Don’t tell me anything: you have a business, you want to bill a little more and you thought Why not publish everything in Mercado Libre? Or you bought the new iPhone, you see the old one stored in a drawer and you also said: I’ll put it in Mercado Libre and earn an extra wool.
Let me try to keep guessing: in one of those you already put everything in Mercado Libre, but it seems that you had not done anything. Not a question. Not a contact. Not one interested. The nothing itself.
Calm down, nothing’s wrong. It is not the end of the world and it happened to absolutely all of us when we started on the platform. You have already arrived at the right place: now we are going to see, step by step and starting from the beginning (where else) how to sell in Mercado Libre and make your publications receive visits, questions, sales and be able to be that Leading Market that you always wanted.
This guide is designed both for users who are just starting out as well as for users, so if you already know the basics and want to go straight to the juiciest, you can check the index that appears at the beginning of the post and go straight to what interests you. . 😉
What is Free Market?
It is a marketplace, that is, a buy and sell site that works like a virtual mall. Here, thousands of vendors can display their products so that buyers can make their purchases.
At the beginning of its activities, Mercado Libre catered more to unique or occasional vendors, that is, to people who wanted to sell something they no longer needed.
Currently, it has become an excellent platform for specialized professionals, small shops and big brands that show their products in this great virtual showcase. There has been a considerable increase in the level of sellers, which has created more competition around the customer’s purchase.
In summary, Mercado Libre is like a great window to display your products or services on the Internet and it is also an excellent opportunity to take it as complementary channel to grow sales in .
💡 Type: Learn about the different options that Mercado Libre offers for sellers in this .
Well, now that you know what Mercado Libre is, I am going to guide you on the journey to publish your first product. I will also give you some tips to better position your products and !
The principle: Create a user
I told you we were going to start at the beginning, and so it will be. The first thing you have to do is create a user by clicking where it says “Create your account” on the top right. If you are an individual who wants to sell what is left over once in a while, just fill in the data that is there and that’s it.
If, on the other hand, you have a business (of whatever size), the best option is to create a business account from the start: click on that option that you see at the top right and fill in your name, company name, INE and CURP.
Once you do the above, MercadoLibre will ask you if you want to receive an invoice or if you prefer to go directly to publish a product. If you are going to need an invoice, it is best to enter the tax information at that time to remove your earring. To do this, you will have to indicate what type of taxpayer you are, upload your proof of tax situation and, once all the papers have been presented, you will be officially eligible to start operating.
Once the registration is complete, it is good that you enter your profile (you stand on your user and click on “My data”), there you go to Settings> My data and write your phone number and address. With this you give Mercado Libre the necessary information to bill you, the telephone number that future customers will receive when they make a purchase and the address that will be used to send the products to the branch closest to yours of the parcels with the that MercadoLibre works (we will go into detail about this later).
Have you done everything? Excellent, I declare you officially ready to start publishing your products and I end the first chapter of this guide.
Types of vendors
Before going any further, it is important to understand that MercadoLibre has two (or three, depending on how you want to look at it) types of vendors: “common” vendors and MercadoLíderes (those that the site “rewards” for considering them the best on the page). To this must be added the official storeswhich may or may not also be MercadoLíderes.
How is this? Of course, when an official store starts, it does it like any of us (well, not really), like a common seller. Although it has some advantages in terms of positioning, it is not MercadoLíder per se: it must earn this right just like all of us.
MarketLeader
At the same time, There are three different types of Market Leadersdetermined by the amount of sales and turnover of the last 3 months plus the days of the current month:
- If you have 40 sales or more and a minimum of $50,000 in turnover, you are MarketLeader.
- When you reach 100 sales and $150,000 billed, you become MarketLeader Gold.
- Once you have 300 sales and invoices a minimum of $400,000 you become Market Leader Platinumthe highest category that a seller can reach on the platform.
Are these the only requirements? Well, there are actually a few more things. You must have a minimum age of 4 months (logical if we take into account that the base that MercadoLibre takes to calculate almost everything is the last 3 months plus the days of the current month), not receiving claims from the buyer in more than 3% of sales (and 1% with Mercado Libre mediation, we will see the claims in detail later) and not exceed the maximum of 2% of sales canceled due to return of money.
