This article was automatically translated from Japanese using AI. The Japanese version is the authoritative version.
Trouble is almost inevitable when buying and selling on Mercari.
I’ve done over 100 transactions myself, and the other day I ran into my first real problem.
What I bought was a coffee machine, and some of its functions didn’t work.
When I contacted the seller, they said they had checked that it worked properly before listing it and had had no problems using it.
Mercari’s FAQ has an entry titled “The item I received is different from the description / is broken.”
However, it basically says that the seller and buyer should discuss the matter between themselves, and for returns it describes agreeing on who pays the return shipping and then cancelling the transaction.
In other words, the transaction guide makes it feel like your only options are to return the broken item or accept it as is.
Depending on the item, though, only some functions may be broken while everything else works fine.
And if those functions aren’t that important to you,
there are times when you’d rather not pay full price but would be happy with a discount.
In that case, you can arrange a partial refund.
You can’t do it unilaterally, but if you reach an agreement with the other party you can contact Mercari’s support office.
In my own case, I proposed a partial refund and sent an inquiry to the support office.
They replied that the buyer and seller should decide the refund amount between themselves and then contact them again through the inquiry form with that amount.
Once we agreed and settled on a refund amount, I reported it, the partial refund went through without a hitch, and the transaction was completed.
The support office responded very quickly—from the time I told them I wanted to arrange a partial refund, it took only about a day to decide the amount and receive the refund.
Problems on Mercari can happen no matter how careful you are.
When something goes wrong in a transaction on Mercari, you have to negotiate with the other party and settle it there; the lack of a fixed protocol or procedure on Mercari’s side was quite confusing at first.
In my case the other party was very reliable, so resolving the issue went very smoothly.
Apparently, if you can’t get in touch with the other party, you can also have the transaction forcibly closed by contacting Mercari’s support office.
Incidentally, for the coffee machine I bought, I was refunded about 40% of the purchase price.
But after the transaction closed, I took it apart to see if I could fix it and found a water leak, so I decided it was dangerous to use and threw it away.
In hindsight, maybe I should have just returned it…