Mercari vs. Poshmark: Pros & Cons, Fees, and Making More Sales

Marketplaces 101
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Mercari vs. Poshmark: Pros & Cons, Fees, and Making More Sales

There are so many online marketplaces to sell your items online for a profit.  I created a reseller’s guide to Poshmark and Mercari to articulate the pros and cons of each, including the user experience, audience, listing process, amount of work required, shipping process, platform fees, seller protection, and more!

 

If you sell on Poshmark or Mercari, you might be interested in learning about the other. 

 

Here is a reseller’s guide to Mercari vs. Poshmark to explore the pros and cons of each, including the audience, top sellers, listing process, user experience, daily maintenance, shipping process, platform fees, seller protection, and more!

 

Creating an Account

Both platforms offer both desktop websites and mobile applications. Both are very easy to use! You can sign up for an account in just seconds! 

 

The Poshmark mobile app is very user-friendly, you can use all of the same features available on the desktop version. 

 

The Mercari mobile app is easy to use and has almost all of the features of the Mercari desktop version. 

 

New to Mercari? Here’s a Mercari Coupon! Get $30 off Mercari when you sign up with this link.

 

Audience & Top Selling Items

Poshmark has a very large audience of 80 million active users

 

Poshmark is mostly known for women’s, men’s, and children’s fashion, but you can also sell select home decor, beauty, toys, electronics, pet items, and more! Poshmark is rapidly growing in categories. See more specific information about what you can sell on Poshmark here.

 

👖 Fashion is the top-selling category on Poshmark.  Mercari reports having over 20 million active users, which is only one-fourth of the Poshmark audience. However, Mercari has many more categories. 

 

Want to learn more? Check out the article Top Selling Brands on Poshmark in 2023.

 

On Mercari, you can sell just about anything; that isn’t illegal or permissible. 

 

With Mercari Local, which facilitates delivery through Uber, you can even sell larger items without having to ship them! 

 

The Top-Selling Items: 

🔌 Electronics 

💿 Media

🧸 Toys & Games

👖 Clothing

 

Want to learn more? Check out the article Top Selling Items on Mercari in 2023. 

 

Which is better? Poshmark, but It really depends on what you sell. Poshmark has a much larger audience but limited categories and different top-sellers. 

 

If you’re a fashion seller, Poshmark is hands-down the better choice. If you sell other things, Mercari might be better for you! 

 

Poshmark also offers superior search engine optimization (SEO), which provides additional exposure for your Poshmark listings across the internet.

 

Listing Process

The listing process is easy and straightforward on both Poshmark and Mercari. Both require images of the item, a description, drop-down selections as to the item’s category, size, brand, color(s), condition, price, and a few optional drop-down fields. The process is relatively equivalent, excluding the extra shipping information that is required in each listing with Mercari.

 

On Poshmark, you can include up to 16 images and 10 seconds of video footage. Poshmark allows up to 80 characters in the title and 1,500 characters in the description field. On Poshmark, you can also make multi-quantity listings and multi-variation listings if you are selling multiple of the same items, even in different sizes.

 

On Mercari, you can include up to 12 images (no videos). Mercari allows up to 80 characters in the title and 1,000 characters in the description field. Mercari does not support multi-quantity listings; instead, you will need to create duplicate listings if you are selling items in multiple quantities.

 

Which is better? Poshmark, by far. Poshmark allows for more images, more description characters, and listing videos. Poshmark listing is also much faster, without the shipping information required in each listing.

 

Reseller Tip: Use Vendoo to list and cross-list all of your inventory. It does most of the work, so much of this is not relevant when you’re using the software!

 

You may also like: 10 Great Marketplaces Every Reseller Should Consider

 

Making Sales- How Much Work Is It?

On all reselling platforms, consistency is the key to success. 🔑

 

Both marketplaces require responding to offers and questions and managing your listings.

 

On both Mercari and Poshmark, the most important thing you can do is list new items daily. This can also be accomplished by deleting and reposting older listings. With the Vendoo Delist/Relist feature, you can do this in bulk with just a few clicks. 

 

Managing Your Poshmark Closet

On Poshmark, maintaining listings and facilitating sales requires a bit more work. You must share your listings to keep them at the top of search feeds and advertise them in your followers’ news feeds. 

 

Poshmark features offer to likers, where you can send a private offer to all users who have liked your item. 

 

On Poshmark, you can also add items to a user’s bundle, encouraging bundle sales and offering special discounts for orders with multiple items. 

 

Poshmark also features promotional days such as “Closet Clear Out Days,” when you can reduce your prices by ten percent and your buyers will receive a notification with a special shipping rate (paid for by Poshmark). 

 

Want to be a Posh pro? To learn more about these Poshmark promotional tools, check out the Poshmark Bible.

 

Running Your Mercari Shop

Mercari is less work, with fewer promotional features and no sharing requirement. Mercari is more of a “list it and leave it” marketplace. 

 

However, Mercari offers smart pricing, which allows you to schedule your listing to gradually decrease the price (to your bottom line), notifying likers with each decrease. 

 

Mercari also has smart offers, where it will auto-accept offers at or above your reserve price or auto-counter offers below it. 

