Another Competitor Makes Some Big Changes

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

ebay competitor Mercari announced some big changes today. The best summary I've seen is here:

https://www.valueaddedresource.net/mercari-shifts-fees-buyers-returns-any-reason/

Will this impact ebay's strategy going forward, or will it have little or no effect? I don't know, but it will be interesting to see what the next ebay Seller Update contains....

[quicksilverdiecast]

Sorry guys but I am a no vote on bringing anything like that to ebay for a number of reasons....the 1st one is ebay's ability to make things run smoothly. 2 People, both buyers and sellers get used to how things works as well as the teflon policies....of which even currently gets easily confused. 3. Sales will not increase due to raising the retail end, especially in the current chaos where everything is going up...4. Ebay does such a fine job at educating buyers and sellers....

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@ittybitnot  Very possible. As I've said, the roll out of this change, no advance notice, confused execution, and now it seems possible they completely underestimated the number of sellers who would withdraw their balances and/or leave.

But my guess is, they'll get it fixed and you'll be able to withdraw before the waiver period expires (or they will extend the waiver period).

I'm guessing Mercari management is pretty nervous right now, and if I were a seller dependent on Mercari for my income, I'd be pretty nervous too. But if I were a multi channel seller, with Mercari as only one of my channels, and not the most important one, I'd wait this out to see what happens.

[valueaddedresource]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

With a number of cross listing platforms available, well, why not? Pretty easy to cross list from here to there, and at really no great risk... sellers can price competitively (with no fees), which could indeed bring more buyers (even with the buyer fees). AND these same sellers would have an incentive to use social media to push their Mercari (no fee) sales rather than their Poshmark sales (20%, I think)....

So, just my opinion, but I think this is worth watching. I don't think other sites need to worry just yet, but I also think they shouldn't just dismiss this...Yes, there's risk, and it could fail and Mercari might have to walk it back.

But , just making numbers up, if I am on platform A and on mercari, and I sell 1,000 on A with say total fees or 20%, I'm left with $800.00 (not factoring in other expenses). Let's say I also sell $1000 on Mercari...basically, that means that  combining those sales reduces my total fee percentage to 10%, rather than 20%. And even if I only sell $200 on Mercari, that means Mercari effectively replaces the fees I paid to Platform A.

So, I'm thinking as things calm down, we're likely to see more sellers give Mercari a try, and the real issue will be will the buyers adapt or not. And they just might.

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques I would say it is not at all a coincidence that Mercari also just launched an AI listing import tool and that it just so happens to only work with eBay and Depop listings at this time. 😉

Basically it lets you put in your store/profile link to important all listings or individual listing URLs.

I played around with it a bit this morning and like most AI tools on any of these platforms, the results were hit or miss - for example it put this in Men's Shoes even though the Depop category was Women's Shoes and the title and description also say Women's, and it also got the brand wrong (should be Bass).

Arguably maybe not a huge time savings when you have to go back and check the bot's work, but it is free so could be useful for those who want to test cross listing items to Mercari like you mentioned, but don't want to subscribe to some of the multi-channel store management solutions available.

Important to note though it is just a one time item info extraction, if you change the listing on eBay or Depop later on it will not automatically update the Mercari listing and if you sell the item on another platform, the inventory will not automatically synch or be set to zero either.

[twk]

Interesting.  But shipping costs, picked up  by buyer, are pretty high already.  I don't know if adding more fees to the buyer is going to be a plus.

In most stores, brick and mortar or on-line, the service fee etc. is paid by the seller as a cost of doing business.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@valueaddedresource  Yes, certainly not a coincidence. And it looks like the tool is, to be charitable, a work in progress. But it's certainly no surprise, as the whole idea behind this change is to bring more inventory onto the site...with the hope that a larger selection will attract more buyers. 

Is this a risky strategy? Absolutely. But there are plenty of sellers on other sites who are unhappy about seller fees, and if becomes easy to cross list, I think the zero fees policy will be pretty attractive, even if sellers are skeptical about the strength of the buyer base once buyers discover the buyer fees. 

If the buyer base actually grows (since at least some new sellers will also buy on the platform) , I think Mercari might do well. It all comes down to: Will enough sellers find "no fees" irresistible? And will enough buyers find buyer fees tolerable?

