Dive Brief:
- To attract sellers from competing marketplaces, resale marketplace Mercari has stopped charging selling fees, the company announced Wednesday. The policy was effective immediately for new listings and will roll out across the website in the coming weeks.
- Mercari, which noted the change was part of “an all-new business model,” says it is the only major online resale marketplace in the U.S. to end seller fees.
- The company is also instituting a new return policy that will charge customers a service fee. As a result, buyers can start the returns process within three days for any reason and receive a refund. The policy applies across all categories, including toys, games, trading cards, clothing, home goods and other merchandise.
Dive Insight:
Mercari is cutting its selling fees as other significant players, including Etsy, Amazon, eBay and Poshmark, continue to charge sellers on their own platforms.
“At Mercari, we remain committed to making secondhand selling as easy and rewarding as possible,” John Lagerling, CEO of Mercari U.S., said in a statement. “With the removal of selling fees across our platform, we're setting the new standard for peer-to-peer marketplaces and incentivizing even more sellers to choose Mercari. With zero selling fees, Mercari sellers can price their items more competitively and keep their earnings, making it the best choice for everyone looking to sell their unused items.”
Seller fees have been a point of contention between marketplaces and their sellers, particularly at Etsy in recent years. In April 2022, Etsy sellers went on strike to protest the company's 30% seller transaction fee increase, a movement that garnered tens of thousands of signatures on an online petition. The following year, Artisans Cooperative launched as an Etsy alternative, charging no seller listing fees and garnering more than 70 sellers on the platform at launch.
In addition to cutting seller fees on its platform, Mercari has also turned its eye to improving customer experience on its website. Last April, the company turned to AI software ChatGPT to create its shopping assistant Merchat AI, enabling customers to receive product recommendations based on the questions they ask the software.
