I'm starting to agree with him. Sometimes I'll accept an offer and everything will be fine, but it seems a higher percentage of these buyers complain after purchase, wanting an even bigger discount. Probably not a problem on Mercari, due to their restrictive return policy, but it is definitely a problem on ebay.
The problem with Mercari is that people expect things to be dirty cheap and don't expect authentic, so genuine gucci bag won't sell for $500+ in a week or 2 as on other webs. On posh and tredesy, one has the state of mind, that items are in most part authentic and isn't surprise to pay premium, same as buying from realreal or fashionphile. On ebay, one knows it's mostly gamble but still the general approch is positive as various deals and original items can be find. Because Mercari started "small", selling small samples and cosmetics, little t-shirts, cheap penties, I think it had big impact how it's being proceed overall.
What you said is so true! One time I posted a charm with an expensive designer bag together just to show what the charm would look like on that size of the bag. Someone bought it right away thought of bought a well made fake bag with the charm together (I had stated very clearly selling the charm in the description and title), then she filed claim to return once she found out just the charm, ha! That mindset is very interesting, the expectation of paying nothing to get a real deal is... beyond laughable.
That type of incident had repeated quite a few times on all places I had posted charms to sell. I had to specifically saying "just the charm, just the charm, bag is not included", even so, there still people would ask if the bag goes together (for $50 total with the charm something like that), geeze, the bags I posted with charms are all over $1000 bags and in brand new condition, come on, you can't even buy a fake bag looking that good for $50, oh gosh, so many funny stories when you have been a seller for a while.
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What does the nationality/ethnicity of the customer rep have to do with it?
And it’s “Filipino/Filipina.” The country is “Philippines.”
I haven't experienced that. I will say buyers who ask a lot of questions and very specific questions - I won't encourage to buy from me. They are the ones that are problems for me - when they start asking stupid things like - did you take that waist measurement flat? LOL. Or is that a poly blend and what are the percentages? Those kind of people are the ones that seem to be trying to pigeon hole you for a SNAD return. I will look at a buyer's feedback too - not THEIR feedback but the feedback they leave for other sellers - if they have complaints or passive-aggressive "positives" then I avoid selling to them. But so far, the ones who just negotiated down a price - they've been fine. I had one guy message me - good negotiations - LOL. I guess he enjoyed it. Now if you are selling really high end and they are really stretching their budget to afford it - even if you give them a deep discount, they might realize when they get it that it just isn't worth such a large % of their budget. But I sell nothing high end - I can't afford to buy those things so I don't turn over anything like Chanel or Hermes - most of my clothing and accessories stuff is middle class, middle of the road or media and household items not being used anymore. Like you'd find in a garage sale so I figure people would haggle there too.
That's where they're from. I don't really care about the country or how to spell it. But every time I try calling customer service, I get some giggling moron who has no idea what I'm talking about and are completely incompetent - I ask them where they're from - and its always the PHILLIPINES.
FYI, "promote option" only works if someone liked item (it is being promoted to them to buy, send reminders to these only folks that liked it) and it's not like on ebay for example, when "promote" or "sponsored" means it's top of page for everyone to see the add first.
Wow. In case you haven’t noticed, there are morons and incompetent people in every country. And spelling well is important. Learning how to spell countries is a sign of respect and intellect.