The wholesale market — buy from others, or let others buy from you

What this is

Normally you sell your own stock. The wholesale market adds two more routes:

• Taking stock (as a seller): pick an item from the pool other suppliers have opened up, enter the price you intend to sell at, and that one unit moves to your name and becomes a listing of your own.
• Supplying stock (as a supplier): put your own stock into the pool for other sellers to take.

You can be both at once — one account can hold both permissions. Which tabs you see depends on which operations enabled for you; if neither is enabled, “Wholesale market” does not appear in the left-hand navigation at all.

Taking stock (as a seller)

First: register a delivery address

Fill in the wholesale delivery address under Settings. Without it, taking stock is refused — and that is not obstruction: when an item does not sell and the return window closes, the supplier has to send it to you, and the system needs to know where first.

Second: pick an item, enter price and quantity

Browse the pool under Pick / take stock; opening an item shows its detail and a reference profit. Taking it requires two entries:

Third: list it

Once taken, the item appears under Taken (not yet listed), and the system has already created a draft for you — you do not have to start one by hand. This area has a hold period:

• List it within the period and it becomes one of your items on sale, following the normal listing, support and shipping flow from there.
• Miss the deadline and the item goes back to the pool for someone else. Anything overdue is called out in red in this area.

To change the content, or to see exactly what you took, use the draft card: press View / edit draft on that row and the screen jumps to List an item with that card highlighted. Photos, title, body and price are all edited there, and View body expands the full description and specifications.

If you no longer want the unit, press Release hold on the same row to return it to the pool. This is irreversible: taking it again is an entirely new hold, and by then someone else may have it.

Refusals you may meet

Fees: when you are actually charged

This is the part most often misunderstood, so plainly:

There is exactly one situation with a fee: when you yourself return unsold stock to the pool. That charges a one-off listing fee, calculated from what the item cost you when you took it (not the current catalogue price):

The formula is 2.5% base ＋ 0.05% per day, capped at 10%. The table above is that formula, not a second set of rules.

The return window: 180 days, then you choose

Every unit you take has a return window, 180 days by default (a supplier may set a shorter one per item, but never longer). When it comes due, the system notifies you once and you choose:

1. Return it to the pool —— charged the one-off fee above.
2. Have it sent to you —— shipped to the address you registered.

If you do not answer, the system sends it to you. The reason is simple: the unit has been yours since the moment you took it, and the system will not dispose of it on your behalf.

Supplying stock (as a supplier)

Adding an item

Press ＋ Add to go through the smart supply wizard: upload photos → the AI reads them and writes a title, a Japanese description, a suggested retail price and notes on any flaws → you confirm and fill in the rest. A few fields the AI cannot know and you must enter yourself: the SKU, your wholesale cost, how many units you can supply, the dispatch lead time, and the floor price.

Shipping takes Mercari’s published rates directly

Above the shipping field there is a dropdown listing Mercari’s own published rates (らくらく／ゆうゆうメルカリ便, flat nationwide, tax included): pick a method and the amount is filled in, so you are not typing from memory. Each option also states the size and weight limits, and which ones need a box or bag bought separately (for example 宅急便コンパクト at ¥450 needs a ¥70 box).

• Next to the dropdown it says which month this rate table was checked. Mercari changes its rates; if the date looks old, verify against the official site.
• Shipping it yourself, oversize, or using another carrier → choose manual entry and type it as before. Choosing it does not clear what you already entered.
• This figure feeds the reference profit that sellers taking stock see, so getting it wrong does not throw off your own arithmetic — it throws off theirs.

Editing an item that is already up

Two entry points, both leading to the same edit screen:

• Find the row under Supply → Item management.
• Or find your own item directly in the wholesale market (the card is marked “listed by me”) and press Edit this item.

AI optimisation

The edit screen has two ✨: one on the description field itself (description only) and one below the form (all fields). They do the same thing; only the scope differs.

It reads the title, tags and description you have entered right now as well, which means:

• Specifications you added by hand (say “128GB”) are kept — what the photo cannot show, only your writing can tell it.
• Notes you wrote about damage, missing parts or accessories are kept and will not be wiped out in the rewrite.
• Sentences mixing your own language into Japanese are tidied into fluent Japanese without changing the meaning.

