Mercari vs. Poshmark: Pros, Cons, and Tips for Sellers

In recent years, online marketplaces have revolutionized the way we buy and sell goods. Platforms like Poshmark and Mercari have surged in popularity, significantly impacting the resale market by providing convenient avenues for individuals to turn their closets into cash or find unique, pre-loved items.

In this article, we'll compare Poshmark and Mercari, covering their pros and cons, fee structures, and tips for maximizing your sales on each platform. Whether you're a seasoned reseller or a newbie, this guide will help you navigate these two popular marketplaces.

What is Poshmark?

Founded in 2011, Poshmark is a fashion powerhouse with over 80 million active users. 
Poshmark is known for fashion but offers a large range of selling categories including fashion and apparel, beauty, home decor, pet items, and select electronics.

Poshmark has become a social e-commerce powerhouse, offering a unique blend of shopping and social networking through live sales. Poshers can follow each other, share listings, and participate in virtual Posh Parties, creating an engaging and interactive marketplace experience. Poshmark offers the simplest listing and shipping, making it a reseller favorite. 

What is Mercari?

Founded in 2013, Mercari is a peer-to-peer e-commerce marketplace with over 20 million active users in the United States. 

Mercari has an expansive list of selling categories including clothing, electronics, toys, home goods, and many more.  Top sellers include fashion, electronics, and home goods. 

Mercari provides a user-friendly platform with a simple, straightforward selling process. I think of Mercari as a "baby eBay" with the selling categories of eBay but the simplicity and ease of use found on Poshmark.  Its flexible shipping options and broad category range make it a versatile choice for both buyers and sellers looking to explore various product categories without the emphasis on social interactions.

Poshmark vs. Mercari: A Complete 2024 Comparison

Navigating the world of online marketplaces can be daunting, but understanding the ins and outs of each platform can make all the difference. In this comprehensive 2024 comparison of Poshmark and Mercari, we'll explore the key aspects to help you decide which platform best suits your needs. We'll cover:

• Creating an Account: Ease of sign-up and getting started.
• Selling Categories: What you can list and sell.
• Listing Process: Steps and features for listing items.
• Fees: Breakdown of costs associated with each platform.
• Protection: Buyer and seller protections in place.

How Do I Create an Account on Poshmark and Mercari?

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 on Mercari vs. Poshmark

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 23 million active users, which is approximately one-fourth of the active user base on Poshmark. 

Want to learn more? Check out the article Top Selling Brands on Poshmark in 2024.

However, Mercari has many more categories.  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 2024. 

Which Marketplace 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.

Community Features

The reselling community is strong on social media and in real life. Poshmark stands out with its vibrant and engaged community. It offers numerous virtual and in-person events, such as Posh Parties, where users can share and discover listings, and Posh N' Sips, local meet-ups for networking and learning. Additionally, Poshmark hosts an annual conference called Poshfest, a celebration and educational event for its users. The platform also runs various social campaigns and initiatives to keep the community connected and motivated.

In contrast, Mercari lacks the extensive community features that Poshmark offers. While it doesn’t have as many interactive events or initiatives, you can still find a presence on social media platforms like Instagram, where users share their listings and connect with other sellers and buyers.

Which Marketplace is Better?

Poshmark is the clear winner here if community and support are important for you in your reselling journey. 

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 Marketplace 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.

💡 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

Marketing and Promotional Tools

Effectively promoting your listings is crucial for driving sales, and both Poshmark and Mercari offer unique tools to help sellers boost visibility.

Poshmark provides several robust tools for promoting listings. Sellers can share items to the newsfeed and Posh Parties, which enhances visibility. They can also send bulk offers to likers to incentivize purchases. For paid promotion, Poshmark offers "My Promoted Closet," which boosts exposure for selected items.

Mercari offers a free promotion tool where sellers can promote a handful of items daily by dropping prices by 10%. Additionally, Mercari's smart pricing automatically adjusts prices to keep listings competitive, though the promotion limit can be restrictive.

