How to Message Sellers on Mercari and Yahoo Auctions
Japanese marketplaces are designed to limit interactions. For this reason you can only enter into a private chat with a seller after buying from them. Outside of this, there are some other limited ways to communicate with sellers if you have an account or a middleman.
What Can I Do?
Mercari
1. Comment - You may publicly comment on any item for sale. All other users can see your comment, so they will become aware of you as a competitor. Sellers can delete comments that they don’t like.
2. Make a Bundle Offer - Bundle offers are private, meaning other users cannot know that you have made an offer. In your private offer you can ask for up to 20% off on any two or more items, and include a single private message to the seller. The seller cannot reply to your message, they can only accept or reject the offer.
If the seller accepts your offer it will create a new product listing for the offered price. The new listing will combine the first photo from each of the respective bundled items and delete the original individual product listings. This is important because you won’t be able to check each product’s condition across multiple photos once the new bundle listing has been created. Sellers can also choose to accept your offer and counter-propose a price that they prefer, this will still create the new product listing and delete the individually listed products.
3. Register Your Preferred Price - You may register a preferred price of up to 20% off on individual items. Your registered price is public, but anonymous. This means that other users can see your anonymous request for a discount on the product page. The seller will receive a notification saying that someone is willing to buy their listing at a discount. There is no option to insert a message via this method.
4. Make a Purchase - After buying a product, you’ll enter into a private chat with the seller. This chat is for greetings, communicating shipping needs, and requesting the buyer acknowledge receipt of the product. You can also use this chat to build a relationship with the seller, or discreetly inquire about their other listings. In general, asking sellers for their contact information outside of Mercari is discouraged.
Yahoo Auctions
1. Questions - You may publicly ask a question about any item for sale. All other users can see your question, so they will become aware of you as a competitor. Sellers cannot delete questions they don’t like.
2. Make a Purchase - After buying a product, or winning an auction, you’ll enter into a private chat with the seller. This chat is for greetings, communicating shipping needs, and requesting the buyer acknowledge receipt of the product. You can also use this chat to build a relationship with the seller, or discreetly inquire about their other listings. In general, asking sellers for their contact information outside of Yahoo Auctions is discouraged.