When it comes to choosing the best platform to sell on, Poshmark and Mercari are at the top of the list. Each boasts over a decade of experience on the market and offers its own unique features and tools. Deciding between them might be tough, especially for new sellers. So, how do you do that — and more importantly, should you?
This article’ll explore how Poshmark and Mercari compare and differ and how you can easily sell on both!
Key Takeaways:
- Audience: Poshmark is a go-to platform for fashion, while Mercari’s audience is scattered across various product categories.
- Fees: Poshmark’s fees are generally higher, while Mercari recently removed its selling fees.
- Shipping: Poshmark offers simple shipping with flat-rate prepaid labels, whereas Mercari provides more flexible shipping options.
- Marketing and promotion: Poshmark is packed with advanced features that require some effort, while Mercari’s tools are more basic and automated.
- Crosslisting with Vendoo: Effortlessly crosslist your products to platforms like Poshmark and Mercari with Vendoo, optimizing your workflow and maximizing your reach.
What Is Poshmark?
Poshmark is a fashion-focused reselling platform that’s all about community. Since its launch in 2011, it has grown to over 80 million active users, eventually becoming a leading marketplace for fashion in the US and Canada. While clothing and accessories are the most popular Poshmark selling categories, you can also sell toys, pet products, home decor, and select electronics.
Poshmark’s diverse promotional tools and simple listing process make it appealing, but its social media-inspired structure truly sets it apart. The platform has built an engaged community of fashion-savvy users, allowing them to connect through commenting, liking, sharing tips, and attending virtual events.
You might also be interested in the article How to Sell on Poshmark: A Step By Step Guide
What Is Mercari?
Launched in 2013, Mercari is an online marketplace with a more diverse audience and over 23 million active users. It offers a wide range of categories, including fashion, electronics, gaming, toys, jewelry, home, outdoor, office, and more. If your item doesn’t quite fit into any of them, you can always list it under “Other,” which makes Mercari a versatile platform to buy and sell almost anything.
With no selling fees and a user-friendly setup, Mercari might be particularly good for new or casual sellers. While it may lack some of the advanced features Poshmark offers, it covers all the basics to help you easily list and sell.
Side by Side Comparison
Finding the right marketplace for your items is key to making successful sales. To help you there, let’s see how Mercari and Poshmark compare in key areas like fees, audience, and seller tools.
Poshmark vs. Mercari: Target Audience
Understanding the audience demographic is key to curating your inventory and maximizing sales.
While fashion is the top-selling category on both Poshmark and Mercari, suggesting some overlap in their user bases, the marketplaces attract different types of buyers.
Poshmark has a larger but more niche-focused audience, so items other than clothing and accessories may not be gaining as much traction.
Mercari’s audience, in contrast, is smaller yet more diverse. It draws buyers across a wide variety of categories, making it a great option for selling almost anything—as long as it’s not on the platform’s list of prohibited items.
Selling Fees
Understanding fees is crucial to selling and pricing. Fees attribute directly to your profit as a seller.
What are Poshmark Fees?
Poshmark takes 20% of sales over $15 and above and a flat fee of $2.95 for sales under $15. It has among the highest selling fees but also offers much more than other peer-to-peer reselling marketplaces.
What are Mercari Fees?
As of Spring 2024, Mercari has no selling fees. In March 2024, the platform eliminated its fees for sellers and added some buyer fees instead. There is still a withdrawal fee of $2 or $3 (depending on the withdrawal method) per transaction.
Shipping
Shipping works slightly differently on Poshmark and Mercari. Poshmark offers simple and straightforward shipping, while Mercari offers more options for sellers.
How does shipping work on Poshmark?
On Poshmark, shipping options are straightforward– simply use Poshmark labels. When you make a sale, your shipping label is downloaded to you, or you can use a QR code at the post office. Poshmark offers USPS labels– it’s either USPS Ground Advantage for orders containing electronics or USPS Priority Mail for everything else. The shipping fee is typically paid by buyers at a flat rate of $7.97, regardless of weight or destination. While some sellers appreciate this simplicity, others find it limiting. If you rely on sales of lightweight items, the $7.97 flat fee might deter potential buyers, while shipments over 5 lbs require an upgraded label paid by the seller.