[chapeau-noir]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques   The "cheap" buying culture is baked into Mercari - it's simply part of the site. Haggling, discounts, etc, have always been a feature.

[valueaddedresource]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques   The "cheap" buying culture is baked into Mercari - it's simply part of the site. Haggling, discounts, etc, have always been a feature.

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@chapeau-noir Given that, I suspect what we're really going to see is that buyers who stick around will likely be the ones who are already very much habituated to view it as a bargain/discount site and are very comfortable using the offers system to haggle - and will simply use that to try to leverage fees back on to sellers (in their mind) by pushing for discounts to cover those additional costs.

That will likely lead to sellers keeping their prices up to allow room for the haggling and probably the end result will be about what it would have been otherwise just with a whole lot more hassle back and forth to get there.

Not at all how I personally like to shop or sell, but to each their own.

[carlmarxx]

Buyer traffic  is everything to these   online sites . And I say no on buyers   willing to pay fee's .      I had wished   we sellers had pushed back on the  shipping fee's eBay charged us  sellers for not Playing ball full board  on free shipping all items . . 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Years ago, I probably would have said: buyers won't pay, they'll just leave. But as I have mentioned, the common wisdom about inflation---based on history--- was buyers would cut back purchases due to higher prices and so businesses would find it necessary to lower prices, thus reducing inflation. But , in the USA, many buyers just continued to buy. They complained, yes, but I think many people have just become so used to "I want it now, so I will buy it now" that, despite all the complaining, the buying continued. 

So, could that happen on Mercari? I wouldn't bet on it, but then again, I wouldn't bet against it either.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

Too much going on at that site. 

Sounds like they are desperate, so they are going after sellers and buyers for fees with all the ifs', Ans, or buts scenarios. 

[chapeau-noir]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques   The "cheap" buying culture is baked into Mercari - it's simply part of the site. Haggling, discounts, etc, have always been a feature.

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@chapeau-noir Given that, I suspect what we're really going to see is that buyers who stick around will likely be the ones who are already very much habituated to view it as a bargain/discount site and are very comfortable using the offers system to haggle - and will simply use that to try to leverage fees back on to sellers (in their mind) by pushing for discounts to cover those additional costs.

That will likely lead to sellers keeping their prices up to allow room for the haggling and probably the end result will be about what it would have been otherwise just with a whole lot more hassle back and forth to get there.

Not at all how I personally like to shop or sell, but to each their own.

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That's my concern - to me it's just a shell game, with that illusory 'savings' to sellers on fees simply translating into buyer demands for discounts (due to seeing these surcharges added).  I like the site and sure, I've sold some pricier stuff there, but it's not like some high-end auction house where participants are accustomed to paying to view and participate in obtaining sought-after goods, it's just another selling platform with funky tech to boot.

I don't see the point in it, actually. If I want to play this game I'd have to tack on extra to cancel out buyers wanting discounts to cover the 'participation penalty' mostly because my prices there are clearance level. Other sellers who sell at a generally higher price point may have their own strategies but again, I'm always up for seeing what happens. Wait for the stats to come out and see what they show. Maybe it'll just come down to changing up what I sell there.

[vintagecraze50]

They are TRYING REAL HARD to look even cheaper than other sites and by doing so because they have a rep for the cheapo’s they will accomplish that, like I said in a previous post, It is a shell game and in the end. It will be the same ole same ole price, just more confusion for a buyer on there. I am not banking on this working one itty bit to get more sellers on there OR BUYERS, people have too much common sense. 

[trainup027]

I only had a few things listed there, but I took them all down when I heard the news. It's too big a change, and what I Iiked about the site was not making you take returns.  After three days, the transaction was done, no take backs.   The site charges extremely high shipping which makes it hard to entice buyers.  And now adding more fees for buyers?  I don't think so.  I will keep an eye on things and see how it turns out, but I don't want to be part of the experiment and flush money down the drain on returns.

[vintagecraze50]

EBAY WOULD HAVE TO BE UTTERLY INSANE to implement what Mercari has done. They do not have to.

[vintagecraze50]

Well I am glad you had the time of your life on there with their staunch no returns policies because it was a completely outdated and at times with a chargeback utterly UN enforceable policy. They might have ate millions of dollars in chargebacks on their road to assist you. LOL! Now they need to try to recoup what they lost, one way or another.