Mercari, Inc. (“Mercari”) announces that its Bundle Purchase feature, Mercari Donation’s Easy Donation setting, and Eco Mercari Shipping have won Good Design Award 2024, held by the public interest incorporated foundation Japan Institute of Design Promotion, in the smartphone and tablet application category.
■Bundle Purchase Feature
The Bundle Purchase feature allows users to request to purchase multiple items from the same lister in one go when shopping on Mercari. This not only enhances convenience for users but reduces the amount of packing materials and shipping needed, leading to a reduced burden on the environment and on distribution companies.
Mercari Marketplace App Launches “Bundle Purchase” Feature:
https://about.mercari.com/press/news/articles/20230830_bundle/ (only available in Japanese)
Key Design Points
- Bundling multiple items into a single purchase creates value in various ways.
- For users:
- Reduces burden in the overall experience of buying and selling
- Allows items to sell more easily and be purchased more affordably thanks to the ability to negotiate price
- For distribution companies:
- Reduces burden of operations
- For the environment and society:
- Allows for effective utilization of packing materials
- Contributes to achieving a circular economy
- For users:
| Reason for Winning Award
“Due to what’s known as the 2024 problem, the shortage of human resources in the distribution industry is becoming more severe, and finding solutions to reduce the operational burden on distribution companies has become an important social issue. The addition of a bundle purchase feature may seem like a small update within an app, but we evaluated this feature highly considering that this small improvement succeeded in reducing costs for buyers, sellers, and distribution companies as well as burden on society.” |
Future Outlook
The Bundle Purchase feature is used by many users today, and moving forward we will continue to implement various features to improve the experience of both buyers and sellers.
■ Mercari Donation: Easy Donation Setting
With Mercari Donation, users can donate their Merpay balance, which can be charged from their Mercari sales balance and via other methods, to a local government or organization of their choice. The Easy Donation setting is a feature that allows users to predesignate a percentage of their sales revenue to be donated via Mercari Donation once a sales transaction is completed. The feature allows users to easily contribute to society using their sales revenue simply by presetting a number when listing an item. Users can select between donating 5%, 10%, 50%, or 100% of their sales revenue to an organization once their item sells.
Mercari Launches “Mercari Donation: Easy Donation Setting,” Enabling Users to Select Donation Organization and Percentage When Listing an Item:
https://about.mercari.com/press/news/articles/20231218_mercari_kifu/ (only available in Japanese)
Key Design Points
- Allows users to set an amount to be automatically donated as an extension of the usual listing process, making it easier to donate and form a natural habit of donation
- Feature design encourages users to donate not only during natural disasters and emergencies but as a natural part of daily life
| Reason for Winning Award
“This is an outstanding initiative designed to gracefully lower the bar of donation in daily life through an automatic donation setting based on sales revenue and a simple and easy-to-understand interface. In Japan, while it is common to donate during times of disaster and emergency, the habit of donating in daily life is not yet widespread. We hope that the use of this mechanism by many people will lead to a shift in mindset throughout society.” |
Future Outlook
In the future, we plan to add more updates, features, and organizations to which people can donate in order to make Mercari Donation easier and more convenient to use, lower the bar of donating, and realize a society in which people donate as a part of daily life. We also hope that providing such mechanisms for donation will contribute to the cultivation of a donation culture within Japan. With this feature, we will provide users with new ways to contribute to society alongside the circulation of secondhand items.
■ Eco Mercari Shipping
Eco Mercari Shipping offers 730 JPY flat-rate, drop-off shipping to achieve completely contactless delivery, reducing the need for redelivery, and is good for both delivery drivers and the environment. Redeliveries avoided through using Eco Mercari Shipping can be expected to result in a total reduction of 24,360 hours of delivery work and 69 tons of CO₂ emissions annually.¹
1. Calculated using method cited in “Calculation of societal loss due to shipping redeliveries,” 2015 https://www.mlit.go.jp/common/001102289.pdf (available in Japanese only)
Mercari Launches Eco Mercari Shipping in Tokyo and Three Neighboring Prefectures, Allowing Easy, Flat-Rate Shipping of Packages Up to Size 100:
https://about.mercari.com/press/news/articles/20240328_eco-mercari/ (available in Japanese only)
Key Design Points
- Fully contactless delivery (achieved by using the contactless shipping service SMARI and drop-off delivery)
- Easy-to-understand pricing with a flat-rate for packages up to size 100
| Reason for Winning Award
“Amidst the societal issue of human resource shortages in the realm of distribution today, this bold simplification of operations through offering only the option of flat-rate shipping up to a certain package size and drop-off delivery has succeeded in reducing labor and costs for both sellers and distribution companies. This simple-seeming feature was achieved through highly challenging and complicated collaboration between various parties and is an outstanding undertaking.” |
Future Outlook
We have launched Eco Mercari Shipping initially in the capital city of Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba. In the future, we plan to expand both the areas and package sizes that Eco Mercari Shipping is able to cover.²
2. Areas covered by Eco Mercari Shipping as of October 16, 2024: https://jp-news.mercari.com/more/eco-mercari/ (available in Japanese only)
Additionally, we will continue to work toward reducing stress around shipping for our users through features such as contactless package pick-up and services that minimize the effort of packing to create a seamless shipping experience.
Mercari Group’s bitcoin payment service by Mercoin, Inc. has also won Good Design Award 2024.
https://about.mercoin.com/news/20241016gooddesign/ (available in Japanese only)
■Good Design Award
Good Design Award was founded in 1957 and is the only comprehensive design evaluation and promotion mechanism in Japan. It is a movement to enhance the culture of industry and daily life through design, and many companies and designers throughout the world are participating in it. The award has been granted to over 50,000 items, and the G Mark granted to award-winning items is widely recognized as a symbol of good design.