Step by Step Guide on How to Open a Store on MercadoLibre
MercadoLibre(Mercado Libre, Mercado Libre Colombia)’s background
What is the MercadoLibre Marketplace?
MercadoLibre (Mercado Libre, Mercado Libre Colombia) is the largest e-commerce platform in Latin America, and its e-commerce business covers 19 Latin American countries including Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Colombia.
How competitive is MercadoLibre Marketplace in the countries it operate in (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, etc.)?
Actually, MercadoLibre is the seventh most visited retail site in the world.
The top 10 e-commerce websites in Latin America were released in April 2018:
Amazon is still behind Mercadolibre. MercadoLibre still has a clear advantage, with a website visit volume of 48.9%, ranking first in Latin America.
Mexican e-commerce website Top 10 (April 2018)
Among Mexican Internet users, 66.5% of them visited the e-commerce website in April. Among them, 42.9% of them visited MercadoLibre, an increase of 2.97% over the previous month.
In recent years, the online transaction volume in Latin America has been rising, and it is expected to reach 85 billion US dollars by the end of 19th. At this time, the Latin American e-commerce market has just occupied less than 10% market share, and the network coverage in Latin America is also Gradually increasing. MercadoLibre is really a promising platform.
Mercadolibre traffic source
According to Alexa, Mercado Libre’s traffic is mostly from recommended traffic, accounting for about 46%. The highest proportion is facebook, which accounts for about 50%. The seller of Mercadolibre platform must not lose this good platform to attract traffic.
Category
There are 20 major categories and 123 small categories on MercadoLibre.
● Vehicle Accessories
Car Audio, Covers and Tires, Spare Parts for Cars, Spare Parts and Acc. For Motorcycles, Tuning and Accessories
● Art and Antiques
Antiques, Art , Crafts
● Cars, Motorcycles and Others
Collection Cars, Cars and Trucks, Trucks, Collectives, Heavy Machinery, Motorcycles, Nautical
● Digital cameras and photo
Accessories for Digital Camera, Conventional Cameras, Video Cameras, Digital, Cameras, Reflex / Pro cameras, Telescopes and Binoculars
● Cell Phones and Telephones
Accessories for Cell phones, Cellphones and Smartphones, Telephones
● Collectibles and Hobbies
Banknotes and Coins, Various Collections, Cans, Bottles and Allied, Modeling
● Computing
Accessories for Notebook, Apple , Computers and Servers, Hard Drives and Laptops, Printers and Cartridges, Memories, Monitors, Multimedia, Notebooks and Laptops, Peripherals and Accessories, Video Plates and Publishers, Motherboards, Processors, Projectors, Burners, Virgin CDs and DVDs, Networks and Wireless Networks, Software, Tablets
● Consoles and Video Games
Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii U
● Sports and Fitness
Aerobics and Fitness, Basketball, Bicycles and Cycling,Camping and Fishing, Water Sports ,Soccer, Sports Watches, Skates and Rollers, Tennis, Paddle and Squash
● Electronics, Audio and Video
Home Audio, Car Audio, Portable Audio, Calculators, GPS, iPod, MP3 Players, Projectors, DVD players, Televisions, Video Cameras
● Home & Appliances
Bazaar, Decoration, Appliances, Household Tools, Garden and Outdoors, Furniture
● Clothing and Accessories
Fashion Accessories, Blouses, Bags and Wallets, Footwear, T-shirts, Jeans, Lenses, Pants, Intimate Clothing, Clothing for Babies, Dresses
● Properties
Apartment, Wineries, House, Farms, Rooms, Lots, Office
● Musical Instruments
Musical Accessories, Amplifiers, Low, Batteries, Guitars, Keyboards
● Jewelery and watches
Jewelry, Watches,
● Games and Toys
Action Figures, Modeling, Dolls and Dolls
● Books, Magazines and Comics
Comics, Books, Magazines
● Music and Movies
Vinyl Records, Movies and TV Series
● Services
Beauty and Personal Hygiene, Teaching, Festivals and Events, Household, Maintenance, Medicine and Health, Professionals, Repairs and Installations, General Transportation, Travel and Tourism
● Other categories
Adults, Animals and Pets, Babies, Industries and Offices, Health and Beauty
Payment method
1. Accept Mercado pago payment
2. Credit card such as visa/ mastercard / CABAL, etc., supports up to 12 installments
3. Debit cards such as visa/mastercard
4. Cash payment and bank transfer, etc.
Commission
How much does MercadoLibre charge to sellers? The commission fee for the Mercadolibre platform is 16% regardless of the category of products sold on this platform.
Settlement fee
The payment method is also settled through ESG(Environment, Social Responsibility, Corporate Governance).
Handling fee: 2% of the total amount of the Mercadolibre platform transaction, and the total amount of the transaction is in accordance with the official settlement of the Mercadolibre platform plus platform fees.
Exchange rate fee: converted to Hong Kong dollar or Renminbi according to the exchange rate on the day of payment, and the exchange rate is based on the price of the Bank of China on the same day plus 1% difference. However, remittances are only paid in Hong Kong dollars or Renminbi.
Should I do MercadoLibre? Is it benifit?
