The Mercari NOligarchy Profile
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Mercari earned a NOligarchy Score of 58.26 out of 100. The score is pulled down most visibly by a single pillar: Political Access, which at 45.88 reflects a steady, deliberate lobbying presence in Washington that is outsized relative to Mercari’s footprint as a challenger in a sector dominated by trillion-dollar incumbents.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
45.9
Wealth Extraction
69.2
Playing by the Rules
100.0
Score history — 23 quarters
Tier bands show where each quarter's score falls — no numeric y-axis needed. The dashed ring marks the year-over-year comparison point. Tap any quarter but the first to see its pillar breakdown.
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Political Access Grade: 45.88/100. This grade reflects $1.55 million in federal lobbying spend from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period), routed through a single outside firm with four former government insiders on the lobbying roster.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 69.5/100. No stock buybacks or dividends are on record for the period, which keeps this grade relatively healthy. The score is held back by an estimated CEO-to-worker pay gap that, while not publicly disclosed, benchmarks at a notable level against sector peers.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 66.46/100. One consumer protection fine sits on the public enforcement record — small in dollar terms, but the expanded sector comparison that now covers 21 companies pulls the grade into the middle tier.
Mercari ranks 12th out of 21 companies in the Warehouse clubs, supercenters, and other general merchandise retailers sector. The sector average score is 54.0, meaning Mercari sits above the industry baseline but holds a modest lead. Its political spending record continues to drag it away from the top of the rankings.
The Bottom Line: A Challenger Paying Incumbent-Level Attention to Washington
Mercari is a small challenger in a sector of giants — its U.S. operations generated an estimated $182.8 million, representing just 0.01% of the warehouse clubs, supercenters, and other general merchandise retailers market. Yet over the two-year period from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026, the company channeled $1.55 million into federal lobbying, hired a firm that also carries Washington portfolios for The Home Depot and IKEA, and placed four former government insiders on its lobbying team. It handed nothing to shareholders through buybacks or dividends, and its compliance record carries only a single minor fine. The sharpest imbalance in this data is the gap between the company’s modest competitive position and the consistent, well-resourced presence it maintains in the halls of Congress — a presence calibrated to shape the exact regulations that govern resale platforms.
Spending Steadily to Shape the Platform Rules
Over the two-year period, Mercari spent $1.55 million on federal lobbying. Spending climbed from $360,000 in 2024 to $820,000 in 2025, with 2026 filings already capturing $370,000 across the first two quarters. This is not a company dabbling in policy; it is one paying a retainer to stay in the room.
Mercari operates no Political Action Committee (PAC). The Federal Election Commission (FEC) record shows just $1,750 in personal donations from executives over the full period — a negligible figure that confirms the company’s political influence strategy runs overwhelmingly through its lobbying operation, not direct candidate access. That operation flows through one firm: Invariant LLC, which also carries the Washington portfolio for IKEA North America Services LLC, Logitech, and The Home Depot. Shared firms create shared intelligence — the lobbyists working Mercari’s files know the same committee staffers, the same regulatory timelines, and the same back-channel conversations that serve those larger clients.
Four revolving-door hires sit at the center of that operation. Theodore Tanzer arrived from the House Energy and Commerce Committee (Senior Counsel, 2023–24), having previously served as Counsel to a Commissioner at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and as professional staff on the Senate Commerce Committee. Kristopher Denzel came directly from serving as Chief of Staff to Rep. Brad Knott as recently as 2025–26, with prior stints as legislative director and senior legislative assistant to other House members. Jason Goldman stepped out of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), where he served as Acting Director of Congressional Affairs and Deputy Director for telecom policy as recently as 2025–26. And Halie Craig arrived from the Senate Commerce Committee, where she served as Policy Director in 2023–24, following senior advisory roles on the Senate Banking Committee and years on Sen. Pat Toomey’s personal legislative staff. Together, these four know the exact offices where Mercari’s most pressing issues — product liability, consumer safety, data privacy, taxation, telecommunications — get decided.
The targets leave no ambiguity: filings show contact with the House of Representatives (78 instances) and the Senate (78 instances) in equal measure, plus 7 contacts with the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). The company is working both chambers simultaneously on every major issue area.