Which Marketplace Is Better?

Poshmark wins in this category due to its extensive range of marketing and promotional tools, providing sellers with more opportunities to increase their listings' visibility and drive sales.

Analytics and Insights

Understanding and utilizing analytics and insights is crucial for sellers to scale their businesses and maximize profits. This data provides valuable information on sales performance, customer behavior, and market trends, enabling informed decision-making and strategic planning.

Poshmark offers detailed analytics through "My Closet Insights," providing sellers with comprehensive data on their sales, inventory, and trends. This includes insights into sales performance, brand performance, and listing activity, helping sellers optimize their strategies.

Poshmark's "My Closet Insights" provide detailed stats about your Poshmark sales 

Mercari provides some basic analytics with metrics like item views, likes, and listing performance. The insights are significantly more limited compared to Poshmark, focusing primarily on individual listing performance rather than overall store trends.

Which Marketplace Is Better?

Poshmark offers more comprehensive and detailed analytics, making it the better choice for sellers who rely on data to grow their businesses and enhance profitability.

Making Sales: How Much Work Is Poshmark & Mercari?

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 Marketplace 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. 

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 $7.97 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 Marketplace 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! $7.97 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 has no seller fees. That’s right, as of March 2024, Mercari has no selling fees at all for sellers.

The one, small catch is that there is a $2 withdrawal fee to transfer your funds to your bank account. This means that if you make a $10 sale, you’ll ultimately receive $8.00 in your bank account. Note that you can let your balance accumulate, so it is not $2 per sale, but $2 per withdrawal. Also note that you do not have to transfer your balance to a bank account; you could use it to shop on mercari. 

Which Marketplace is better?

Mercari. You cannot beat zero selling fees! 

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, you will make $20. If you choose to withdraw your balance immediately, you’ll receive $18. 

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. 

Note that Mercari has a $2 withdrawal fee each time you transfer your funds to your bank account. 

List, manage, and grow - all in one place. 

Payment Processing

Efficient and secure payment processing is essential for both buyers and sellers on online marketplaces.

Poshmark supports payments via major credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. The platform holds payments until the buyer confirms receipt of the item, ensuring security for both parties. Poshmark's system is user-friendly, making the process seamless and reliable.

Mercari accepts payments through credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. Like Poshmark, Mercari holds funds until the buyer confirms delivery. Mercari also offers Instant Pay for sellers, allowing quick access to funds.

Which Marketplace is Better?

While both platforms offer secure and user-friendly payment processes, Poshmark edges out due to its seamless integration and overall user experience.

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.

However, the return policies are very different. 

On Poshmark all sales are final unless the item(s) is not as described, inauthentic, damaged, or never sent. Poshmark does not allow 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. To request a return, a buyer must initiate a formal case and submit photographic evidence to support their claim. The buyer and seller can both comment and upload photos, and ultimately Poshmark makes the decision. The process takes several days to be resolved, during which time your funds are held up.

On Mercari, returns are allowed for any reason, including that a buyer simply changed their mind or something does not fit. A buyer must request a return within 72 hours of delivery and prior to rating the seller as this “completes” the purchase. To request a return, a buyer must initiate a formal case and submit photographic evidence to support their claim. If approved, nominal purchases will be refunded in the purchase amount as credits. For larger value purchases, buyers will be provided a free return label (paid for at Mercari’s expense). Once the item is returned, and the seller can ensure it was returned in the same condition, the buyer will be refunded via credits or to their original payment method. For more information about Mercari’s return policy, click here. 

Which Marketplace is Better?

Well, it depends who you ask. As far as prompt customer support, there is room for improvement across the board because neither platform resolves issues particularly quickly. Mercari has a phone number, whereas Poshmark is only available via email and in-app messaging. As far as returns, some sellers do not mind them, recognizing that returns are an inevitable part of business. Some sellers really dislike them, and disfavor Mercari’s less stringent policies. 

Future Developments and Updates

Regular updates and advancements are crucial for keeping a platform competitive and beneficial for sellers.