Should I do MercadoLibre? Is it benifit? Let’s read the advantages of opening a store in Mercadolibre:
1. Flow:
Mercadolibre is known as the South American version of eBay(So if someone ask, can you buy something from eBay trough a Mercadolibre account? Of couse YES), and its traffic is relatively large. For example, its Brazilian site has a monthly UV volume of more than 73 million.
Sellers can easily put products on the platform without knowing Spanish.
2. Language:
Although South America speaks Spanish, the platform Mercado Libre allows sellers to edit the listing of English. After the shelves, the platform will automatically help you translate the listing into Spanish or Portuguese. However, it is recommended that the seller be prepared for language in advance.
3. Shelf method:
You can upload products through the way, you can use the API interface to connect to the third-party source distribution platform for product upload, order synchronization and logistics information update. For example, Tinydealscan do this perfectly, and save the seller a lot of time, originally It takes 1 hour to manually upload it by yourself. It may take less than 1 minute to upload 100 products, and the efficiency doubles directly.
4. Platform support:
Mercadolibre has established four support programs for sellers to address the four major challenges of marketing, online payments, online advertising and stores.
Understand so much, how to register Mercadolibre? At present, Mercadolibre started to attract investment from China this year. They cooperated with the Hong Kong company ESG Group. ESG is responsible for attracting investment in China. To successfully register with ESG Group, it is necessary to pay about 5,000 RMB, and it needs to bind to the ERP. About 8500 RMB. Sellers who want to enter Mercadolibre can log in to the official website of Mercadolibre to register.
How seller open a store on Mercadolibre?
The entry process for Mercadolibre sellers can be divided into 3 steps:
1. Account creation (fill in company information, name, contact information, password, country and detailed address, etc.)
2. Perfect account information (brand logo upload, bank account settings, logistics settings, etc.)
3. Login account verification information, feedback to the investment manager (application for activation)
Log in to the Seller Centre and go to My account, check that the account/company information is correct, and continue with the following steps:
Upload the company logo again:
After completing the above steps, feedback to the investment manager and apply for activation.
Notice for seller (fees and prohibited products are included)
1. Hot items: electronics and accessories, mobile phones, fashion, home and garden, auto parts and sporting goods.
Average selling price (ASP) (less than $50) and lighter items (less than 2 pounds) convert faster, helping new sellers build their reputation.
2. Restricted products:
You should not upload a list with restrictions because these products will not be delivered. On the other hand, due to the need for an export process, the products retained by the customs will not be returned to the place of origin. Please review the list of restrictions below:
● Restricted products for all countries or areas:
Lithium battery
Fine jewelry (precious and semi-precious)
● Restricted products in Mexico:
Toy weapon copy
Toys with characters, such as:
Funko pop music
Collecting characters in general
Any kind of doll
Barbie doll
Lego characters
Products of any type of children under 3 years old
Untreated wood products: pencils, board games, etc.
Medical equipment: thermometers, tension meters, etc.
Herbicides, pesticides, insect repellents.
Paint, varnish, etc.
Animal and animal products
Food product
Magnetized material
Currency item
3. Logistics time: within 48 hours of the tracking number. 6–14 days to vote properly.
4. Title and description of the description: can be edited in English, the platform will automatically translate the seller’s title and description as Spanish and Portuguese. Keep in mind that automatic translation is not perfect and will not be optimized for search. The platform strongly recommends that sellers translate their content to help salespeople convert.
5. Upload method: the seller through the way through the product upload. Or directly interface with the platform API.
6. SKU: there is no limit to the number of SKUs that can be uploaded. However:
● New seller limit 1000SKU, more than 1000 need to contact ME personnel to view data, eliminate restrictions until the platform verifies data. Once the initial data verification is complete, the seller will be able to upload more SKUs.
● If you have a comma in a sentence, you need to use “double quotation marks”. For example “This is a great product, you will love it”.
7. Pricing: sellers’ product pricing is displayed in local currency. (eg Mexico’s Mexican peso, Brazil’s Brazilian Real, etc.).
8. Disputes: in order to obtain a good reputation (light green or dark green), the dispute rate must be equal to or less than 3%.
9. About the platform: Buyers can provide positive, neutral or negative feedback on their purchases. Sellers can also leave feedback to buyers (positive, neutral or negative). If the purchase is not completed, the buyer can only leave neutral or negative feedback. Feedback is hidden until both parties give feedback. The number of claims against the seller also affects his reputation. Your reputation on MercadoLibre will have a significant impact on the search ranking of your project.
10. Dropshipping Mercadolibre: Dropshipping is the best way to start your store on Mercadolibre, Chinabanrds and others without physical inventories. The client buys from you, you make the order in a dropshipping store and it sends the product to your client, in your name. In fact, on Facebook you can find many examples about mercado libre dropshipping and you can learn from them.
Mercadolibre (Mercado Libre, Mercado Libre Colombia)’s entry process is completed here. If you want to know how to interface with the API between the Mercadolibre platform and the Chinbrands platform, you can continue to view articles on the Tinydealsplatform.
It is worth mentioning that if you want to improve your sales performance, reduce your cost of selling, there is a good supplier- Tinydealsthat can help you sell your products better. You only need to open a store online and select products from it, and the packaging, warehousing, logistics and transportation they will be fully responsible. The goods can arrive within 48 hours at the fastest. You can have a try.
