I went to buy a $380 poke card on mercari. When I went to checkout the total came out to $460…Which is absurd seeing as though the card is only $380. On the checkout page I saw the tax, processing fee and service fee… Can anyone clarify how this new “0% sellers fee” effects the buyer? Can the service fee be waved somehow? Im paying close to 17% in fees. That doesnt seem normal and I feel I must be doing something wrong or mercari is trying to jump me. Any info would be helpful!
4 Likes
My understanding is they just got rid of the seller fee and moved the fee to be the buyer’s responsibility now. The buyer has to pay both the payment processing fee and a service fee. The announcement didn’t say anything about how much the service fee would be, just that it would vary per item category.
So no, I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, this is just how Mercari is now.
2 Likes
Just a buyer’s premium instead of selling fees.
Typical advertising “0% fees” when it’s actually 17%.
Companies think people are stupid, and sadly there are a lot of people out there that fall for this
2 Likes
That’s exactly what I was expecting to be like, in Spain there are very similar marketplaces where selling is free, but they charge some fees to the buyer making it essentialy the same at the end of the day
1 Like
Its such a dumb change. I’ve sold a couple hundred items on here and I bet that’s gonna slow down a ton. On top of transferring fees to the buyer, they added returns for any reason, which I guess is similar to ebay, so not a huge deal. They also added 2 dollar fees when you want to withdraw your money. The mercari subreddit is in meltdown mode lol.
2 Likes
Is that top screenshot from Mercari? If it’s somewhere reporting on it, I think they got it wrong. The service fee and payment processing fee are separate fees, and that article in the screenshot is treating them as the same thing. From their email:
1 Like
It’s from here which could be totally wrong fwiw
1 Like
Yeah I think it is. This is just a screenshot from the Mercari subreddit, but it looks like they are separate fees. The email mentioned the service fee percentage varies per category but I don’t see anything listing out what those percentages actually are yet.
2 Likes
I’m confused, why is this bad? If the buyers are the ones charged the fees you just reduce the item price to make up for the buyer fees. The only thing I see as annoying is having to have separate prices on different marketplaces for the same item.
1 Like
If they just shuffled around a 10% seller fee onto the buyer that’s an absolutely terrible idea. For all the gripes people have about “feebay” and lack of seller protection, everyone still uses it because that’s where the buyers are.
3 Likes
Looking at some other screenshots on the subreddit, it looks like the service fee is as high as 10% of the subtotal, plus then the additional 2.9% + 50 cents of the payment processing fee.
Apparently the seller can’t even see the fee ahead of time, so they can’t really appropriately price it to try to compensate for the fee. Also apparently, the buyer doesn’t see the full actual cost and breakdown until the final checkout screen.
Just seems like a dumpster fire in general.
3 Likes
Do you want to put together a brief summary of all the info you found so we can check it off as the solution?
1 Like
There’s also a difference between buying it when it’s added to your cart and when you just buy it outright WITHOUT it being in your cart. Usually pops up cheaper. Never really knew why.
1 Like
Just did some testing on my own to confirm.
-
Buyers will now pay a variable service fee. According to Mercari this is based on a number of (seemingly ambiguous) criteria such as category and brand of the product.
-
Upon checkout when I select the ? next to service fee, it tells me this, which makes me think they’re not actually going to publish any hard numbers for this service fee.
-
Based off of screenshots, I’ve seen the service fee be as high as 10% of the subtotal.
-
The buyer also has to pay a (completely separate) payment processing fee of 2.9% + $.50.
-
I tested by attempting to buy a copy of Super Mario Sunshine. The fees are not made obvious on the item’s listing page, it just shows the price of the item and shipping.
- When you go to your cart after adding the item, there is still no mention of any additional cost beyond the list price of the item and shipping.
- The next screen is the final checkout screen where you put your payment information in. Finally on this page you see a breakdown of the costs and the real total. However, it’s at the bottom of the page, after you already fill in all of your info, right above the submit button. I can’t help but feel this was intentional. I think a lot of buyers will fill in all of their info, scroll down to the bottom, and hit the checkout button without even realizing the fees are there.
Just want to add that since my Mercari account is new, there’s a $5 credit there that normally wouldn’t be. Essentially this item listed at $40 would cost you $50.77, and it seems to only have a 5% fee which seems low compared to other items I’ve seen.
Edit: adding what @bbobrob said below, which is that the payment processing fee is waved if you use your Mercari balance to pay. Presumably that’s because there is no payment processing fee paid by Mercari at that point.
To add to this, sellers are now charged $2 whenever they want to withdraw their money from Mercari to their bank. They really want you to spend the money on their platform it seems.
6 Likes
Thank you all for your answers they were very very helpful. I cant believe its 17% thats disgusting. What a clown show.
1 Like
If your post will be the solution, might also want to mention that if buyers use money already stored on Mercari, the payment processing fee ($0.50 + 2.9%) is waived.
Overall, if all the sellers moved their prices down by 10-13% today, the buyers can end up saving a little bit here and there. But the shock of seeing the fees at checkout (even if they were already built into the price before this change) will put off people that don’t fully realize how the change affects everything.
Also the returns for any reason may be a problem too? Given that I’ve heard Mercari customer support is basically nonexistent.
1 Like
I think a lot of sellers haven’t changed their listing prices in response this yet. You could always throw in an offer that has the end price being $380, and if the seller understands how the changes affect everything, they may take it.
1 Like
Just edited the post to add this.
I think this is the big takeaway from why this matters so much if the fees are essentially the same dollar amount-ish. Sellers expect to pay fees when they sell on a platform. Buyers do not expect to pay fees to buy an item on a platform.
Even if sellers do the math to make the full total equal including fees equal the true value of the item, most buyers will just see that breakdown with the fees in it and be turned off to the whole thing. Literally nobody buying something likes to see the words “service fee” regardless of if the total amount paid is the same as before.
3 Likes
People can whine and complain all they want about this, but I’m fairly certain there is a body of research suggesting that buyers are much more likely to complete a sale the more screens they have to click through. Showing the fee on the final submit screen is a savvy business move by Mercari that will end up having more customers complete transactions on their platform. After all, they’ve already gone through the effort to find the item, they’ve committed mentally to buying it, they’ve added to their cart, they’ve added their payment information, all they have to do now is click 1 final button and it’s theirs….
2 Likes