I’ve sold over $5k on Mercari ($6k in gross revenue, $5k after Mercari fees) and what I love about Mercari is that ANYBODY can make money on there (because you can sell just about anything!) so read my tips below if you want to learn how!

Being a hoarder has finally paid off. I have posted the oddest and most random things and to my surprise almost everything I’ve posted has sold on Mercari. So if you have things laying around that you don’t use anyway, why not give it a wipe and trade that dust for some cash! Look in the very back of your closet, rummage through the garage, empty out that junk drawer, and put those gifts from exes to good use lol (thx fellaz)…and heck, go through your parent’s old stuff because we all know old people are the GOAT at hoarding things they don’t use!

I’ve been selling casually on Mercari for a few years and I’m addicted. As somebody who has a hard time letting go of things, it becomes a lot easier when you know the item will get a new life, be of use to somebody else, and ofc if you can get some extra cash for it! I hate consumption waste and think Mercari is a fabulous solution.

Let’s change the saying to: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure CA$H!!!

If you’ve never tried selling anything on Mercari, this is your sign to start posting and start making some extra cash! Sign up for Mercari using my link and you’ll get $10 for signing up plus an additional $10 after making $100 in sales (which is sooooo possible and easy).

Random AF Items I’ve Sold + Their Prices

Even if you think an item may have no value, you’ll be shocked to see what other people are willing to pay for it. Here are just a couple of examples of things that I’ve personally sold (including their prices!) that you would have never expected to sell for $. I’m sharing this to give you an idea of how broad the realm of selling opportunity is on Mercari and to encourage you to try posting anything and everything for sale!

• Bose Box | Yes, just the box! No product inside. I purchased a new set of Bose headphones and instead of recycling the box like one usually would, I sold it for $9!
• Anime Expo Lanyard | When Michael and I had gone to Anime Expo we received lanyards to wear our ticketed badges so we could enter the venue. I kept one for our memory box and sold the other for $5~
• BIC Mechanical Pencils | Literally used mechanical pencils from my school days. I guess they don’t make the old-school style pencils anymore and people prefer them! $5
• Sticky Notes + Pen | I think I got it for free from Zion Supermarket when I was in middle school for like an in-store promo. It was cute and someone bought it for $9!
• Leftover Pack of Resume Paper | I only needed a few and sold the rest of the pack. Who even uses these anymore? I guess someone does because they paid $5 for it!
• Yu-Gi-Oh Card | A single yugioh card for $5 lol, I don’t even think it was authentic x)
• Calculator | Not even a graphing calculator but it sold for $13!
• Totaling $51!

See! I can almost guarantee that you have things all over the place in your home that could sell! Declutter your space and make an easy $50! You don’t have to have designer or high-end items (I don’t) to make money! This last week alone I completed a $20+ sale and I have $200+ sales in-progress to be shipped!

Things That Sell Really Well vs. Things That Don’t

• In my experience, women’s clothes are actually the hardest to get rid of. It makes sense, the market is so saturated (literally people have millions of options to choose from) and the size-specific aspect puts limitations. It helps to sell these sorts things in bundle offers (like selling a bag of clothes at a discounted price rather than trying to sell each item individually ) but even then they might not sell
• Surprisingly, boys / mens clothes sell really well and it’s actually my highest selling category thanks to MP and his constant desire to get rid of clothes and buy more clothes (compared to me, I literally still wear some items from high school lol)
• Non-clothing items actually perform really well. Not only accessories like bags / scarves / hats / sunglasses, but also utilitarian items like kitchenware, electronics, stationary, etc.
• Niche items and collectibles sell really well on Mercari – for us, our categories are like Disney, Ghibli, Harry Potter, anime, and K-Pop items. It’s the main reason why I even allow MP to buy knick knacks lol because most will sell lol. Mercari is really useful for getting rid of gachas (blind boxes) that MP gets that he doesn’t want. Its a win-win, he gets his shopping fix and I get to sell it once he’s over it to reap back at least part of the purchase price (or sometimes even more!)
• Also, old-school items!! The older, the better! People love blasts from the past. I guess I’m at the age where things from my youth are now considered vintage!!?