💡Tip: Poshmark’s labels include free USPS Priority Mail boxes and mailers, so you don’t have to worry about packaging supplies.
How does shipping work on Mercari?
With Mercari, shipping gets more flexible. Sellers can choose to ship with Mercari prepaid labels or ship on their own. When creating a listing, you need to enter the item’s weight and dimensions, which are used to calculate the shipping fee. You can use USPS, UPS, and FedEx or ship your items yourself via services like PirateShip.
💡Tip: Choose Mercari’s label for shipping protection (up to $200) if your package gets lost or damaged in transit.
Returns
Buyers generally expect sales to be final when shopping on marketplaces like Poshmark or Mercari. However, if the item is not as described, not authentic, or never arrives, Poshmark and Mercari allow buyers to request a return within 72 hours of delivery. The process is fairly simple, but customer support on both platforms tends to be slow, so prepare to exercise patience.
Listing Process
Creating listings is equally easy on Poshmark and Mercari, but Poshmark gives you a bit more freedom.
Poshmark listings allow longer descriptions (1,500 characters max), up to 16 item photos, and even one video. Plus, emojis are welcome. You can also create multi-quantity listings for items in different quantities and sizes. The Poshmark listing form has a few extra subcategories and fields to help you maximize exposure.
Mercari’s listings are a bit more basic — up to 1,000 characters, 12 photos, and no video or emojis. Mercari doesn’t support multi-quantity listings, so you must add a new listing for each item. The Mercari form also has shipping options that you must enter based on your preferences.
List to both Poshmark and Mercari simultaneously with just a few clicks with Vendoo.
Poshmark & Mercari Selling Tools
When it comes to promotional and marketing tools, Poshmark particularly stands out. With features like Offers to Likers, My Promoted Closet, Posh Stories, Posh Parties, live sales, and sharing, Poshmark offers tons of ways to get your items noticed. While having such a versatile marketing toolkit is a plus, taking full advantage of it may require much effort.
If you want more Poshmark tips, check out our guide on How to Make More Sales on Poshmark 2025.
Mercari, on the other hand, is more passive. It does have similar (although a bit more limited compared to Poshmark) marketing features like Promote and Offers to Likers, where sellers can offer price drops to attract buyers. But its Smart Offers and Smart Pricing features, powered by the platform’s AI, allow sellers to automate much of the promotion processes, saving time and effort.
💡Tip: Crosslist with Vendoo to take your automation options to the next level. You can send bulk offers, delist & relist items with a few clicks, avoid double selling with auto sale detection, and much more! Try Vendoo for free!
Which Is Better: Poshmark or Mercari?
Now that we’ve compared Poshmark and Mercari side by side, let’s summarize each the pros and cons of each marketplace.
Poshmark Pros:
- large, fashion-focused audience;
- strong sense of community;
- diverse promotion tools;
- simple flat-rate shipping.
Poshmark Cons:
- limited non-fashion audience;
- high selling fees;
- requires more effort to stay active.
Mercari Pros:
- user-friendly interface;
- no selling fees;
- flexible shipping options;
- diverse selling categories.
Mercari Cons:
- smaller audience;
- listings are more basic;
- limited marketing and analytics tools.
The verdict: When deciding between Poshmark and Mercari, think of your specific needs. If you want to reach a dedicated fashion audience, be part of a community, and benefit from all the advanced features, Poshmark might be a good fit. If you’re looking for a simpler selling experience and a broader range of product categories, Mercari could be a better choice.
For many sellers, though, using both platforms can be the most effective strategy — and that’s where Vendoo can help.
How to Sell Successfully on Both Poshmark and Mercari
Here are some tips and tricks for selling on both Poshmark and Mercari.
