To crosslist Mercari items to eBay, you must type in the title, description and price, and include photos of the item, and fill the fields that Mercari never asked for. The gap in information is where the most copied listings fail. This process will take about 8-12 minutes per item.
What you need before copying a single listing
A listing on Mercari does not include as much detail as eBay requires, so a certain amount of new data entry is unavoidable. Mercari requires a title, description, category, brand, condition, price and a shipping weight tier. eBay requires a title, description and category at least three levels deep, item specifics (which vary by category) and eBay condition. eBay also requires a shipping cost, which could be flat rate or calculated by a package weight and/or dimensions.
Let’s say you have 40 Mercari listings, mostly clothes and a few home goods. Copying by hand is realistically manageable. It took me around 8 minutes to do an eBay listing from opening the Mercari page to publishing it on eBay. The ones with measurements took 12-15 minutes. With 40 listings, that’s around 6-8 hours of work over 2-3 evenings.
Here’s what you need to have beforehand:
- An eBay seller account with payments set up, a saved shipping policy and a saved return policy. This is so you are not creating them while doing listings.
- The original photos for each item. If they’re not on your phone, you can go to each Mercari listing on a computer, open the image in a new tab, and save it to your computer. Make a folder for each item.
- A tape measure for measurements you omitted from Mercari, and a scale for items you listed in a lower Mercari weight tier.
- A simple spreadsheet with columns for item name, Mercari link, eBay item number, and status. This is the only way to avoid a double sale until you automate syncing.
- Your notes for size, measurements and material. eBay item specifics may ask for this info, and you may have not included it on your Mercari listing.
Another decision you will have to make upfront is the price. Decide whether you list at the same price, a few dollars more, or free shipping and include that in the price. Picking a rule once saves you from deciding 40 times.
Steps to copy one Mercari listing onto eBay
You can take this approach to listings. Doing each step for an item completely before moving onto the next is your best bet as doing steps for partially completed listings can cause you to miss listings. Here are the steps to take for each item.
- Have the Mercari window open for a listing, and the eBay Sell page open in another window.
- Paste the Mercari title into eBay, and if there are any missing keywords from size, color or material, add those to eBay's limit of 80 characters.
- Choose eBay's category by going as deep as you can into the suggested categories, for example Clothing, Shoes & Accessories, Women, Women's Clothing, and Sweaters.
- In the order they appear, add the photos from Mercari. If there is a better angle, use that as the front shot.
- Pick the condition using the category's labels, for example New or Pre-owned, and if there is anything wrong with the item, add a condition note.
- For clothing, fill in all required item specifics and add recommended ones like pattern if known.
- Paste the Mercari description, add measurements and include anything else the item specifics can not touch on.
- Weigh the item, enter the weight and dimensions, or set it to a flat shipping price.
- Price your item, choose Buy It Now, and decide if you want to allow Best Offer.
- Add your shipping and return policies to your saved documents.
- Post the listing, add the eBay item number to your spreadsheet and copy the Mercari link next to it.
- Set a habit for sales: when you get a sale on either marketplace, end the listing on the other site and mark it sold in the sheet.
Steps 3, 5, 6 and 8 are where a pasted Mercari listing falls short. For condition, Mercari's condition scale of New, Like New, Good, Fair and Poor doesn't always align with eBay's labels. Like new would be listed as Pre-owned, and will include a note saying "worn once, no flaws." For weight, Mercari doesn't always show the exact weight. A guess on shipped weight would either result in overcharging the buyer or eating your profit.
Worked example: a Madewell sweater moved from Mercari to eBay
Here is an example of walking through the steps using a sample from a small clothes shop on Mercari. The example reads: Madewell Cable Knit Sweater Size M Cream, is in the Women’s category, is in like new condition, has a price of $42, has a 2 lb. shipping weight, has 6 pictures, and has a 2-line description, on Mercari.
Title. The title on Mercari had 38 characters, and is changed to Madewell Cable Knit Crewneck Sweater Women’s Size M Cream Cotton Blend Pullover, which has 78 characters, and includes neckline, department, and material. Adding style also helps buyers search better, but is left off here, for time’s sake. Time: 1 minute.
