Mercari Tests Adding Buyer Fees Back Into Item Price; Glitches On Offers Ensue
In a clear sign of continued buyer aversion to new fee structure, Mercari is testing adding fees back into the item price - but this new test appears to have triggered a glitch in pricing for sellers on offers, creating confusion on both sides of the marketplace.
Mercari launched their new fee structure in March, removing selling fees and shifting the fee burden to the buyer side of the sale instead.
The company faced pushback from buyers who experienced massive sticker shock when seeing additional fees tacked on at checkout, with some making unflattering comparisons to airline fees or worse yet - buying tickets from Ticketmaster!
Buyers were particularly taken aback because the fees were variable and could sometimes exceed the 10% fee that had previously been applied on the seller side, raising serious concerns about transparency that forced Mercari to test showing buyer fees on the item page before checkout to stem the tide of abandoned carts.
Liz Morton
Unfortunately, the fee structure shakeup hasn't been working as well as Mercari had hoped, leading to a mass layoff of ~45% staff in June with US CEO John Lagerling admitting the change had increased the number of listings on the site, but had "not delivered the short-term results that we had hoped for on the buyer/ GMV side."
Liz Morton
Buyer fees have clearly continued to be a point of friction preventing purchases, prompting VP Marketing David Lee to make the YouTube rounds announcing, among other things, that Mercari is going to cap the buying fee at 10% - with some items theoretically being charged fees less than that.
Liz Morton
But even that doesn't seem to have moved the needle and now Mercari appears to be desperately trying a new test to get potential buyers to pull the trigger on purchases.
Several Mercari users are reporting on Reddit they are seeing messages popping up about a "beta" experience that is adding the buyer fees on top of the seller's item price to show one total item price including fees, with shipping and tax calculated at checkout.
The message says "Know your costs. As part of a beta rollout, you're seeing prices that include item cost and fees. Shipping and taxes are calculated at checkout."
Another Reddit post showed what the price looks in this beta test on desktop:
Some sellers weren't thrilled with the change, believing it may cause even more confusion for buyers.
What does Mercari think this is going to accomplish?!? I realize total amount doesn't change but as a seller, this ridiculous move... doesn't do sellers ANY favors!!!!
Others said they thought it was an improvement, but might be too little too late or not make much of a difference to reverse the trend of dropping sales they've seen.
I got this on desktop only for whatever reason. Got a popup saying I'm seeing prices with fees included as part of a beta rollout. It should have always been like this imo plus with shipping included in price as ur scrolling.
Maybe it will help with sales. I doubt it tho. Mercari needs to go back to the old tried and tested method where sellers pay the fees and no withdrawal fee.
My mercari sales have been non existent since they changed it. My sales are 100% ebay now. This time last year I was getting almost equal amount of sales between mercari and ebay. Crazy.
It's also causing confusion among sellers, due to an apparent glitch in how offers are now being displayed.
The change has prompted some to wonder if Mercari is bringing back seller fees because it shows the amount the seller would earn if they accept the offer would be less than the amount being offered - like in this example where the seller was told they would earn $10.49 if they accept an offer of $12.75.
Other users speculated this apparent glitch may be related to the beta test with buyer fees.
I think mercari is rolling out this update so After Fees price is visible and more BuyerFriendly.
I’m guessing they saw a large amount of buyer behavior get the item to checkout only to see the price with fees at the end and then abandon their cart. They are now possibly exploring Bottom Line Up Front pricing rather their the smoke and mirrors or list price vs List+Fee price.
And in another Reddit post, some confirmed they received the full amount of the accepted offer price, suggesting the issue may just be a display glitch.
I've sold a number of things on Mercari since they removed seller fees-- I know they aren't charging sellers fees. So when I went to accept this $18 offer, I was confused with the note "You earn: $14.98".
Is this just something Mercari hasn't updated yet on their side? And why $14.98? That doesn't even match up with Mercari's old fee structure, does it? I'm probably just going to accept the offer and it'll be fine, but it does make me a little nervous that there's something else going on here that I can't figure out.
Update: I accepted it, and it looks as though I will still make the full $18.00. Sounds like they might be planning on switching things up, though. Or it could just be a big mistake (I hope) that will go away.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time an update on Mercari resulted in unintended glitches and some users say they believe the technical issues on the site have only gotten worse since that mass layoff in June.
Liz Morton
So 6 months into this grand experiment, Mercari appears to finally be giving in to the lessons of human psychology they should have known would apply all along - don't make buyers think or do math, just show them their total cost of purchase.
There's a reason "free shipping" still outperforms flat rate or calculated shipping across most ecommerce transactions, even if logically people know there's no such thing as "free" and the cost is simply baked into the total somewhere else.
The same applies to platform fees that buyers have arguably really been paying all along in many cases, just baked into the total price as part of the seller's cost of doing business.
As competitors like Depop and Poshmark speed run their own version of this social experiment, and eBay plans to introduce buyer fees in the UK in 2025 too, will they learn from Mercari and also move to "hide" the buyer fee in with the item price to make it more palatable?
It all seems like a lot of extra work for the programmers, not to mention added stress and friction in the user experience, just to ultimately end up at about the same place with minor differences in when/how the marketplace takes their cut of the pie.
Would Mercari's new beta test combining the fee with the item price make you more or less likely to hit the buy button? Let us know in the comments below!