FEDERAL CONTACT LOG
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
78
≈ every 6th business day
SENATE
78
≈ every 6th business day
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)
7
≈ every 71st business day
3 federal bodies named in federal lobbying filings · 2024-Q3–2026-Q2
Between 2024-Q3 and 2026-Q2, Mercari was named in lobbying filings reaching 3 federal bodies — from HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES to SENATE.
Shared Lobbying Exposure
Mercari
client
INVARIANT LLC
lobbying firm
IKEA North America Services LLC
also a client
Logitech
also a client
The Home Depot Inc
also a client
Why it matters: the same firm argues Mercari’s case and its rivals’ — one hire buys a web of shared access that can’t be seen from outside. This network worsens Mercari’s political-access score (see methodology for the exact factor).
What is Mercari lobbying on, and why does it matter?
The five issue areas that dominated filings are a precise map of Mercari’s business exposure. Mercari is a peer-to-peer resale marketplace: ordinary people list used goods, strangers buy them, and Mercari takes a cut. That model sits directly in the crossfire of several live regulatory debates.
Consumer safety and product liability led with 16 filing appearances. Filings specifically reference the SHOP SAFE Act of 2023 and the SHOP SAFE Act of 2024 — both still in progress in Congress, with the 2023 version reaching a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing. These bills address liability standards for online marketplaces that sell counterfeit or unsafe consumer goods. For a resale platform whose sellers list millions of secondhand items, the question of who bears legal responsibility when a dangerous product changes hands is not abstract — it is an existential business question. Filings also cite monitoring of the INFORM Consumers Act (P.L. 117-328), online content moderation, online child safety, and biometric information privacy.
Taxation also logged 16 appearances. The specific focus: 1099-K tax reporting rules for online sellers. Filings reference the Saving Gig Economy Taxpayers Act (cited twice across both the 118th and 119th Congress versions), the Cut Red Tape For Online Sales Act, the Red Tape Reduction Act of 2023 and its 2025 successor, and the SNOOP Act of 2023 and its 2025 counterpart — all bills aimed at adjusting or rolling back reporting thresholds for casual sellers. Lobbyists also cited the large budget reconciliation measure enacted as Public Law 119-21 on July 4, 2025. Each of these bills directly affects how much compliance paperwork Mercari must generate and how many of its casual sellers face unexpected tax obligations.
Computer industry issues appeared 15 times, with filings focused on artificial intelligence — relevant for a platform that uses algorithmic pricing, image recognition, and automated moderation.
Trade logged 14 appearances, with filings focused on de minimis thresholds — the customs rules that allow low-value packages to enter the U.S. duty-free. Changes to those thresholds affect international resale flows that move through Mercari’s platform.
Copyright, patent, and trademark rounds out the top five at 13 appearances, again tied to the SHOP SAFE Act liability questions around secondhand sales.
An Undisclosed Pay Gap Behind a Clean Payout Record
No stock buybacks or dividends are on record for the two-year period. None of Mercari’s earnings appear to have been deployed in shareholder payouts — which is notable, though expected for a foreign-headquartered company whose U.S. arm is still competing for market share in a crowded sector.
What cannot be verified is how Mercari compensates the people running its platform. Mercari’s CEO pay ratio is not publicly disclosed. The best available figure is 115:1, based on AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch industry benchmarks for comparable companies in this sector. That means, by industry comparison, the person at the top likely takes home roughly 115 times what a typical worker in this sector earns. Whether Mercari’s actual internal ratio is better or worse than that benchmark is not publicly visible — and that invisibility is itself an accountability gap.
One Small Fine, One of the Cleaner Records in the Sector
Over the two-year tracking period from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026, Mercari accumulated $5,500 in recorded penalties in the public enforcement database — a single consumer protection fine from 2024. That is the entirety of the public enforcement record for this period.
A $5,500 penalty is a small dollar figure by any measure — and in the context of the sector, it is striking. Mercari’s grade sits well above sector laggards who have accumulated significantly heavier enforcement histories. This two-year window is a fraction of the company’s full docket on the source site, but within the tracked period, the record is about as clean as it gets in a sector populated by some of the most heavily penalized retailers in the country. No public subsidy data is on record, so no contrast between government handouts and government penalties can be drawn.