You compare item by item and tick what to adopt; applying saves automatically, with no second Save press needed.

Declaring an out-of-stock

When you genuinely cannot supply, use Declare out of stock rather than leaving it. Enter how many you actually have left, and the screen lists first which sellers will lose the unit, before letting you confirm.

• Whoever took it first keeps it (by the time it was taken); later takers are cancelled first.
• Units already sold to a real buyer cannot be cancelled by the platform — that seller has to cancel with the buyer themselves.
• There is no compensation from the platform. The screen says so bluntly too.
• With actual stock at 0, the item is removed from the wholesale market.

Settlement

The Settlement tab keeps the two sides apart and never merges them into one number:

• As a seller — what I owe suppliers: the stock you have taken, what you owe, and your available credit line.
• As a supplier — what sellers owe me: the stock you have supplied, what is receivable, and payment confirmations.

When one account holds both roles, both blocks appear with clear headings of their own; the two amounts are never added together.

Invoice details and payment account (on the Settings page)

This block is for people who issue invoices to others — that is, suppliers. If you only take stock and never issue an invoice, you can leave the whole block blank; it does not affect taking stock.

• What name you trade under —— individual (sole trader) or corporate (a company). Choosing changes the field names below (name / trading name vs company name, business address vs registered office).
• Registration number (T ＋ 13 digits) —— leave it blank if you are not registered. Blank means the invoice you issue is an ordinary one and the recipient cannot deduct consumption tax against it; tax-exempt businesses are simply in that position, so do not force a number in, and certainly do not invent one.
• Payment account (振込先) —— financial institution, branch, account type (futsu / touza), account number (digits only), account name (katakana). Sellers pay you into this account; the platform only displays it — it neither collects nor remits on your behalf.

Referral programme

Under Settings → Referral programme there is a 6-digit invite code — that is your shop code. The card has a Copy invite message button (and on a phone a Share button that opens the system share sheet); what goes out carries your code and a link. When the other person signs in to the console and opens that link, the registration field is pre-filled with your code, and they confirm and press Register to finish (nothing registers on their behalf — the last press is always theirs). The referral only counts as “qualified” once their first deposit is confirmed.

The reward runs both ways, and in both cases it takes the form of a credit-line multiplier (purchasing line ＝ deposit × multiplier, so a higher multiplier means the same deposit buys more stock):

• The referrer (you): each qualified friend adds +0.20 / +0.30 / +0.50 in turn, up to a 3.00× cap (beyond which further referrals add nothing).
• The person referred: once registered and their first deposit is confirmed, their own multiplier gains +0.10× (once in a lifetime, and also subject to the 3.00× cap). There is nothing beyond the multiplier — no cash, no vouchers. That is deliberate.

After registering, your referrer is shown by shop name (rather than just an ID string). Below the referral card there is also a My students list showing who registered your code, who has qualified, and who is still awaiting a first deposit — historical qualifiers who have since unlinked are marked too (they still count towards your mentor eligibility). When someone registers your code, when a referral becomes effective, and when you become a mentor, the system notifies you (it is called “invitations and mentor rewards” under notification settings, and can be turned off).

Mentor rewards

The Settings page carries one more card, Mentor rewards, which is view-only — it has no buttons at all, because becoming a mentor is not something you press.

There are two routes to it: operations grants it directly, or it happens automatically once six of the friends you referred are “qualified” (the same “first deposit confirmed” bar as in the referral programme above).

The rules: it is calculated on confirmed receipts, at 1% per tier, up to 2 tiers (1% is the platform’s uniform default rate, adjusted by operations — it is not priced per shop). The balance is used first in, first out, and its only exit is offsetting the wholesale invoices you owe — it reduces what you owe rather than paying you cash. Balances expire, and the card marks batches “expiring within a month” so you use them before they are wasted.

The top of the card says either “You are a mentor” or “You are not currently a mentor”. Below it is a monthly breakdown: how much was credited, offset and expired each month, with the credits itemised per student (which tier, how much) — so you can see at a glance whose business your reward came from. When there is movement in a month, the system also sends you a monthly statement notification.

What to do