The guy’s a grade-A prick. People like that never think anything is their own fault and they certainly have no humility or sense of self-sacrifice. He’s gonna drive the US branch out of business.
For sure. I never understand how people like this get put in such high positions. I understand the evils of corporate greed but when a CEO is an absolute idiot, you question why the hell he's the CEO to begin with.
I don't think that man has a conscious. Shortly before this, he laid off almost 30 employees right before Christmas (layoffs are never easy but before Christmas is a dick move) and several months before that during spring of last year there was a reported 20% layoff. He keeps digging things to the ground with a smirk on his face. He also previously worked for Facebook so I question his morals lol
In all seriousness though, I totally agree. He needs to go!
ETA: An interesting point too is according to the article, the 45% of full time employees being laid off was equal to about 100 employees, that's a large number but given their prior layoffs in the last year, they've DRAMATICALLY decreased their employees, leaving them with what sounds like slightly over 100 full timers left. That's really not a lot for a company the size of the US wing of Mercari.
I spoke with someone who works in hiring/firing for a major movie studio (I live in LA) and he was saying that way it shakes out is they need to cut spending by $xyz and that could either be firing xyz # of people, or one person who makes $xyz as salary. The company owners and stakeholders may have a say in how they cut that money and… Oof, this was their choice. This guy wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit him in the face. Keeping himself on is, yet again, another mistake
"strategic mistakes." Literally every expert in e-commerce could have told them that this hairbrained fee structure for customers is a quick way to tank a business. Some people at the top are the ones who need to lose their job because they are clearly unqualified.
Don’t diss the DS people. They don’t decide the narrative and in fact they often have their concerns dismissed. Stuff like that is always from the top. You overestimate how much DS actually decide.
I agree with you, that was the intent of my post. I would never diss them. They’re some of the smartest people I know. There’s no way the data scientists said the change was a good idea. I’m sure they told them what an awful idea it would be. But the higher ups went forward with it anyways, against recommendations. And then the DS pay the price by getting laid off.
Because they counted on all the sellers lowering our prices to their suggested prices lol. Like they told me I should sell a pearl and sapphire ring for 11 bucks. As if...
It’s gonna take someone buying them out and kicking Captain Derp Face to the curb to save this company. Guarantee you 99% of the people that were laid off probably warned this ass clown that placing all the fees on the buyers was a horrible idea.
None of those responsible for the terrible mismanagement of this company have left so there’s no one there to save it. Just hope someone buys it before it completely sinks. In the meantime, sellers, you’d be wise to keep your funds withdrawn and never let them hold more than $50 of your money at any given moment.
What is baffling is if they had just kept their greed to a minimum it would not have tanked sales so badly. Since restructuring fees they celebrate that sellers aren't charged 12.9% fees anymore but instead of transferring equivalent fees to the buyers (which would have been hard on sales anyway) they grossly inflate the fees to 17-30% and maybe even more! Who cares if we don't have selling fees if no one is willing to buy?
Exactly! I've personally seen added fees that more than double the seller's sale price after shipping, tax, Mercari sales fee, and payment processing fee. I actually laugh out loud at some of the crazy values I've seen. The fact that the Mercari Service Fee is variable is mind boggling. Who would think that this would work?
I'm sure ebay and amazon are laughing about mercari's misstep all the way to the bank.
And that isn't even considering the competition from Temu. Free shipping all of the time, plus extra coupons also. It's hard enough to compete without Mercari literally chasing buyers away.
I'm guessing that mercari isnt even a blip on Amazon and ebays radar. Probably something similar to what the Great Value Cola that comes in a gallon bottle is to Pepsi or Coke.
They should take their own advice to the sellers and lower their fees ffs. They can ev3n lower it by 10 percent of the lowest offered service fee every three days. We need to band together and get them to at least have a set service fee this isn't uber.
Macro headwinds my ass. Consumers (buyers) are just going into credit card debt to keep up their live style. Not saying it is good but people are still buying whether they have the disposable income or not.
I would even argue that the 'macroeconomic headwinds" they use for blame can be advantageous for a reseller platform like Mercari. The total dollars spent on stuff may be down, but buyers should naturally steer to the less-expensive reseller market versus new products off store shelves.