 

Mercari also has offered to likers to send private offers to those who have liked the listing, but you must decrease the price with each offer (even if it is a different buyer it is going to).  

 

Mercari offers the ability to promote your listings with subtle price decreases to notify all likers. However, you can only do a couple a day.

 

Which is better? Poshmark. Poshmark is more work but provides more opportunities to expose and promote your listings. Sharing your Poshmark listings is tedious, but it provides endless opportunities to draw attention to your listings. The Mercari features simply don’t compare. 

 

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Shipping Process 

Poshmark offers the most simplified shipping process in comparison to all of the other reselling platforms. It is so easy! 

 

On Poshmark, a USPS priority mail shipping label is emailed to the seller at the time of sale. These labels can be affixed to your package, and you can use the free Priority Mail packaging available at USPS. Tracking information automatically updates for the buyer upon shipment.

 

Generally, the buyer pays a flat rate of $7.95 shipping for all orders, unless you offer a shipping discount when you make offers to likers, in which case the seller pays the difference. The bundle feature allows a buyer to purchase multiple items simultaneously and pay shipping only once. (Note that for orders over 5lbs, the seller must upgrade the shipping label at their own expense)

 

On Mercari, shipping is more complicated, with many selections. When listing, you must select whether to:

 

  1. Ship with Mercari or ship on your own;

  2. Offer free shipping or charge shipping; and

  3. Use USPS, FedEx, or UPS.

 

Each Mercari listing has a shipping section for this information.  If you elect to ship with Mercari, they will provide you with a label upon sale (similar to the Poshmark model). However, the weight and the dimensions of the item in the packaging are required at the time of listing. Note that Mercari labels are very expensive in comparison with everywhere else to sell online. 

 

Electing to ship on your own requires purchasing your own shipping label and providing Mercari with the tracking information for the package.

 

You have the choice to offer free shipping (pay it yourself) or charge your buyers. You can also select the shipping carrier whom you are most comfortable with based on your items, location, and business preferences. If you offer free shipping, you might want to ship on your own, as you’ll likely get a much better deal on Pirate Ship as opposed to Mercari labels.

 

Which is better? Usually, Poshmark… but it really depends on what you are selling and how you would like to ship it. The shipping process on Poshmark is the easiest thing, and it is also an incredible deal! $7.95 shipping to anywhere in the United States is an amazingly low rate, especially for heavier items. However, this deal is not so amazing for lightweight items under 1lb. Mercari labels are very expensive, but having the self-shipping option is great for some sellers. 

  

Platform Fees

Poshmark fees are a 20% commission on all items sold for a final sale price of over $15.00, and a flat-rate fee of $2.95 for all sales under $15.00

 

Mercari fees are approximately 14%; that is a 10% commission and 2.9% plus $0.50 in processing fees. Note that this fee applies to the sale price plus the shipping cost. 

 

Which is better? Mercari, because the selling fees are lower… but they’re also difficult to calculate.

 

For example, if you sell an item for $20, the fees on each marketplace will be as follows:

 

If you sell an item for $20.00 (without any shipping discounts), the fees will be as follows: Poshmark fees will be $4.00, and you will make $16.00. 

 

On Mercari, if you sell an item for $20, the fees will be $3.82 (selling fee: $2, shipping fee $0.74, and payment processing fee $1.08) and you will make approximately $16.18 after fees

 

Note: that this Mercari example assumes the buyer paid the current rate for 1lb USPS shipping ($7.40). 

 

Getting paid on both platforms is similar, as well. On both platforms, you get paid after the item is delivered to the buyer; immediately upon their acceptance rating, or after three days if they neglect to acknowledge receipt. Similarly, on both platforms, you can use your funds to shop on the app or request an electronic transfer to your bank account. Both offer various withdrawal methods. 

 

Seller Protection

Both platforms offer seller protection in the event of a dispute, problem, or fraud. Posh Protect and Mercari Seller Protection are nearly identical. However, neither platform offers protection in circumstances where the seller did not comply with the marketplace’s terms of service, including engaging in communications or transactions off of the platform.

 

Similarly, both platforms have congruent refund policies; all sales are final unless the item(s) is not as described, damaged, or never sent. Neither platform allows returns when an item is accurately described, so a buyer cannot return items that do not fit, that they do not like, because they have changed their mind, etc. However, buyers may attempt to open a case on Poshmark or initiate a return request on Mercari. On both marketplaces, this process takes several days to be resolved, during which time your funds are held up.

 

Which is better? Poshmark offers better customer service and seller protection. Although, there is room for improvement across the board because neither platform resolves issues particularly quickly. Mercari has a phone number, whereas Poshmark is available via email and in-app messaging only. Even so, having sold a high volume on each platform, I wholeheartedly think that Poshmark offers better customer service and seller protection. While buyer fraud is actually less common than it appears online, it inevitably happens. I have experienced it on both platforms, and Poshmark has handled it more professionally and consistently with their terms of service. Mercari has a reputation for “always siding with the buyer.”

 

Overall, Poshmark is a better place to sell items online for most sellers. The larger audience, maximized SEO, simple shipping process, superior seller support, and more advanced features justify the higher fees. 

 

Which reselling platform is your favorite? Tell us below!  👇🏼

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