In recent years, the use and application of data is becoming an increasingly important factor in improving our quality of life and resolving social issues. For example, in the field of academia, there has been a growth in research that utilizes data from emerging areas such as AI and big data. There is a strong desire in the research community to conduct research using actual data to produce results that can actually be put to use in society.
As of February 2023, Mercari holds a significant amount of data related to the secondary C2C (Consumer to Consumer) distribution market, including listing details, photos, and comments from the over 22.26 million monthly users of its marketplace app. R4D has collaborated with the National Institute of Informatics（NII） to provide data sets to academic research institutions for research purposes, while giving proper consideration to privacy in compliance with the Act on the Protection of Personal Information. Our hope is for this data to encourage collaborative research between industry and academia, give birth to new research communities, and lead to further talent development.
Mercari Data Sets overview
Period
January–December 2020 *To be updated as needed
Content
- Listing data published on the app. (listing status, item name, item description, selling price, category, item condition, size, brand, shipping fee, shipping method, shipping from, number of days required for shipping, number of likes, number of comments, listing date and time, update date and time)
- Comment data* for each listing item
- Image data for each listing item (Thumbnail images of all items / original images for a week)
*Limited to comments that are exchanged between users before a purchase is made, which can be viewed by anyone on the service.
How to use and apply for Data Sets
These Data Sets will be provided and are only to be used for academic research purposes—we will be providing them to universities and other public research institutions through the Informatics Research Data Repository (IDR), a dataset sharing service operated by NII, after screening their usage applications and giving approval.
Please check here for detailed application procedures.
https://www.nii.ac.jp/dsc/idr/mercari/ * Only Japanese
For any other feedback related to Mercari data, please contact us through our contact page.