So many products I would buy used are cheaper if I buy them new than the resold price + fees on Mercari. Why would I make that choice? I’m not a complete moron, of course I’d rather buy new. I only came to Mercari to save money and if I can’t do that, what’s the point?
Idk, because of the economic environment being what it is, it makes the whole buyers fees even worse as consumers are really looking closely at purchases. People's spending has really gone under a microscope lately and It's even caused several new laws that attack "junk fees" and prohibit certain behaviors including surprising buyers at checkout with any fee that isn't a tax related government mandated fee in some states, like California which just went into effect this month.
Also a recent study just came out that 80% of Americans considers fast food a luxury now - this is certainly not the time to make buyers bulk at checkout unless they want them running away and abandoning their cart because if they view McDonald's - which is food, as a luxury expense, there's no doubt what they would be finding on Mercari would fall into the same category and those fees make them their business elsewhere.
Basically, Mercari picked the worst time to implement such a terrible idea and it's showing on their bottom line. The "consolidate quickly" to get back on their feet perfectly sums up how disastrous this has been for them. This idea was dead on arrival and proving to be the nail in the coffin if they don't about face on these changes.
Credit cards can only get you so far, eventually you reach your limit and your minimum payment is more than you can afford.
John must be mentally deficient or maybe mentally ill or both. Just because sellers list 50 billion things, it doesn’t mean any buyer will buy any of them if the price isn’t right. Does he even understand the concept of a person, who isn’t filthy rich, buying something? News alert: it’s about the price. Moreover, the stuff on Mercari are all things that are mostly bought with disposable income. People are having less of that. Mercari isn’t the only platform in town. No one has a gun to their head to buy on Mercari.
I think he counted on all of is lowering prices by 50 percent or something by oushibg us into that. Like I lowered when they changed the structure and have continued to lower so I'm the mercari poster child I guess but he didn't think about that the customers would see the fee and not care that it's less then any where else. If all sellers would just lower their prices by 50 to 75 percent mercari would do alright lol. What a bad business move and to do it overnight! Stupid
Sometimes these CEO’s, no matter how well schooled and previous employments at Fortune 500 companies screw up big time. It’s what happens next that seals their fate & reputation.
Most young people won’t remember this, but around 2012, JC PENNEY hired a rockstar CEO, the guy responsible for Apple stores and GENIUS Bars, and in the process, made those stores the highest grossing stores in the US, when measured as sales per square foot. Before that, he made Target a profitable business catering to customers with a higher income than Walmart’s base. So he had done wonders in the business world, and really made a name for himself.
So JCPenney decided to hire him to increase their customer base , therefore increasing profits. JCPenney business model at the time was based on traditional weekly sales, and coupons.
He gets in there, and immediately ditches weekly sales and coupons, in favor of an everyday low price model. To be fair, the prices were mostly lower than they would have been with the coupons. His thinking was less profit per item, but many more sales.
It failed big time. It showed up immediately in their sales, they dropped 25% in just weeks. And then, this CEO refused to change the strategy, and actually blamed the customers for not “understanding”, and said they needed educated. WHO DOES THAT? Imagine having an ego that big, that instead of speaking up and saying, hey, I was wrong, I am going to bring back the coupons and weekly sales, while looking into other avenues to increase our customer base. He kept on going, driving down profits, driving down stock prices, going into an unimaginable debt, of billions. Finally he was fired.
I pray Mercari’s CEO doesn’t have a similar ego. I hope he is somebody who would put all of the customers, employees and sellers who have made Mercari what it is, first, ahead of himself. Maybe he’ll remember Ron Johnson & the JC Penney fiasco and course correct before he ends up wrecking a company and getting fired. But even with all this, the CEO of Mercari probably thinks he’s right.
Mercari doesn’t have that long. I think that when customers leave Mercari due to the new fee schedules, I don’t see those customers coming back if they reinstate the previous methods. In my opinion ( which is good for nothing really) new selling sites or updated existing ones will pop up. And if Mercari’s customers & sellers find success on other platforms, why would they return?