What are the advantages of being MercadoLíder?
A few. You’re going to have higher priority and exposure in searches (without a doubt the most important thing of all), chat service from Mercado Libre representatives and you will be able to offer Mercado Envios on new products that have a price greater than $299. Does it seem impossible to you? Nothing is impossible if you want it with your heart (and read this complete guide).
Reputation
One last fact to keep in mind: within common vendors, there are also different degrees of reputation. Mercado Libre has what it calls a thermometer for sellers, which has five levels and goes from red to green. This color is determined based on three factors: the percentage of sales claimed, the delivery time of the products and the sales canceled by you.
As you probably imagined, the official stores that are, in turn, MercadoLíderes platinum are the stars of the site. Does that mean you can’t compete against them? Not in any way. Having a small structure has great advantages on which we will go deeper later.
On the other hand, obviously sellers with reputations in yellow, orange or red (the horror!) are going to have a much more difficult time. In extreme cases, it may be convenient to leave the account for dead and start from scratch with another.
Official Store
By now you may be wondering how to become Official Store, and my answer is not going to be the most encouraging: there is no link that I can give you so that you “apply” to be one. In the vast majority of cases, the rule is that it has to be a brand top of mindthat is, one of the first that comes to mind when you think of a specific item or product (tennis and Adidas, for example).
Why did I tell you about the types of sellers? Well, because there is one thing that is absolutely the most important thing to sell on Mercado Libre: search rankings. And what does positioning depend on? Well, broadly speaking, it combines two aspects: the reputation of the seller and the quality of the publication. Hey, Calde, that’s for a separate chapter! You’re right, my bad.
What is Shipping Market?
Before moving on to the positioning, I am interested in knowing more about a fundamental part of Mercado Libre: Mercado Envios. What is it about? Well, as its name implies, it is the service through which Mercado Libre transfers all the products that are sold on the platform.
The procedure is quite simple: when you make the sale, the website will give you a label that you have to print, stick to the box and take it to the delivery point closest to your home (hence the importance of completing it correctly in the configuration, as I showed you in the first part of the guide).
💡 .
Today the use of Mercado Envios is mandatory if you want to sell through Mercado Libre and some of its benefits are: it improves positioning, it offers us a simple alternative to solve a complex problem such as shipping, and it also has a much lower cost than most parcels. In addition, customers can automatically calculate the cost by placing their zip code on the posts.
On the other hand, all the products that are sent through this route come with a pre-established insurance that covers us if the product breaks, is lost or whatever may happen. In addition, there is no need to qualify the operation: once the product is “Delivered”, MercadoLibre automatically assumes that the operation was successful.
Free market gives us the option to offer free shipping on new products priced over $299. When they do not spend that amount, we can decide the modality that we prefer. To clarify this free shipping option, Mercado Libre decided to absorb between 20% and 40% of the cost in sellers with a yellow reputation and between 30% and 50% in those with a green reputation, MercadoLíderes and Official Stores (remember which only applies to publications over $299).
Nowadays, Mercado Libre has an agreement with various companies to manage Mercado Envios: DHL, Estafeta, FedEx, UPS, among others. Depending on the product and your area, they will give you a choice between one and the other, but the wide coverage between the three means that you (almost) always have a dispatch point at hand.
Learn more…
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What is Market Payment?
The last element of the Mercado Libre ecosystem that you need to know about is Mercado Pago, its official payment platform. As with Mercado Envios, all publications on the platform must be charged through this payment method mandatory.
The reality is that charging for Mercado Pago also has several benefits: firstly, we can offer our clients months without interest with different banks. Of course, even if they choose to pay you monthly, you will receive all the money in one payment.
In addition, also You can offer the possibility of being paid by debit card or in cash. How does this last option work? At the time of purchase, the data is shared with the buyer so that he can transfer or deposit money in the different Mercado Pago bank accounts. You can also be given a receipt that you can print and pay at any Oxxo store in the country.
Almost all of them are credited immediately, that is, we see it reflected in our account automatically after the client made the payment. Sometimes cash payments…
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