1/16 - Mercari JP Tips

Hiiii! Wanted to blog some Mercari JP shopping tips for the gals who are dipping their toes into it. I think this year there's been a huge wave of people trying to navigate the platform and I myself have made shopping mistakes. 

For some history, I've been using Mercari JP since 2019. It's a great website for secondhand goods, but there's a lot of I've learned to navigate the website.

Which comes to my first tip: Search on Mercari JP directly and don't rely on shopping proxy's search mechanisms. For some reason, some things just don't show up in, and from me briefly checking out Buyee and Zenmarket, they're missing some key items you want to look at when you find a listing you are interested in. Once you find the item you like, copy and paste the link and your proxy should be able to buy it.

You can also translate Mercari JP to English!!! I rely on these for the sort and search functions.

*In previous experiences with Buyee, there was a 'foreign buyers not allowed' request that buyee  abided by. I'm unsure how common this is today as I no longer use Buyee. No idea if Zenmarket also abides by this, other users may be able to provide this insight.

Now, to get into some details on how to search:

Use short JAPANESE keywords, you can look up a brand, look up a "ピンクワンピース", look up "ギャル", etc. Sometimes searching via english and relying on the translation may not work. Some items have english only spellings, but make sure to look up the japanese equivalent as well.

Use the sorting methods! The above image will be on the top right of your search results, the basic translation is:

• Sort by recommended (sometimes if you flip through enough you'll find a hidden item that doesn't come up if you sort in another way)
• Sort by Newest Listing to Oldest (this has recently been bugged where something really old comes up early...)
• Sort by Lowest Price to Highest
• Sort by Highest Price to Lowest
• Sort by Most Liked to Least Liked.

Use the search filters! Some brands like MA*RS can make it frustrating to sift through all of the non clothing items, these help a LOT. You can search by category, brand, seller, etc. I lowkey recommend to filter out official mercari shops and look at individual listers, as I'll get into that in a bit.

If you're looking up a brand name, spell the brand's name wrong. "Sugar Gross" and "Dialle Laisen" are two i've seen, if you note a seller spelling a brand name wrong, search and see who else has!

Ok, now onto some key things when reviewing listings and where someone new to buying on Mercari JP may mess up. I highly recommend you do the following:

• Read the description, translate the description.
• Some sellers will list something as "Alba Rosa" in the caption and in the description they'll note it's actually a My Favorite Tiara Top and some Jazzy shorts. If folks are new to brand clothes, they might not realize it until its in their hands! This also happens if someone is selling something "like MA*RS" but in the description they note its a completely separate brand. You can help yourself from being misled by reading captions.
• Keep an eye out for "unbranded' items, they might just be shein being scalped.
• Check the last updated date in the bottom of the description! Check when the seller was last active!
• Buyee and Zenmarket DO NOT seem to put this info in their listings, so check directly on the Mercari JP listing. At the bottom of the description, you'll see something that indicated the last time a listing was updated. If that listing says "1 month ago" or more, you want to check the sellers page.
• When checking the seller page, check the last updated date of the most recently posted listing, if that is also awhile ago, check the date of the latest review left. If it's awhile ago, it's gonna be a gamble to see if the seller is still active to let you sell the item. Most proxies leave a comment on inactive shops before purchasing to confirm. 
• There's been something new where some sellers are so old you actually can't see their seller page when you click on it from an old listing, I would not recc trying to buy that item. 
• If the seller is an official mercari shop, do a reverse image search to see if there's a different listing on a different website. 
• This is something newer I've seen in 2024. Specifically, some of the ma*rs dream pieces I found were listed on mercari JP, but it was by an official store that is a "proxy" for Bunjang, which is a korean equivalent of Mercari JP. The price was about 100 dollars more on Mercari JP than if I went onto Bunjang. Bunjang has a separate proxy that I enjoy using, and you save money by buying directly from that seller.

That's all for now! I might update this if I have more. These also probably apply to Fril tbh.