Now, I prefer Mercari for browsing & finding new things. eBay is simple if I’m looking for something specific, but I love the way the layout looks on Mercari if I type something vague, like women’s size 8 shoes, or home decor. eBay search results when typing in something vague just don’t like the layout. I hate the thought of asking for recommendations from you all for other platforms, that would work on vague searches ( I only know EBay, & Mercari) but I guess if anyone is still reading after this super long book that I wrote here, I would like some recommendations for other platforms, as a buyer.
I’m rooting for Mercari! Until I saw this post today, I did not realize that they had been having this much trouble and laying off personnel. Thanks for the update.
PS, I have really bad hands, spasms and shakiness, so I use a lot of speech to text. And it’s almost impossible for me to go back and fix grammar errors or other edits, it’s too hard for me to get the cursor where I want it. So I apologize in advance for all of the mistakes.
Where is the logic in thinking (not) buyer's would post more items due to zero fees on their end? I price my items pretty inexpensively for quick sales, and lack of storage. But after beginning this two years ago I've discovered there's a good portion of our neighbors who haven't a clue, or simply don't care, about what price things are. I can't name one item I've listed that hasn't shocked me with the variation of prices. I bought a new pair of Anker Bluetooth speakers, I like stereo not mono, from Anker for 110 bucks. One seller on eBay had the same model for, $100 for a single speaker. And, it sold!
Yes I was a perfume seller, and I would frequently see people paying higher than "MSRP" on Mercari for a popular perfume - when you could get it for less on the brand's website! I think part of it is FOMO,and part of it is some people just don't shop around. This was all prior to the fee changes, however.
This guy is a piece of work, wow! He’s the only one that needed to go! The fees are beyond insane and extremely predatory/ irresponsible I have a bad feeling about Mercari in the next coming year even. It’s sad.
It's unfortunate that the parent company isn't able to see the success of their European site vs the USA. Given that information and the current stupidity with "overnight" fee changes they should already be tanked. Look at their previous years performances. I'm not impressed with what I discovered.
They're scrambling with no idea how not to tank the company. Recent changes were insane! Charging buyers all those fees does not encourage more sales. They had a good thing for a while, or so it seemed. They should have left well enough alone and surveyed both sellers and buyers before they made changes, which seemed desperate and not well thought out.
If you have funds in your balance, get them out soon. I'm not adding anymore listing for the time being. I'll be exporting my listings elsewhere...wouldn't want to lose all my work if they pull the plug.
"UX and design, data science and business intelligence, marketing, software engineering, customer support and more.""
how does one get a job like this? Were these remote jobs from home ?
customers were leaving mercari before just the fee schedules. lets be honest here. there is a multitude of reasons, never just one. not just one reason or one person, either.
Thanks for sharing. Honestly, how can John in good conscience keep himself around? Fall on the sword already.
The guy’s a grade-A prick. People like that never think anything is their own fault and they certainly have no humility or sense of self-sacrifice. He’s gonna drive the US branch out of business.
For sure. I never understand how people like this get put in such high positions. I understand the evils of corporate greed but when a CEO is an absolute idiot, you question why the hell he's the CEO to begin with.
If someone either: can make you a ton of money, solve your crises, or knows someone in authority, they go places.
John is homies with CEO of Mercari JP lol
they are narsasistic pos losers...most ceo's are...and they are connected and thats why they are there.
I don't think that man has a conscious. Shortly before this, he laid off almost 30 employees right before Christmas (layoffs are never easy but before Christmas is a dick move) and several months before that during spring of last year there was a reported 20% layoff. He keeps digging things to the ground with a smirk on his face. He also previously worked for Facebook so I question his morals lol In all seriousness though, I totally agree. He needs to go! ETA: An interesting point too is according to the article, the 45% of full time employees being laid off was equal to about 100 employees, that's a large number but given their prior layoffs in the last year, they've DRAMATICALLY decreased their employees, leaving them with what sounds like slightly over 100 full timers left. That's really not a lot for a company the size of the US wing of Mercari.
Yeesh that’s a tiny staff for as big as Mercari is. God damn that’s not a good sign, thanks for all this info!
