Before you start
Enable console access, prepare photos and confirm your shop’s connection mode. BYO shops save drafts in their own authorized environment, publish manually first, then verify the binding.
This chapter helps enable console access and prepare your first item. Actual publication also requires your shop’s connection and permission checks.
The web console manages products and business records. Available actions depend on your shop’s permissions, connected channels and real results. BYO shops save drafts in their own authorized environment, publish manually first, then verify the same-shop, same-item binding. The system can prepare Japanese descriptions, buyer-message translations and reply drafts. Sending and publication follow your shop’s authorized mode.
Day one: from nothing to your first item
Send your address, sign in and prepare photos, then follow your shop’s connection mode for drafting, publication and binding checks. Pressing confirm alone does not prove publication.
| Order | What you do | Where | What you see when it is done |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Send your Google address to operations (step 1 below) | To operations | Operations replies “enabled” |
| 2 | Sign in with that address (step 2 below) | Seller console | Only your own shop is visible |
| 3 | Learn the console’s four places (Seller console) | Seller console | You know where each to-do lives |
| 4 | Prepare a draft, publish through your shop’s mode and verify binding (List an item) | Console / your shop’s authorized environment | A draft or a platform-verified item belonging to your shop |
The other chapters can wait. Read Handling buyers and Shipping once something sells; read Monthly settlement at the end of the month.
Steps
The console only accepts Google sign-in — there is no email/password login — and operations has to add your address to the allowlist before you can get in.
So the first thing to do is not to sign in; it is to send operations your address. Sending the three lines below once is enough, and you do not need to wait until you are refused.
Shop name: 〔your shop name〕 Google address for sign-in: 〔in full, e.g. name@gmail.com〕 I have confirmed this address receives mail and is the one I normally sign in to Google with.
Why be this exact: the allowlist matches the address character for character.
A Gmail . or + alias, a forwarding address at a company domain, or your “pretty sure it’s this one” memory —
one character off and you are refused, and the two of you spend another round on it. Get it right once and this step costs you once.
Sign in after operations confirms you are enabled, using the address you sent in step 1. Once in, you see only your own shop, not anyone else’s.
The console brings products and to-dos together. BYO first publication remains manual in your own authorized environment. spend a few minutes on the Seller console chapter first; it tells you where each of the four to-dos lives.
(Optional) Phone push requires enablement, a subscription and an available channel. System email follows configured channels and notification settings.
Shoot with your phone in good light, and photograph the flaws too — putting the flaws up front reduces the gap between the listing and what arrives, and that does more to prevent disputes than a pretty photo does. The first photo usually becomes the cover.
One item is enough; you do not need a batch for the first run. Work through the List an item chapter and you will know how long the whole flow takes and where your judgement is needed.
Do not try a second and third time — almost always the address on the allowlist is not the one you are using, and retrying will not change that. Go back to step 1 and give operations the exact address of the Google account you actually clicked, and ask them to check whether the allowlist holds the same string. If you switch address, it has to be enabled again.
How many photos you can send at once follows your shop’s setting (the form states your shop’s limit; anything over it is not uploaded and the system says how many were dropped). Each photo must be under 10 MB, and one upload must total under 40 MB (over that, you are asked to send fewer photos or compress them). jpg / png / webp / gif are supported; iPhone’s HEIC format is not — set the camera format to “Most Compatible” before shooting, or convert to jpg first.
You open the Mercari account yourself on the platform; the system does not register it for you. Japanese drafts, translation, shipping and reconciliation each have connection requirements. Enabling console access alone does not make every capability executable.