Why Mercari? What About Poshmark / Depop / Other Online Selling Platforms?

There are a bunch of online selling platforms – I don’t think it matters too much as long as you just startposting! Better yet, if you can cross-post across multiple platforms (I’m too lazy though). I’ve not personally used Poshmark because I’ve read it’s a bit high-maintenance (you have to engage with it a lot), that it’s better for higher-end items (which I don’t have), and because the fees are high. Mercari, on the other hand, is super low maintenance and their selling fees are comparatively lower. I personally have been using Mercari for 5 years and don’t plan on quitting but let me know if you have a preferred platform I should try!

What About Facebook Marketplace / Offer-Up / Other In-Person Platforms?

There are so many reasons why I recommend online selling platforms (like Mercari) over in-person selling platforms ❌️:

• First of all, in-person meetups are dangerous. There are tons of horror stories – robberies, sexual predators, and there was even a story in the news this past week of somebody who was killed over a FB Marketplace sale! >.<
• People that say they are coming but are no-shows or people that say they are coming but are really late. These situations are a huge waste of time
• A lot of not-serious buyers – a ton of “Hey is this item still available?” messages lol but little to no action thereafter
• The demographic of people shopping on these sites usually want a deal so your margins won’t be very high
• Awkward “I forgot my wallet” or in-person haggling situations

Mercari is way more streamlined and guaranteed. Someone makes a purchase –> you ship it out. Way better than dealing with people on FB Marketplace. With that said, I’ve recently started posting various items on these in-person sites and I’ve made about $100 from it. Nothing crazy and I much prefer Mercari but $ is $. If you do try selling on these meet-up sites, definitely meet in a public location (not from your home) and please be careful. There are a lot of weirdos out there. Don’t meet with anybody that has no/little profile reviews and don’t sell to anybody that has less than a 4-star rating.

Some Practical Tips For Selling On Mercari!

1. Check “Sold” Items On Mercari
Before you toss something in the trash, look it up on Mercari but change the search filter to “Status = Sold” to see if it’s something that sells before you discard it! This can help you decide if its viable for selling or not~

2. Add Tags To The Description
I feel this helps with SEO and will show your item to more viewers which will increase your changes of selling! At the bottom of the product description, I include a section that says “Tags” and then I’ll list a bunch of related topics. Ex, if I’m selling a Victoria’s Secret swimsuit then I might add things like “PINK,” “Forever21,” “Bikini,” “swimwear” and more (spam it lol)

3. Keep Shipping Receipts
Mercari provides great insurance if something happens during your shipment like if your package gets lost or if the item breaks en-route. Thankfully, this has only happened to me like 4 times out of my 500 sales, but for the few times it has happened I was able to easily get my money back from Mercari customer service (call, don’t email) by providing my shipping receipt.

4. Recycle Packaging
Keep your expenses low and reduce waste by recycling packaging. I am trying to make more of an effort to keep all usable packaging from my own online purchases like shipping boxes, polymailers, and plastic bags. I recommend ripping off or covering the original shipping label.

5. Promote Regularly
There are two options to promote on Mercari. (1) You can boost your item to the top of searches by discounting your price by 5% to the public and/or (2) you can promote your item privately to people who have already liked your item by sending only them a discounted price (rather than to the whole public). I do promotions about 1x weekly (sometimes more frequent because I get bored and am eager to make sales lol). It’s super easy (just click a button) and takes me less less than 2 minutes to go through all my listings (and I have a lot!). One week I’ll do the private boost and then the next week I’ll do the public boosts!

