Note: This article covers Mercari Shops, an e-commerce platform available only in Japan. This will not be relevant if you are not evaluating platforms for the Japanese market.
Mercari Shops lets you open a shop inside the flea-market app "Mercari." Since you can set one up in as little as two days with no fixed costs, some people are considering using it.
In this article, we'll explain everything from an overview of Mercari Shops to its pros and cons and pricing. We'll also cover its differences from Mercari and who it's best suited for, so if you're interested, be sure to check it out.
What Is Mercari Shops?
Image source: Mercari Shops
Mercari Shops is a service that lets you open an online shop inside the flea-market app "Mercari." There's no setup fee or monthly fee, so running your online shop involves no fixed costs at all.
You can apply to open a shop using your smartphone or PC in as little as five minutes. Because you can open your shop inside "Mercari," which has 23 million monthly users, it's also easy to reach highly motivated buyers.
You can also easily sell to overseas customers through cross-border EC operators. There are also many convenient features for running a shop, such as coupons and flash sales that help boost sales, bulk product registration via CSV for up to 1,000 products, order list downloads, and API integration.
Advantages of Mercari Shops
Mercari Shops offers many advantages for running an online shop. Here we'll explain them.
No fixed costs, so you can run a shop even with little capital
Image source: Mercari Shops
Mercari Shops has no setup fee and no monthly fee. The only cost involved in opening and running a shop is basically the 10% selling fee.
Since there are no fixed costs at all, even people worried about "ending up in the red if sales don't grow" or "only having a small amount of capital for starting and running a business" can start running an EC site with peace of mind.
Easy to attract customers thanks to more than 23 million monthly users
Another appealing point of Mercari Shops is how easy it is to attract customers.
Mercari Shops lets you open an EC site inside the flea-market app "Mercari," which has more than 23 million monthly users. Products from Mercari Shops appear alongside flea-market listings in the Mercari app's "Recommended" section and in search results.
You can also enter features and campaigns, making it easy to promote your products to as many as 23 million highly motivated customers. Being able to attract customers easily without having to run special initiatives is one of Mercari Shops' key appeals.
You can open a shop in as little as two days
Mercari Shops lets you complete the setup process with simple steps from your smartphone or computer. Since everything from screening completion to selling products only requires intuitive steps, and the screening period is short, you can open your shop in as little as two days.
Butchers, fishmongers, and other sellers of fresh food can also open shops
Mercari Shops offers "Mercari Cool Delivery," which can ship refrigerated and frozen products. It covers a wide range of sizes from 60 to 120, and as long as you're in an area covered by home delivery service, you can ship fresh food at a flat nationwide rate by size.
This means butchers, fishmongers, and other sellers of fresh food can open a shop with peace of mind.
Disadvantages of Mercari Shops
While Mercari Shops has advantages such as no fixed costs and ease of attracting customers, it also has some disadvantages. Here we'll explain the downsides of using Mercari Shops.
You can't withdraw your earnings until they reach ¥5,000
Mercari Shops' earnings are automatically transferred to your registered bank account. If your profit—after deducting various fees (the 10% selling fee, shipping and pickup fees when using Mercari's delivery service, and coupon discounts) from your earnings—is ¥5,000 or more, it will be transferred on the monthly transfer date.
If your profit is under ¥5,000, it carries over to the next transfer date, and no transfer takes place. Note that, depending on your sales amount, you may not receive a payout on the transfer date.
The selling fee is on the high side
Mercari Shops' selling fee is 10% of the selling price. When a product sells, 10% of the selling price is deducted as a fee.
Many other EC carts have no selling fee, or if they do, it's often under 5%. This makes the high selling fee a drawback of Mercari Shops.
Differences Between Mercari Shops and Mercari
Both Mercari and Mercari Shops let you sell products, which is where they're the same. However, there are decisive differences between the two in terms of who can sell, features, and the types of products that can be sold.
Here we'll explain the differences between Mercari Shops and Mercari.
| Service name | Mercari Shops | Mercari |
|---|---|---|
| Who can sell | Businesses / sole proprietors | Individuals |
| Setup fee / monthly fee | Free | Free |
| Selling fee | 10% | 10% |
| Multi-user shop management | Available | Not available |
| Bulk product registration via CSV | Available | Not available |
| Inventory registration | Multiple settings possible per product | Not available |
| Variant registration | Multiple settings possible per product | Not available |
| Rakuraku Mercari Delivery | Available | Available |
| Yu-Yu Mercari Delivery | Not available | Available |
| Mercari Cool Delivery | Available | Not available |
| Flash sales / featured campaigns | Supported | Not supported |
| Differences in products that can be sold | Fresh food can be sold | Fresh food cannot be sold |
| Where products are displayed | Mercari (app). Mercari Shops (web) | Mercari (app / web) |
Mercari is intended for individuals, while Mercari Shops is intended for sole proprietors and businesses. Things that aren't possible on Mercari—such as bulk product registration, inventory registration, and variant registration—are possible on Mercari Shops.
Fresh food, which can't be sold on Mercari, can be sold on Mercari Shops, which supports "Mercari Cool Delivery."
Mercari Shops Pricing
Here we'll explain the pricing for Mercari Shops. The basic fees for Mercari Shops are as follows.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Setup fee | ¥0 |
| Monthly fee | ¥0 |
| Selling fee | 10% of selling price |
*This information is based on details as of May 2025.
