How to Bundle on Mercari
Do you know how to bundle on Mercari? By bundling, we mean catering to the whims of buyers who wish to purchase more than one thing from you.
Since Mercari is an online marketplace that is mostly geared towards selling items that are no longer being used, the majority of your sales will be of the single-listing kind, but there may be times when buyers will show interest in purchasing multiple items.
This is when knowledge of bundling on Mercari will come in handy, and you can do it through a clever sequence we will explain below.
Did you know Mercari has consistently been the most popular community e-commerce platform in Japan since 2013? In the United States, Mercari has been on the rise since a former Facebook executive joined the company in 2017. If you want to want to find prospective buyers for your items, Mercari is an excellent marketplace.
How to Combine Shipping on Mercari
One of the keys to learning how to bundle on Mercari is to think of the process as a way to combine shipping.
For the most part, Mercari sellers expect that the items they post on the marketplace will be shipped one by one; however, it is not unusual to find buyers who are into bundling on Mercari. In many cases, Mercari bundle fans are looking to resell on other marketplaces such as eBay and even the aforementioned Amazon 3P. Whatever buyers’ reasons may be for bundling, here are the steps you can follow:
Step 1: Put Yourself in the Buyer's Shoes
As we have already explained, Mercari sellers do not make bundles on their own; buyers are the ones who get the ball rolling when they decide they like two or more of your listings. To this effect, the absolute best way you can learn how to bundle on Mercari would be to experience the process as a buyer whenever possible.
The Mercari user interface is clean, friendly, and intuitive whether you access the marketplace from a desktop browser or the mobile app. You can look for items by entering a search query; once you make a choice from the grid of search results, you will have the option to check out the seller’s profile, which will show you all the items being sold. If you see other items you wish to buy from the seller, this would be the catalyst to request a bundle.
Step 2: Buyer and Seller Communications
In general, buyers are pretty good at reaching out to sellers because they want to know how to combine shipping on Mercari; they are economically driven to get in touch with sellers to let them know about their bundling intentions because it is assumed that they will pay for shipping.
The savings may extend beyond shipping when the buyers ask for discounts, which are entirely up to sellers to grant. In general, it is a good practice for sellers to entertain and negotiate discount requests because they have the potential of making or breaking a good sale.
As a buyer, the easiest way to learn how to bundle on Mercari is to get in touch with the seller through the internal messaging system; you want to let the seller know that you wish to purchase more than one item, but you should also send separate messages from each individual listing.
This would also be a good time to ask for a discount; it is better to do it at this point instead of asking when the seller sends a bundling confirmation.
Sellers of smartphones and digital cameras are often the first who learn how to bundle on Mercari; this is because personal electronics tend to sell really well on this e-commerce platform. A typical example of bundling on Mercari would be a video game console with discs or cartridges.
Step 3: Confirm the Bundle
Mercari sellers should always confirm the intent from buyers before proceeding with creating the bundle, which will involve certain calculations. Not all buyers will send messages from the listings they are interested in, and this tends to create ambiguity that you are better off avoiding.
It is better not to assume that all buyers are familiar with how to bundle on Mercari; this is why the confirmation message is crucial.
You may receive a message asking for a discount that does not actually reflect the items they are interested in, so it is in your best interest to instruct buyers to go back to each individual listing and send a simple message such as “this one.”`
Step 4: Update or Create a New Listing for a Mercari Bundle
This is a major difference between Mercari and other e-commerce platforms such as Poshmark and Amazon 3P: You must sell a Mercari bundle through a new listing. Here you can create a brand-new listing from scratch or use an existing one that will be edited. Seasoned sellers will tell you that creating a new bundle listing is better for reasons we will explain below.
The new listing you will make for bundling purposes will be personalized for your buyer. Since this will be a new listing, the Mercari workflow will direct you to include photos and descriptions; thankfully, there are already in the system. The next step involves adding up the costs of the items and subtracting discounts that you agreed to. All the same, you will also be adding the weight of the items.