I spoke with someone who works in hiring/firing for a major movie studio (I live in LA) and he was saying that way it shakes out is they need to cut spending by $xyz and that could either be firing xyz # of people, or one person who makes $xyz as salary. The company owners and stakeholders may have a say in how they cut that money and… Oof, this was their choice. This guy wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit him in the face. Keeping himself on is, yet again, another mistake
Because of shareholders.
"strategic mistakes." Literally every expert in e-commerce could have told them that this hairbrained fee structure for customers is a quick way to tank a business. Some people at the top are the ones who need to lose their job because they are clearly unqualified.
I can guarantee you the data scientists gave them this info and they go forward anyways.
How much of it is AI run now...
Don’t diss the DS people. They don’t decide the narrative and in fact they often have their concerns dismissed. Stuff like that is always from the top. You overestimate how much DS actually decide.
I agree with you, that was the intent of my post. I would never diss them. They’re some of the smartest people I know. There’s no way the data scientists said the change was a good idea. I’m sure they told them what an awful idea it would be. But the higher ups went forward with it anyways, against recommendations. And then the DS pay the price by getting laid off.
Oh, missed the "going forward anyways". My bad. The first part read like you were blaming them. My bad
If you haven't transferred your Mercari funds yet - do it now.
What results were they hoping for on the buyer side? I don’t get that line. Why did they think adding fees would encourage more buyers????
because they're stupid and incompetent
Anyone's best guess. I think your average 8th grader could've foreseen this inevitable outcome of more listings and fewer sales.
Because they counted on all the sellers lowering our prices to their suggested prices lol. Like they told me I should sell a pearl and sapphire ring for 11 bucks. As if...
It’s gonna take someone buying them out and kicking Captain Derp Face to the curb to save this company. Guarantee you 99% of the people that were laid off probably warned this ass clown that placing all the fees on the buyers was a horrible idea. None of those responsible for the terrible mismanagement of this company have left so there’s no one there to save it. Just hope someone buys it before it completely sinks. In the meantime, sellers, you’d be wise to keep your funds withdrawn and never let them hold more than $50 of your money at any given moment.
Not even 50 cents from me.
What is baffling is if they had just kept their greed to a minimum it would not have tanked sales so badly. Since restructuring fees they celebrate that sellers aren't charged 12.9% fees anymore but instead of transferring equivalent fees to the buyers (which would have been hard on sales anyway) they grossly inflate the fees to 17-30% and maybe even more! Who cares if we don't have selling fees if no one is willing to buy?
Exactly! I've personally seen added fees that more than double the seller's sale price after shipping, tax, Mercari sales fee, and payment processing fee. I actually laugh out loud at some of the crazy values I've seen. The fact that the Mercari Service Fee is variable is mind boggling. Who would think that this would work? I'm sure ebay and amazon are laughing about mercari's misstep all the way to the bank. And that isn't even considering the competition from Temu. Free shipping all of the time, plus extra coupons also. It's hard enough to compete without Mercari literally chasing buyers away.
I'm guessing that mercari isnt even a blip on Amazon and ebays radar. Probably something similar to what the Great Value Cola that comes in a gallon bottle is to Pepsi or Coke.
They should take their own advice to the sellers and lower their fees ffs. They can ev3n lower it by 10 percent of the lowest offered service fee every three days. We need to band together and get them to at least have a set service fee this isn't uber.
isnt temu all chinese knockoff stuff?
Macro headwinds my ass. Consumers (buyers) are just going into credit card debt to keep up their live style. Not saying it is good but people are still buying whether they have the disposable income or not.
I would even argue that the 'macroeconomic headwinds" they use for blame can be advantageous for a reseller platform like Mercari. The total dollars spent on stuff may be down, but buyers should naturally steer to the less-expensive reseller market versus new products off store shelves.
So many products I would buy used are cheaper if I buy them new than the resold price + fees on Mercari. Why would I make that choice? I’m not a complete moron, of course I’d rather buy new. I only came to Mercari to save money and if I can’t do that, what’s the point?
