If you are considering selling online and you live in Latin America, you surely know Mercado Libre. It is one of the most used eCommerce platforms there and where you can make your business work by being on a website that gives you more visibility. But, how do you sell on Mercado Libre?
For this, we leave you this little guide that will help you know what you have to do. Let's go?
What is Mercado Libre?
Let's start with the first thing. That you understand 100% what Mercado Libre is and why it is important. As we have told you before, Mercado Libre is a eCommerce platform focused on Latin America. EYou can buy and sell practically everything on it (not everything, but almost). And according to what they say, it has more than 78 million registered users (not active ones, mind you).
It is more than 20 years old And, like many other successful businesses, it was born in a garage. Specifically, in the garage in the Saavedra neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Of course, since that day, it has skyrocketed and now has huge revenues and an ever-increasing presence in these countries.
Steps to sell in Mercado Libre
You already have the basics. You know what Mercado Libre is and why it is important. If you want to sell, and you are in Latin America, this is your place. And you can choose to sell both new and second-hand products.
But to do this you need to follow a series of steps that we will tell you about below.
Create your account
The first and most important thing is to register on Mercado Libre. To do this, you have to Access the website and choose the country from which you will access. (unless it already appears by default in your browser). Once you do this, it will take you to the main page of the platform and, if you look closely, unless it changes depending on the country, you will have in the top menu, on the right, a text that says "Create your account." If you click on it, it will take you to start the registration process which consists of the following: email, username, validate phone number and create password. With that, you will have the account.
Once registered, you no longer need to access your account here, but you have two options:
- On the one hand, in the top menu above, instead of clicking on “Create account”, you would click on “Log in”.
- On the other hand, on the main page, in one of the main boxes that appears at the beginning you have the text “Log in to your account”. This will require you to enter your email and password below to be able to access your user panel.
When it comes to formalizing the registration, it is not the same to do so as an individual, who are the buyers, as to do so as a seller. You will have to choose to access as a company and this will require some documents that you must have on hand. Specifically, the most important are the official identification and the taxpayer registration code.
If you already had an account and you want to use it as a seller, you can change it. To do so, go to My data / Personal data / I need help / Change the ownership of my account.
List of what you are going to sell
You already have your account on Mercado Libre and you are about to publish. But, what to publish? We recommend that you make a list of all the products you want to sell. Also, don't just stop there. Prepare an Excel spreadsheet and a folder on your computer.
Excel will help you to create a column with the item number, another with the product, then a title to publish it, features, description and stock. It will help you to organize yourself better because you will be able to have everything you need to publish faster.
Regarding the folder, it will be full of subfolders, as many as products you put up for sale. The goal is to take several photos of what you sell or are going to upload and have them organized and stored, as well as retouching them before you start uploading.
Choose in your account what you are going to sell
Related to the above, and the reason we have put in that extra step, was because of this. In Mercado Libre they are going to ask you to say what you are going to sell, that is, whether they are products, vehicles, real estate, services… And depending on the category you can continue.
Put a title
Do you remember the Excel file and the title for the product? Well, that is what they ask you for. However, Mercado Libre recommends that the titles, to be more identifiable and make it easier for users to find them, have the following pattern: product name, brand, model and specifications.
Add more details
Once you have entered the title, you have to start with the details. That is, its brand, model (yes, again), gender (if it is clothing or similar), if it is a new or second-hand product, size, dimensions…
In other words, all the specifications you will need.
Also here you will be able to upload the photos. Regarding these, we refer you again to that file with subfolders and several photos. Among the tips on this point, Mercado Libre gives several:
- Use photos with a white background.
- Product cover image.
- Do not use text, logos, QR codes or similar in the photos.
- That they are illuminated and well focused.
- Make sure the size is 1200 x 1200 px.
- Be careful with copyright.
- Show multiple angles of the product.
Select the type of publication
The last step you have to take to sell on Mercado Libre is to tell it what type of publication you want. Here It depends on the country you do it in because prices vary. But in general you have three types of fees:
- Free, where it will only be visible (and with low exposure) for 60 days.
- Classic, where the exposure is unlimited and high.
- Premium, with maximum exposure, unlimited duration and interest-free months.
If you can ship the product, you have to configure the shipping section with the sender and the information requested. You click publish and that's it, you would have that product. You should do the same with all the others.
Now that you know how to sell on Mercado Libre, all you have left to do is prepare everything to do it. Are you up for it?