With Mercari Shops, there are no fixed costs at all from setup through ongoing operation. Only when a listed product actually sells is a 10% selling fee deducted from the sale price.
If you use Mercari Delivery or Mercari Cool Delivery, the following fees apply separately.
[Mercari Delivery Fees]
| Name | Size | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Neko Pos | A4 | ¥210 |
| Takkyubin Compact | Dedicated box | ¥450 |
| Takkyubin | Size 60 (up to 2kg) | ¥750 |
| Size 80 (up to 5kg) | ¥850 | |
| Size 100 (up to 10kg) | ¥1,050 | |
| Size 120 (up to 15kg) | ¥1,200 | |
| Size 140 (up to 20kg) | ¥1,450 | |
| Size 160 (up to 25kg) | ¥1,700 |
*This information is based on details as of May 2025.
[Mercari Cool Delivery]
| Size | Total of length, width, and height | Weight | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Size 60 | Within 60cm | Within 2kg | ¥970 |
| Size 80 | Within 80cm | Within 5kg | ¥1,070 |
| Size 100 | Within 100cm | Within 10kg | ¥1,380 |
| Size 120 | Within 120cm | Within 15kg | ¥1,860 |
*This information is based on details as of May 2025.
Both Mercari Delivery and Mercari Cool Delivery use flat nationwide rates. Mercari Delivery is priced below the standard rates, letting you ship to other prefectures more affordably than with other services.
How to Set Up Mercari Shops
Image source: Mercari Shops
Here we'll introduce how to set up Mercari Shops.
When setting up Mercari Shops, you'll need the following documents.
- Something showing your bank account information for earnings transfers (passbook, cash card, etc.)
- [For sole proprietors] A photo of your identity verification document
- [For businesses] Something showing your company registry information
- [If selling products that require a license or permit] A photo of your license/permit
When setting up, you'll need something showing your bank account information, such as a passbook or cash card, for receiving earnings transfers. Sole proprietors will need a photo of their identity verification document, and businesses will need to prepare documents showing information such as the company's representative, address, capital, and annual revenue as listed in the company registry.
A license/permit photo is required if you're selling food, cosmetics, or pharmaceutical products that you produced or processed yourself, fresh food requiring refrigeration or freezing, or alcoholic beverages.
Application Process
- Open the Mercari app
- Select Mercari Shops from the services listed on My Page
- Open the application screen and select your business type
- Select the category of products you'll sell and whether a license/permit is required
- Review and agree to the terms of service and other agreements
- Enter your business information, such as business name and postal code
- Enter your shop information
- Enter your bank account information for earnings transfers
- After confirming all the information you entered, agree and tap to complete your application
Once you complete the steps above, your Mercari Shops online shop setup process is complete. Screening takes place after you apply. Once you pass screening, you can register products and start running your EC site.
Comparison with Other E-Commerce Platforms
| Service name | Mercari Shops | BASE | Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup fee | ¥0 | ¥0 | ¥0 |
| Monthly fee | ¥0 | Standard plan: ¥0 Grow plan: ¥16,580 |
Basic: ¥4,850 Grow: ¥13,500 Advanced: ¥58,500 Plus: $2,300 *When paid monthly |
| Payment processing fee | 10% | Standard plan: 3.6–4.6% + ¥40 + 3% service fee Grow plan: 2.9–3.9% |
0.2–3.9% |
| Number of products you can register | Unknown (up to 1,000 per day) |
No limit | No limit |
| Cross-border EC | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Support | Contact form | Email: weekdays 10:00–19:00 | Live chat Phone |
*This information is based on details as of May 2025.
The appeal of Mercari Shops is that it has no setup fee or monthly fee. However, its drawbacks include a limit of 1,000 product registrations per day, and a selling fee of 10%, which is higher than other platforms' payment processing fees of 4% or less.
Another downside is that support is limited to a contact form.
Other platforms charge a monthly fee, but their lower payment processing fees mean you can keep more profit as your sales grow. You can also add products without limit whenever you like, and they offer reassuring support systems.
If you want to keep costs as low as possible, Mercari Shops is a good fit. If you're more concerned about factors other than cost—such as minimizing losses as your sales grow, or wanting an EC cart with thorough support and features—platforms like Shopify are a better choice.
Who Should Use Mercari Shops
Mercari Shops is recommended for the following types of people:
- Those who want to start running a shop while keeping costs as low as possible
- Those who want to sell fresh food
The biggest appeal of Mercari Shops is that there's no setup fee or monthly fee, so you incur no cost until you make sales. If you want to keep operating costs as low as possible, Mercari Shops is worth using.
Since you can use Mercari Cool Delivery, it's also an easy-to-use EC cart for those who want to sell fresh food.
Mercari Shops Is an E-Commerce Platform with No Fixed Costs and Easy Customer Acquisition
The biggest appeal of Mercari Shops is that both the setup fee and monthly fee are ¥0. Many EC carts have no setup fee, but few platforms also have no monthly fee.
Since you can open a shop inside the flea-market app "Mercari," which has more than 23 million monthly users, you can attract highly motivated customers without doing anything special. That said, the selling fee is a high 10%, so note that as your sales grow, you'll keep less profit than with other carts.
If you want to keep costs as low as possible, or if you've been hesitant to start running a shop because you're worried about the cost burden if sales don't grow, give Mercari Shops a try.