6. Key Words First
When naming your item for sale, keep in mind that oftentimes only the first few words will show in search previews so best to have the key words first. Mainly I like to highlight if the item is new by prefacing with “BRAND NEW” or “NWT” or “NWOT” (online selling lingo which stands for “New with Tags” or “New without Tags“)

7. Privately Message Likers
This is the most time-consuming thing but it really helps! I don’t typically do this but at the end of 2025 I was planning to donate a bunch of my items that didn’t sell. Before doing so, I personally messaged each person that liked those items to let them know I was going to get rid of the item for the holidays in case they wanted it! In December 2025 alone, I sold over 23 items making $425 in sales – majority of which I think was attributed to my private messaging!

Note: You can only do this via the mobile app (on the computer, you won’t be able to click on the profiles of the likers to message them) so it is tedious (just copy/paste the message though).

This is the third post of my Mercari Sales series so feel free to read my past posts for even more tips!

> How I Made $1000 Selling Random AF Stuff I Already Owned!
> How I Made Over $3000 From Decluttering!

My Mercari Process

To really break it down, here is my step-by-step process for selling on Mercari:

1) Find Something I Want To Post For Sale. Sometimes, if I don’t want to post it right away, then I put it in a bag or box with other stuff to sell so I can batch-post it later on.

2) Prep The Item. Clean the item before selling. Selling dirty items will definitely hurt your seller rating.

3) Take + Edit Photo. I’ll take the photo using my phone (nothing fancy) with a white blanket as the backdrop. I’ll then brighten the photo on VSCO (VSCO has a great bulk edit feature)

4) Upload The Photos To Mercari. I’ll upload the photos onto Mercari from my phone and I’ll save it as a draft and finish the posting whenever I have time.

5) Draft Title + Description. I’ll access the saved drafts from my computer where it’s faster to write the titles/descriptions using a keyboard than from my phone. I’ll usually just write a little diddly, and then some specifics regarding the brand, color, sizing, and condition. Don’t forget to add the tags!

5) Complete Fields. Complete all of the fields. The key one being the “brand” field because that helps a lot with searchability. Some buyers have certain brands bookmarked and will get notified when a new item from that brand is posted for sale!

6) Select Shipping Option. Always select “Buy Pays For Shipping” and I will usually ship USPS for items less than 1 lb, and then UPS Ground Shipping for items great than 1 lb.

7) Price. For the price, I’ll do a quick look up on Mercari for similar sold items for comparison and price accordingly. I usually price lower because I’d rather just get rid of the stuff faster.

8) Promote Items. About a week later, I’ll promote the items privately to likers (if any) or publicly (if no likers). I’ll then promote ~every week or so, alternating between private promotions and public promotions.

9) Package + Ship. Once the item is sold, I’ll package it up. For most things, I just put it in a plastic bag (not like a grocery bag, but like a plastic garment bags – preferably recycled or I buy clear gift bags from Daiso) and then into a polymailer (preferably recycled or I buy them from Amazon). If the item is fragile, I may wrap in bubble wrap or pack it in a box (using individually crumpled pieces of newspaper as filler – it works great at keeping the item in place). Don’t forget the shipping receipt!

Lastly, Selling IS Worth The Effort!

I know a lot of people will say “it’s not worth the effort” but they’re not $5k richer~ so I hope I’ve been able to convince you otherwise! As you can see, it’s super easy and I hope I’ve broadened your horizons in terms of what you can sell (just about anything)!

I remember when I first started out, I mopingly told MP “Well…I’ve only made $1,000 which really isn’t that much money :/” and MP said, “If it’s not that much money, then give me the $1,000″ to which I responded, ” WHAT!” and he said, “Exactly, it’s a lot of money!”

TBH, I often sell more so for the thrill of the sale and the joy of getting rid of the item rather than the monetary aspect itself,. Furthermore, I am so happy to be able to rehome the item (rather than it go to waste) and to be able to give it to someone who wants or needs the item for an affordable price!

I hope you found this post helpful~ Don’t forget to use sign-up with Mercari using my link here for $20! Let me know if you start selling and if you have any other tips to share!

Xo,
Em