At Mercari, we're dedicated to fostering a vibrant and trusted community where buyers and sellers connect seamlessly. We continuously listen to your feedback and are always working to enhance the platform for everyone. This guide explains key principles of how our search ranking system works to showcase items, offering insights into how you can improve your visibility. While many factors contribute to sales success, including market demand, seasonality and item appeal, optimizing your presence in search is an important step.
For Our Valued Existing Sellers
We celebrate your journey and dedication! We look at both your established track record (lifetime performance) and your recent activity and sales to create a dynamic and rewarding ranking system that reflects ongoing seller commitment. Here’s what helps your items shine:
- High Transaction Success & Reliability
- What This Means: We recognize sellers who consistently turn listings into sales and ensure those transactions are smooth and positive, with high completion rates and minimal cancellations, returns, or issues.
- Why It's a Plus: A strong record of successful and issue-free transactions signals exceptional reliability and builds significant buyer confidence and trust in you as a seller, which can greatly boost your item's visibility.
- How to Shine Brighter: Focus on maintaining an appealing and active inventory. Describe your items with care and accuracy, provide quality products, fulfill orders efficiently, and communicate clearly to minimize misunderstandings.
- Consistent Sales Performance (Lifetime & Recent)
- What This Means: We value both your long-term sales history and your recent sales momentum (e.g., sales in the last 90 days), reflecting your sustained success.
- Why It's a Plus: This approach recognizes your ongoing contributions and current engagement, helps assure buyers of your consistent track record and demonstrates your active presence in the marketplace.
- How to Shine Brighter: Keep your listings fresh and appealing, respond promptly to buyer inquiries, and aim for steady sales activity to demonstrate your ongoing success.
- Maintained Seller Verifications & Profile Completeness
- What This Means: Keeping your contact information (email, phone), payment methods, and any identity verifications (like Government ID for the verification badge) current and complete.
- Why It's a Plus: A complete and up-to-date verified profile reinforces trust with buyers and Mercari, contributes to overall marketplace safety, ensures smooth communication for transactions, helps you maintain any earned trust badges, and positively influences your standing.
- How to Shine Brighter: Regularly review your account settings to ensure all your information is accurate and complete. If you haven't already, consider completing all available verification steps.
- Consistent Listing Management
- What This Means: We value listings that are thoughtfully maintained and updated over time. Our system is designed to favor genuine updates rather than listings that are frequently deleted and relisted.
- Why It's a Plus: This approach helps maintain a fair environment by prioritizing authentic listing updates over tactics that can disrupt search clarity for buyers. Well-maintained listings build trust and show buyers your items are current.
- How to Shine Brighter: Instead of deleting listings and relisting, enhance your existing listings! Update them with new information, fresh photos, or consider strategic price adjustments to keep them attractive.
- Effective Use of Keywords
- What This Means: We prioritize listings that use clear, relevant, and accurate keywords that buyers would genuinely use.
- Why It's a Plus: Precise and relevant keywords help buyers find exactly what they're looking for quickly, improving their search experience and their confidence in your listings.
- How to Shine Brighter: Use clear and descriptive keywords that accurately portray your item. Think like a buyer: what terms would they use to find your item? Avoid irrelevant terms.
- Active Platform Engagement
- What This Means: We recognize sellers who are consistently active on the platform. Examples include regularly updating listings with meaningful information, promptly responding to messages, and shipping sold items efficiently.
- Why It's a Plus: These types of positive engagement show buyers you're present, responsive, and reliable, leading to higher buyer satisfaction and contributing to a healthier marketplace.
- How to Shine Brighter: Stay engaged in ways that genuinely enhance your listings and service. Regularly check your messages and orders, and keep your inventory current.
For Our New Sellers: Welcome to Mercari!
We're thrilled to have you join our community and want to help you succeed from day one! To get your items noticed and build foundational trust, completing your profile and verification steps is key. While these elements are important for all sellers to maintain, they give new sellers a fantastic start:
Verify Your Contact Information (Email and Phone Number)
- Why It's a Plus: Verifying your contact information ensures you receive important notifications and can communicate promptly with buyers, building a foundation of trust.
- How to Verify: Update your profile with your current email address and phone number, and follow the simple verification steps.
Add a Verified Payment Method (Credit Card Verification)
- Why It's a Plus: Adding a verified credit card helps confirm your identity and enables smoother, more secure transactions, increasing buyer confidence.
- How to Verify: Go to your account settings and add your credit card information.
Verify a Government ID (Government ID Verification)
- Why It's a Plus: By verifying your ID, you'll earn a special badge next to your profile picture. This badge clearly communicates to shoppers that you're a verified and trusted member of the community.
- How to Verify: Go to your account settings and opt-in to verify your Government ID information.
Why We Value Both Your Journey and Recent Wins
Our ranking system is complex and considers many signals to provide the best experience for both buyers and sellers. By considering both your overall history and your recent performance (like your activity in a rolling 90-day window), we aim to present these key principles to:
- Highlight Responsiveness & Reliability: Reward sellers who consistently provide excellent, reliable service and offer opportunities for those actively improving.
- Boost Buyer Confidence: Help buyers shop with peace of mind, connecting them with reliable and engaged sellers for successful transactions.
- Cultivate a Thriving Marketplace: Encourage positive and proactive selling habits that benefit our entire community. We believe that a healthy, trusted marketplace is built on transparency and genuine interactions.
While these ranking factors play an important role in visibility, we also recognize that overall market conditions, the inherent desirability of your items, and competitive pricing are significant contributors to your sales success.
Quick Tips to Maximize Your Item Positioning
- Focus on Overall Value: Great listings and excellent service, combined with desirable items at fair prices, are fundamental.
- Craft Accurate and Appealing Listings: Provide clear descriptions and high-quality images that truly represent your items.
- Strive for Transaction Excellence: Fulfill orders promptly and accurately, and communicate effectively to ensure smooth, positive outcomes.
- Maintain a Complete & Verified Profile: Keep your account information and verifications up-to-date to build and maintain trust.
- Engage Promptly with Buyers: Respond quickly to inquiries and offers to showcase your excellent customer service.
- Stay Actively Engaged with Your Shop: Regularly review your account, refresh listings with meaningful updates, and manage your orders efficiently.
- Use Keywords Wisely & Honestly: Choose relevant and specific keywords that genuinely match your items.