Category and Photos. When searching Women’s Clothing on eBay, a better category for Sweaters, is brought up, which also suggests item specifics. The 6 photos were uploaded in original order. Time: 1.5 minutes.
Condition. A Mercari condition of Like New, is changed to Pre-owned on eBay. Adding ‘worn twice’ tells a story of why condition is Pre-owned, and includes no pilling, stains, or holes. Time: 30 seconds.
Item Specifics. Other item specifics include: Brand, Size, Color, Department, Type, Style, and Material. The style and material were left off the Mercari listing, and were sourced from the tag. Time: 3 minutes.
Description and measurements. Pit to pit is measured at 20” and length is measured at 24”. These measurements, along with the Mercari listing, are copied to the eBay listing. Time: 2 minutes.
shipping. It weighed 1 lb 4 oz, folded in a poly mailer. I input 1 lb 4 oz, dimensions of 12 by 10 by 3 inches and used calculated shipping. The price stayed at $42 with best offer on. The policies were already saved. This took around 2 minutes.
I spent just under 10 minutes total logging the eBay item number next to the Mercari link in the spreadsheet. Nine days later, the sweater sold on Mercari and I ended the eBay listing within the hour. Had I waited until the weekend, an eBay buyer could have purchased an item I no longer had, which means a cancellation and a defect on the eBay account.
Field map checklist: Mercari to eBay
Most failed copies are due to a handful of fields that are unique to one marketplace versus the other. So, verify each of your published listings with this template. Use it after every 10 or so listings and it will quickly become second nature.
| Field | On Mercari | On eBay | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title | Short title, often under 40 characters used | Up to 80 characters | Size, color, material and style words added |
| Category | Two or three levels | Three or four levels | Deepest category selected, not the first suggestion |
| Condition | New, Like new, Good, Fair, Poor | Category labels such as New with tags or Pre-owned | Label matches and a condition note covers any flaw |
| Item specifics | Brand and size only | Required and recommended fields by category | Every required field filled, recommended ones where known |
| Description | Free text | Free text | Measurements added, no Mercari-only wording like ships in 1 day via Mercari |
| Photos | Your uploaded set | Your uploaded set | Same order, main photo first |
| Shipping | Weight tier | Exact weight and dimensions, or flat rate | Weighed packed, not estimated |
| Price | Your Mercari price | Your eBay price rule | Fee difference accounted for, Best Offer set |
| Tracking | Not applicable | Not applicable | eBay item number logged beside Mercari link |
There are a few things you need to confirm before you can call a batch finished. First, you want to make sure that the count of live eBay listings matches the count of active Mercari listings that you meant to copy. Second, you want to check that there are no items listed on eBay twice. Last, you want to make sure that all of the items that were sold on the other marketplace within the last week have been manually ended on the other marketplace. The last point is especially important as your shop grows, because each new marketplace adds one more marketplace to remove sold items from.
Crosslist Mercari to eBay faster with PrimeLister
Doing things manually is fine for a one-time batch of 40, but the part that takes the longest to do never goes away, you still have to copy each new Mercari listing, and end the other listing manually. With PrimeLister, the copying is taken care of and so is the cleanup, so listing times and hours are spent sourcing and listing new items instead of retyping the same things over and over. This gets your shop's inventory out there faster.
- Listing the same items to Mercari and eBay, as well as Poshmark, Depop, Etsy and Facebook Marketplace.
- Inventory sync with auto-delisting, meaning when an item sells on Mercari, the listing on eBay is automatically removed, eliminating the need to check a spreadsheet.
- The ability to take bulk actions, meaning 40 items in a listing can be handled as one group as opposed to one at a time.
- A free tool to find duplicates, which allows you to catch listings that were posted twice during a manual copy.
- Insight on the sell-through rate to determine how quickly items sell, as well as how long items stay listed on each marketplace.
Ebay's item specifics and condition for each item still need to be evaluated, as that depends on what you know about the item, but the re-listing and delisting are no longer your responsibility.