Is Mercari and Others Eating Ebay’s Lunch?

[american-photography]

How can Ebay continue to raise fees for sellers while traffic and sales decline and so much competition is out there?

Example For Sellers:

Mercari sellers pay 0% fees.  Cash out fees:  $2.00 per direct deposit or $3.00 per instant pay transfer.

Ebay sellers pay $0.35 after free insertion fees and in most categories minimum 13.25% - 15% FVF plus store fees, promotion ad fees, and other upgrade fees.

Example For Buyers:

Mercuri buyers pay 2.9% + 0.50 payment processing fee.

Ebay buyers pay 0% fees.

[robbie31415 · Accepted solution]

When you are desperate you gotta try to lower things or make big changes. When you aren't desperate you chill or increase prices.

Mercari is desperate, eBay isn't.

Maybe eBay will be in the future, but Mercari isn't eating any lunch, they are starving.

[quicksilverdiecast]

That is because they keep letting sales get blocked...the shopping cart is the main issue of the problems.

Ebay has so many strings attached to the cart that it no longer lets a buyer request a new total for the items in his cart., The seller is not advised by ebay that a buyer has a cart wanting to check out and the buyer has no idea the seller is unaware., and with ebay blocking and adding NOT combining totals the shipping on anything more than 1 item gets doubled with each item added...to the point where only a fool would pay that much shipping, and since the seller (who is unaware) does not respond eventually the buyer abandons the cart and walks away...lost sale for the buyer and seller., and lost ebay fees....now multiply that times all the sellers on the platform for just one day collectively., and you will see the amount of fees lost due to ebay stupidity is very considerable...so when ebay cries poor and wants to raise fees more just point to the cart and say fix it and you will generate a lot more fees without sticking us sellers with it....

[hartungcards]

Maybe Mercari wasn't able to afford to buy their own lunch.

[solidguitar1961]

Mercari is also charging the buyers 10% transaction fees. I don't think buyers are going to like paying the fees.

[american-photography]

They charge 2.9% + $0.50 payment processing fee for buyers, that’s it.

[solidguitar1961]

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@american-photography wrote:

They charge 2.9% + $0.50 payment processing fee for buyers, that’s it.

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They are not being very transparent.

[mordecai8614]

@robbie31415 

Absolutely this. When Mercari implemented this change a month ago I listed a ton of stuff on their platform to try to take advantage. You know how many sales I've made? 0. Not a single one. Meanwhile, my daily eBay sales have continued without a hitch. Mercari is a joke & they are about as much competition to eBay as a childs lemonade stand is to Coca Cola

[theteamsetguy]

@american-photography ,

Do you currently sell on Mercari also? If so, how are your sales since they made the change? My prediction is they will get flooded with new sellers because they like the idea of not having fees.  The pie will get split up amongst more sellers.

[chapeau-noir]

I sell on Mercari and what's curious is that when they did charge sellers the fees (up until very recently), they weren't even that consistent. I found myself paying slightly different amounts on the same item amount - ? Seemed a bit more than just a rounding error, too.

ETA: Oh, and the sales completely stalled. I wasn't going to drop my prices because the buyers are going to pay fees - Mercari has a lot of haggling and I knew right away that buyers would demand discounts and best offers "because I have to pay a surcharge on this...and what site charges buyers to shop?" And I see their point.

[american-photography]

You are right, good point.

Though from a sellers point of view, it is still much more profitable to not pay any or very little fees.  Wouldn’t you want to keep more of your money and let the buyer incur those fees?

Most auction houses charge winning buyers (not sellers like Ebay) anywhere from 13% up to 30% after winning an auction, so it is still reasonable.

[solidguitar1961]

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@american-photography wrote:

You are right, good point.

Though from a sellers point of view, it is still much more profitable to not pay any or very little fees.  Wouldn’t you want to keep more of your money and let the buyer incur those fees?

Most auction houses charge winning buyers (not sellers like Ebay) anywhere from 13% up to 30% after winning an auction, so it is still reasonable.

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It would work out the same . If you go to an auction house that charges a 20% buyers premium and your item is worth $100 you will only get an $83 bid .

[yuzuha]

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@robbie31415 wrote:

Maybe eBay will be in the future, but Mercari isn't eating any lunch, they are starving.

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I know multiple people who have stopped buying on Mercari because of the buyer fees. They put an item in their cart, saw how much extra they would be charged in terms of fees, and went "no way."

[robbie31415]

I mean, Mercari just made it that I would never buy on their platform.

I don't believe in paying service fees as a buyer.

I don't use food delivery service like ubereats because of all the 'service fees'.

Now Mercari is added to the list of places I will not buy from. I will sell there though, but none of my items on Mercari are really selling.

[yuzuha]

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@solidguitar1961 wrote:

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It would work out the same . If you go to an auction house that charges a 20% buyers premium and your item is worth $100 you will only get an $83 bid .

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Yeah, I really don't understand why people think that the buyers paying the fees = them getting more money. If a buyer is only willing to pay $100 for an item, they're not going to buy it if it's priced at $100 and then there are fees on top of that.