Should you be contacted by a buyer who inquires if they can bundle a specific item, you can use that particular listing for the bundle; instead of creating a new one, you can edit the listing so that it is transformed into a bundle along with the other items the buyer is interested in. For all practical purposes, this will be a new active listing, which means that you will deactivate the rest of the items as explained later in this article.
Step 5: Update the Description & title, and Post the New Listing
Many buyers choose to work out the calculations in the step above when they are messaging the buyers so that there will be no surprises or misunderstandings when the new bundle listing is posted for the buyer to pay. As for the name of this new listing, the best practice is to include the name of the buyer so that he or she can easily identify it.
Some Mercari sellers inject a friendly touch to their bundle listings. Let’s say a buyer named Maria has selected various garments from the boutique wardrobe you have been trying to sell for a while. While in this case, the name of the listing could be “bundle for Maria,” you could also add some flair like “Stylish Bundle for Maria :)” or something to that effect. The character count is limited, but personalized naming is always a nice touch. Once the bundle listing has been posted, you can message the buyer.
Step 6: Finalize Prices and Shipping Costs
All of your Mercari listings need to show a price, and bundles are no exceptions; the difference is that a bundled listing will have a special price calculated for a specific buyer in mind, and this calculation should reflect not only the sum of the items but also any applied discounts. Don’t forget to update the costs of shipping so that it accounts for the combined weight of all items.
The Mercari shipping cost calculator works based on the postal code of your location, the weight of the parcel you will be preparing, the delivery method, and the dimensions of the package. Since bundling is something you work out with buyers, the Smart Pricing feature should be turned off, but you will still have the option to offer free shipping to buyers who deserve it; one example would be someone who wants to purchase several or all of your listings at once, thus clearing off your stock and putting some cash in your pocket all at once.
If you are familiar with selling bundles on the Amazon Third Party (3P) Marketplace, do not expect the same process on Mercari. Whereas 3P sellers explicitly create product bundles to attract certain buyers, Mercari sellers bundle items when buyers signal their intent to buy more than one thing.
Step 7: Payment and Shipping
Based on the rapport you have established with the buyer, you should have an idea about how long it will take for the purchase to come through. If the price negotiations went smoothly, you could expect the buyer to finalize the payment soon after the bundle listing is posted, but you also have to take into account that Mercari is a personal marketplace, so don’t be surprised if a couple of days go by before the purchase.
Sellers who feel positive about their interactions with buyers will want to get started with the packaging before the payment is cleared, but this cannot be recommended. Anything can happen in the world of e-commerce; buyers can have second thoughts, or an emergency may ensue. You do not want to get stuck with a packaged bundle that needs to be undone, which is why it is better to wait until the payment is confirmed to kick off the shipping process.
The deactivated listings will need to be deleted, but not until the buyer has confirmed receipt of the items with an appropriate rating. You do not want to delete the listings right after shipping because there is no telling whether the buyer will try to return them or some other issue arises.
Step 8: Deactivate Selected Items
This is an important step that should not be skipped. If you fail to deactivate the original listings for the items in the bundle, other buyers may become interested in them because they will assume they are still available, and things could get confusing. Keep in mind that Mercari does not automatically mark listings as not being active when you add them to the bundle; you have to do this manually.
How to Combine Shipping on Mercari After Purchase
Not all buyers will request bundles. If they are purchasing two of your items, they may have a reason for wishing to receive two separate parcels; perhaps they plan on shipping one of their purchases to a third party. There is no hard rule on Mercari bundling, but if you notice a buyer purchasing two or more of your items at once, you should send a message offering a bundle, which would require a cancellation of existing orders.
The Mercari cancellation request for multiple purchases would be your cue to start working on the bundle for the buyer. Whether you or the buyer cancels the orders is irrelevant; as long as the intention to bundle is made, the accounts will not be flagged.
In the end, selling bundles on Mercari is a good way to earn good ratings. Buyers tend to be more positive when they receive more than one item in a parcel, particularly if you reward them with a discount or free shipping.
As you learn how to bundle on Mercari, you will realize that the process is pretty simple in and of itself, but it involves interacting with buyers and creating new listings for their convenience. In other words, buyers are the ones who start the Mercari combine shipping process.
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