Flipping Retired Rothy's from Mercari to eBay
Mercari to me has quickly turned from a place to sell on, to a place to source from. Mercari has never been a consistent selling platform for me and with the changes they announced to take place on November 1, 2020, I will probably no longer use the platform for selling. However, it is a brilliant place to source, specifically shoes. I’ve noticed on Mercari, just like on Facebook, most of the sellers do not take good pictures, do not know how to make accurate listings, and sometimes, do not price their items according to their resell value. I have a few saved searches on Mercari, and one of those is for Rothy’s.
They are super cute, and I love a good flat.
For those of you that have never heard of Rothy’s, it is a online shoe retailer that specializes in minimalist washable women’s flats made from recycled plastic bottles. Their success over the years has grown their catalog to include loafers, trainers, hand bags, and with the pandemic to face masks. They have also recently started offering kids shoes, and were savvy enough to stop the kids sizes short (kids 4) of where most retailers stop (kids 7) to prevent any of their women’s market from purchasing the lower price point kids shoes. For those of you that are not familiar with shoes, most kids shoes convert to a plus 2 to women’s, so a size 6 kids shoe would fit most women that wear a size 8. Partnered with Rothy’s actually fitting about half size to a full size smaller than most brands this means that the only overlap would be women in the 5 to 5.5 size range depending on the style. Their women’s shoes are priced between the $125-195 and they release limited edition colors and patterns for their different styles every quarter. This brand has a very loyal following, and will pay sometimes well above retail for retired patterns of their favorite shoe.
I check the Rothy listings on Mercari once a day, and any within a reasonable price range I like. I then go through my likes and remove any that had sold the previous day. I go through and like the items, because sellers on Mercari will send offers to likers at a discounted rate, just like on PoshMark and eBay. When I get an offer, I know that the seller is motivated to sell, and will normally counter at a lower rate. Sometimes I get lucky and they accept my offer, as was the case for this pair of gray zebra print the Point flats. I paid $61 for them shipped. You can see the seller did not have the best pictures for her listing on Mercari.
Their Cover Shot on Mercari
My Cover Shot on eBay
As you can see above, I sold them on eBay for $114.87 within a day of listing them. After fees and shipping, I made a total $35.77 net profit! Not bad for fifteen minutes of work.