Crosslist with Vendoo
Crosslisting your items to multiple platforms is one of the best ways to increase your chances of making sales. Vendoo supports 10+ marketplaces, including Mercari and Poshmark, allowing you to expose your items to different audiences. It also makes creating new listings, sending offers, and tracking your inventory much easier—all from one intuitive dashboard!
Optimize Listings
When creating new listings, whether on Poshmark or Mercari, it’s important to write detailed descriptions and include relevant keywords. Mentioning the item’s brand, style, condition, size, and other key details will make your listings easier to find and help you avoid potential issues with orders.
Want to get more views on your listings? Check out the article A Reseller’s Guide to Keywords and SEO.
Clear and high-quality photos are also key. With Vendoo’s in-app photo editor and background remover, you can easily make your listings more attractive to buyers.
Stay Active and Engage with Buyers
On Poshmark, you can stay active by listing daily, sharing your own listings with your followers, and participating in Posh Parties.
To make sure your listings stay on top of search results on both platforms, you should delist and relist your items daily. It may sound like a lot of work, but with bulk delist and relist features by Vendoo, you can do that with ease.
Mercari does not offer as many tools, so daily listing and delisting and relisting are key to success.
Offering bundle discounts and sending offers is another way to maximize sales, and automating this process with Vendoo can save you a lot of time.
Offer Discounted or Free Shipping
Both marketplaces publish that listings with free shipping are more likely to sell. Covering buyer’s shipping fees, whether partially or in full, can make your listings stand out and appeal to more buyers. Both Poshmark and Mercari have a search filter for items with free or discounted shipping, giving your listings better visibility. If you go with this option, consider adjusting your item price to account for this expense.
Sign up for Vendoo today, and start crosslisting to Poshmark, Mercari, and other marketplaces in under five minutes!
Which online marketplace do you prefer? Share with us below! 👇🏽
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions about Poshmark and Mercari
Can I sell on both Poshmark and Mercari at the same time?
Yes, you can sell on both platforms simultaneously, and crosslisting your items is one of the best ways to increase your sales potential. Tools like Vendoo make it easy to manage listings across multiple marketplaces, saving you time and effort.
What types of items sell best on Poshmark and Mercari?
On Poshmark, fashion-related items like clothing, shoes, and accessories are the top-selling categories. Mercari, on the other hand, attracts buyers for a wide range of categories, including electronics, toys, home goods, and more, making it ideal for selling almost anything.
How do selling fees differ between Poshmark and Mercari?
Poshmark charges 20% for sales over $15 and $2.95 for sales under $15. Mercari currently has no selling fees, though it does charge a small withdrawal fee for payouts. This means Mercari can be more cost-effective for sellers.
How does shipping work on Poshmark and Mercari?
Poshmark offers flat-rate shipping labels, simplifying the process but potentially deterring buyers of lightweight items due to the flat fee. Mercari provides flexible shipping options, including prepaid labels and self-shipping, with protection for packages shipped using their labels.
Are returns allowed on Poshmark and Mercari?
Both platforms generally treat sales as final, but returns are allowed if the item is not as described, inauthentic, or fails to arrive. Buyers have 72 hours after delivery to request a return.
Which platform offers better marketing tools for sellers?
Poshmark stands out with advanced promotional features like Posh Parties, Offers to Likers, and live sales. Mercari, while simpler, provides automated tools like Smart Pricing and Smart Offers to help sellers attract buyers with less effort.
How can Vendoo help me sell on both Poshmark and Mercari?
Vendoo simplifies crosslisting, allowing you to effortlessly list, delist, and relist items across platforms. It also offers bulk features like sending offers and inventory management, helping you save time while maximizing sales opportunities.
Should I offer free shipping on my listings?
Offering free or discounted shipping can increase your chances of making sales, as both Poshmark and Mercari highlight such listings in search results. Adjust your pricing to cover shipping costs if needed to maintain profitability.