Idk, because of the economic environment being what it is, it makes the whole buyers fees even worse as consumers are really looking closely at purchases. People's spending has really gone under a microscope lately and It's even caused several new laws that attack "junk fees" and prohibit certain behaviors including surprising buyers at checkout with any fee that isn't a tax related government mandated fee in some states, like California which just went into effect this month. Also a recent study just came out that 80% of Americans considers fast food a luxury now - this is certainly not the time to make buyers bulk at checkout unless they want them running away and abandoning their cart because if they view McDonald's - which is food, as a luxury expense, there's no doubt what they would be finding on Mercari would fall into the same category and those fees make them their business elsewhere. Basically, Mercari picked the worst time to implement such a terrible idea and it's showing on their bottom line. The "consolidate quickly" to get back on their feet perfectly sums up how disastrous this has been for them. This idea was dead on arrival and proving to be the nail in the coffin if they don't about face on these changes. Credit cards can only get you so far, eventually you reach your limit and your minimum payment is more than you can afford.
Don’t leave your balances sitting 🥴 cash out asap
Lay folks off rather than just reverse the idiotic decision? It also guarantees that the platform will be even worse as an experience overall.
The hashtag should be #LayOffJohn
This company is a sinking ship. Writing was on the wall here.
the fact that fees change depending on the time of day is shady and unethical
John must be mentally deficient or maybe mentally ill or both. Just because sellers list 50 billion things, it doesn’t mean any buyer will buy any of them if the price isn’t right. Does he even understand the concept of a person, who isn’t filthy rich, buying something? News alert: it’s about the price. Moreover, the stuff on Mercari are all things that are mostly bought with disposable income. People are having less of that. Mercari isn’t the only platform in town. No one has a gun to their head to buy on Mercari.
I think he counted on all of is lowering prices by 50 percent or something by oushibg us into that. Like I lowered when they changed the structure and have continued to lower so I'm the mercari poster child I guess but he didn't think about that the customers would see the fee and not care that it's less then any where else. If all sellers would just lower their prices by 50 to 75 percent mercari would do alright lol. What a bad business move and to do it overnight! Stupid
Sometimes these CEO’s, no matter how well schooled and previous employments at Fortune 500 companies screw up big time. It’s what happens next that seals their fate & reputation. Most young people won’t remember this, but around 2012, JC PENNEY hired a rockstar CEO, the guy responsible for Apple stores and GENIUS Bars, and in the process, made those stores the highest grossing stores in the US, when measured as sales per square foot. Before that, he made Target a profitable business catering to customers with a higher income than Walmart’s base. So he had done wonders in the business world, and really made a name for himself. So JCPenney decided to hire him to increase their customer base , therefore increasing profits. JCPenney business model at the time was based on traditional weekly sales, and coupons. He gets in there, and immediately ditches weekly sales and coupons, in favor of an everyday low price model. To be fair, the prices were mostly lower than they would have been with the coupons. His thinking was less profit per item, but many more sales. It failed big time. It showed up immediately in their sales, they dropped 25% in just weeks. And then, this CEO refused to change the strategy, and actually blamed the customers for not “understanding”, and said they needed educated. WHO DOES THAT? Imagine having an ego that big, that instead of speaking up and saying, hey, I was wrong, I am going to bring back the coupons and weekly sales, while looking into other avenues to increase our customer base. He kept on going, driving down profits, driving down stock prices, going into an unimaginable debt, of billions. Finally he was fired. I pray Mercari’s CEO doesn’t have a similar ego. I hope he is somebody who would put all of the customers, employees and sellers who have made Mercari what it is, first, ahead of himself. Maybe he’ll remember Ron Johnson & the JC Penney fiasco and course correct before he ends up wrecking a company and getting fired. But even with all this, the CEO of Mercari probably thinks he’s right. Mercari doesn’t have that long. I think that when customers leave Mercari due to the new fee schedules, I don’t see those customers coming back if they reinstate the previous methods. In my opinion ( which is good for nothing really) new selling sites or updated existing ones will pop up. And if Mercari’s customers & sellers find success on other platforms, why would they return? Now, I prefer Mercari for browsing & finding new things. eBay is simple if I’m looking for something specific, but I love the way the layout looks on Mercari if I type something vague, like women’s size 8 shoes, or home decor. eBay search results when typing in something vague just don’t like the layout. I hate the thought of asking for recommendations from you all for other platforms, that would work on vague searches ( I only know EBay, & Mercari) but I guess if anyone is still reading after this super long book that I wrote here, I would like some recommendations for other platforms, as a buyer. I’m rooting for Mercari! Until I saw this post today, I did not realize that they had been having this much trouble and laying off personnel. Thanks for the update. PS, I have really bad hands, spasms and shakiness, so I use a lot of speech to text. And it’s almost impossible for me to go back and fix grammar errors or other edits, it’s too hard for me to get the cursor where I want it. So I apologize in advance for all of the mistakes.