Poshmark consistently rolls out new features and improvements, such as enhanced shipping options, better analytics tools, and community events. These updates are aimed at improving the user experience and providing sellers with more tools to succeed.

Mercari also regularly updates its platform, focusing on user experience improvements, security enhancements, and new features like smart pricing and promotions. These updates help sellers stay competitive and attract more buyers.

Which Marketplace is Better?

This one is a close call, as they're both great. But, overall Poshmark wins in this category due to its frequent and impactful updates that continuously enhance the selling experience. Mercari also provides valuable updates, but Poshmark's consistent focus on community and seller tools gives it the edge.

Poshmark vs. Mercari: Which is Better Overall? 

Poshmark is a better place to sell items online for most sellers- especially those selling exclusively fashion. The larger audience, maximized SEO, simple shipping process, superior seller support, and more advanced features justify the selling fees. Mercari is still a viable selling marketplace, and it is among the best places to sell online.

Both Poshmark and Mercari offer unique advantages for sellers, depending on their needs. Poshmark excels with its community features, extensive promotional tools, and detailed analytics, making it ideal for those looking to engage with a social network and leverage data for growth. Mercari stands out for its simplicity, flexible shipping options, and smart pricing, catering to sellers who prefer a straightforward approach. Ultimately, Poshmark's robust feature set and active community make it the better choice for those seeking a comprehensive selling platform, while Mercari offers an easy-to-use alternative for quick, efficient sales.

Crosslist your items to 11 marketplaces in under five minutes with Vendoo! 

Tips for Selling on Poshmark

Here are some tips and tricks to make more sales on Poshmark.

1. Engage with the Community: Participate in Posh Parties and share your listings to boost your visibility.
2. Optimize Your Listings: Use high-quality photos and detailed descriptions to attract buyers.
3. Price Strategically: Research similar items and price competitively.
4. Utilize Offers: Send bulk offers to likers to encourage sales.
5. Stay Active: Regularly create new listings, delist and relist, and enhance your listings to maintain visibility.
   
   
   

Tips for Selling on Mercari

The best tips and tricks to make more sales on Poshmark.

1. Use Smart Pricing: Enable smart pricing to automatically adjust your prices and stay competitive.
2. Promote Listings: Utilize Mercari's daily promotion tool by dropping prices by 10%.
3. High-Quality Photos: Ensure your items have clear, attractive photos.
4. Detailed Descriptions: Provide thorough and honest item descriptions.
5. Fast Shipping: Offer prompt shipping to improve your seller rating.
   
   

Crosslisting Between Poshmark and Mercari

Why choose one? Rather than limiting yourself to one platform, crosslisting allows you to reach a broader audience and maximize sales potential. With Vendoo, you can crosslist to multiple marketplaces in just a few clicks!

Crosslisting helps sellers tap into different buyer groups, diversify sales channels, and reduce the risk of slow sales on any single platform.

Crosslist Your Items to Over 10 Marketplaces in under five minutes with Vendoo!

Vendoo simplifies the process of managing listings across multiple marketplaces. Here's how:

1. Sign Up for Vendoo: Create an account on Vendoo's website.
2. Import Your Listings: Import your current listings from Poshmark, Mercari, and other platforms.
3. Crosslist Efficiently: Use Vendoo to quickly crosslist items to multiple marketplaces.
4. Manage Inventory: Keep track of your inventory and sales from one central dashboard.
5. Update Listings: Easily update listings across all platforms with a few clicks.
   
   

Optimize Your Online Selling Strategy with Vendoo

Recap the essential differences between Mercari and Poshmark, including their user bases, types of items that sell best, and unique features. Vendoo enables efficient crosslisting and inventory management, helping sellers reach diverse buyer groups and streamline operations. By using Vendoo, you can optimize your online selling strategies, potentially increase sales, and manage multiple marketplace listings effectively.

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

Start crosslisting to both Poshmark and Mercari today with Vendoo!