3 Tips to Making Money on Mercari Selling Regular Everyday Items

Making money on Mercari isn’t rocket science. It is simple and easy as long as you have defined goals, a clear strategy to reach them, and a good understanding of how the Mercari app works.

I’ve seen many sellers in our community giving up selling on Mercari for many reasons, including applying tips they’ve learned online from bloggers who don’t have any experience selling on Mercari or any other platform.

So it’s important to filter the information circulating on the internet by fake experts who don’t have any experience to back up their claims.

I will share with you a screenshot of my Mercari Seller Dashboard to show you my sales, profit and other statistics and give you my tips on how to make even more money than me based on this screenshot alone.

My Mercari Seller Dashboard:

I sell on multiple platforms, Mercari is not my main source of income, but because it is easy to use and you can make money on it as seen in my seller dashboard, I’m loving it. So please make sure you revisit my website, because I will share with you my strategies to multiply my “$10.837” revenue by 10 times.

Tips to Make Money on Mercari:

Tip 1- Understand how the Mercari app works:

Mercari is an online marketplace like the eBay, Poshmark, and Etsy…but it has its own features that you need to understand to be able to make sales.

As you can see in my seller dashboard, there are some elements that Mercari pays attention to. Understanding those elements will help you make more sales.

Seller rating:

My seller rating is 4.98/5, a descent rating that shows that my customers are happy with my items and customer service. I get 5 star ratings most of the time because my photos and descriptions are clear enough that the buyers have a good idea of what they are getting. I also send offers and accept offers when they are reasonable to help my customers get the items they want.

Cancellation rate:

Somehow Mercari counts customers cancellations as sellers cancellations, but the 1% cancellation rate in my seller dashboard is still an acceptable number. Try to make sure you never cancel a transaction, it’s important to send the item to the buyer after purchase.

Response Rate:

My response rate is 95%, it’s important to keep it as close to 100% as possible. Make sure you respond to your customers questions, offers, and requests in a timely manner.

Shipping Time:

With Amazon’s same day shipping, customers expect us to do the same. It is impossible to ship items the same day especially if you have a 9 to 5 job, but it’s important to ship items as soon as you can to keep your customers happy. My shipping time is 25.05 hours.

Item Views:

My average item views is 28.37/day, I’m working on increasing this number to at least 100/day to increase my sales and revenue. Keep in mind that the more views you get the more sales you will make. To do so there are few things that need to be done: 1. List more items regularly, preferably everyday. 2. Relist older items that didn’t sell . 3. Revisit your older listings and make sure that all your titles and descriptions are keyword focused. That will help your listings rank higher in the search results.

Tip 2- Find your niche:

Many “experts” will recommend that you find out what items sell the most on Mercari and start selling them. This idea sounds good at first because in theory it makes sense, but realistically, it’s almost impossible, especially for small sellers like us.

I could advice you to start selling electronics for example because I know that you can start making a lot of money doing so. However I wouldn’t, because I know as an online seller who started from scratch that it will be hard to find electronics in your area for cheap. Even if you do, it will be hard to find enough supplies to grow your business. “Let’s say if you can find cheap iPhones on a regular basis in your area, you don’t need to read this article”.

As you can see in my seller dashboard, the average price per sold item is 15.23/item, because I sell only regular everyday items that are not expensive. Many sellers underestimate this strategy and focus on high end brands that are expensive, hard to find, and make you subject to scams by dishonest buyers.

This same strategy made me $10,837.00 in revenue on Mercari so far, and a lot more on other online platforms, because it is easy to manage, and will work for you even if you start with very little money and little time if you have a regular job.

So instead of searching the Mercari app for items that sell the most, search you local area for what’s available to resell, that will guarantee you good prices and a regular flow of inventory that will allow you to grow your business.

Some places you can check in your area for inventory:

• Unused items around your house.
• Ask family and friends
• Goodwill stores
• Goodwill Outlet stores (where you can buy merchandise per the lbs)
• Consignment shops
• Pawn Shops
• Thrift stores
• Salvation Army stores and auctions
• Facebook Groups
• Storage auctions
• Local auctions
• Curated second-hand shops
• Discount Retail stores (TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ross…)
• Garage sales
• Yard sales
• Estate sales
• Church sales
• School sales
• Craiglist
• Offer Up or Let Go Apps
• Outlet Malls

Tip 3- Stay Positive and Motivated:

I’ve seen many sellers giving up on selling on Mercari and even on selling online all together, because they found out that it’s not what they wanted to do the rest of their lives, or because they didn’t make enough money to afford being in business for themselves.

I’ve found out from observing these members of our community leaving, that it is important to all newcomers to start at a hobby level by doing some thrifting and listing before growing to a business level. By doing so they can decide at a early stage if selling online is something they are willing to do.

Selling on Mercari and other online platforms can be your passion. You will be your own boss and you can control how you spend your time, but the responsibility that comes with it can be complicated. After all you have to make money to afford to be your own boss, and to do so you will need to spend many hours per day taking photos, describing items, shipping sold items, answering your customers questions and requests, processing returns, etc.

• Looking up to other sellers who’ve started at your level and were able to succeed.
• Becoming a member of a community of ambitious sellers like yourself either in your city or online in social networks such as Facebook.
• Staying away from sellers who complain all the time, yes there are things that could be better, but too much complaining is counterproductive. You want to surround yourself with winners.
• Taking small breaks from the business to do things you like in life (sports, hanging out with family and friends, travelling, etc.)