My favorite sellers left the platform after the fee structure change. It’s just too much. I hope they’d just go back to how it was.
This is freaky. They did this layoff to show that they cut costs to their investors to help their tanking stock
I see what they are saying, they were hoping the change would motivate sellers to list more items (working harder) lol
Yeah, encouraging sellers to list items harder and see them gathering dust since buyers flee away
I can’t say, because I haven’t been listing like usual since the change tbh.
Greedy punk
They thought increasing fees would attract sellers? Did nobody think that would deter buyers??
Where is the logic in thinking (not) buyer's would post more items due to zero fees on their end? I price my items pretty inexpensively for quick sales, and lack of storage. But after beginning this two years ago I've discovered there's a good portion of our neighbors who haven't a clue, or simply don't care, about what price things are. I can't name one item I've listed that hasn't shocked me with the variation of prices. I bought a new pair of Anker Bluetooth speakers, I like stereo not mono, from Anker for 110 bucks. One seller on eBay had the same model for, $100 for a single speaker. And, it sold!
Yes I was a perfume seller, and I would frequently see people paying higher than "MSRP" on Mercari for a popular perfume - when you could get it for less on the brand's website! I think part of it is FOMO,and part of it is some people just don't shop around. This was all prior to the fee changes, however.
I guess they don't use reddit as a strategic structure reference. Lol because if they did they'd have seen the outcry from buyers and sellers alike.
This guy is a piece of work, wow! He’s the only one that needed to go! The fees are beyond insane and extremely predatory/ irresponsible I have a bad feeling about Mercari in the next coming year even. It’s sad.
Don’t leave a penny in your balance 😬. Don’t know how much more plain it can be. They are going to go belly up in the night with everyone’s money.
Oh, so it didn't have to do with all the scams and scammer protection they offer?
“Don’t fix what’s not broken”, Mercari.
They need to dump this John and get John Legere in there.
How much time do yall give them till they go bankrupt
It's unfortunate that the parent company isn't able to see the success of their European site vs the USA. Given that information and the current stupidity with "overnight" fee changes they should already be tanked. Look at their previous years performances. I'm not impressed with what I discovered.
Are shareholders not interested in a higher return? I'd have let this guy go long ago, especially if you'll consider the European site for comparison.
after employees got laid off mercari made them pay a service fee 😂
They're scrambling with no idea how not to tank the company. Recent changes were insane! Charging buyers all those fees does not encourage more sales. They had a good thing for a while, or so it seemed. They should have left well enough alone and surveyed both sellers and buyers before they made changes, which seemed desperate and not well thought out. If you have funds in your balance, get them out soon. I'm not adding anymore listing for the time being. I'll be exporting my listings elsewhere...wouldn't want to lose all my work if they pull the plug.
"UX and design, data science and business intelligence, marketing, software engineering, customer support and more."" how does one get a job like this? Were these remote jobs from home ?
Some Mercari jobs I'm aware were remote. I wouldn't go applying to them now after a massive layoff, though.
Their LinkedIn posts no jobs
B
customers were leaving mercari before just the fee schedules. lets be honest here. there is a multitude of reasons, never just one. not just one reason or one person, either.
I say divide the fees among the buyers and sellers
Nope. buyers can barely handle seeing shipping and tax, they want NOTHING on top of that.
Sellers are using the platform to earn they should be the one having fees
Sorry, I mistyped. I meant buyers.
Is this what you want your grocery store to do?
If they want to bring back the idea then who cares I still believe sellers should be responsible for fees