One of my favorite hobbies is to sell things online. I love selling on Poshmark and several other marketplaces.
I had several tips I wanted to share them about how to sell online. I planned on writing 10 tips but ended up with 15 before I even realized it!
Read on for tips on how to sell on Poshmark!
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If you don’t have a Poshmark account, you can receive a free $10 bonus when you sign up with my code SFGIRL2015.
On Mercari, you can currently get $10 when you sign up with the code JENMHM.
What’s Poshmark?
Poshmark is an online marketplace for buying and selling clothes and accessories. It was originally branded as a second-hand marketplace to buy women’s clothing at discounted prices but has since pushed into retail sales and expanded to selling men’s and children’s clothing and accessories.
Now here are 15 more tips to help you make more sales on Poshmark:
1) List your best items at the top of your page
Put your best items at the top so that they are the first thing people see when they arrive at your page. These items are the most likely ones to be shared if people are reciprocating your shares because they often don’t have time to scroll down and search for your best items.
For potential buyers, they’ll hopefully like what they see at the top of the page enough to scroll down to check out your other items.
These best items can be designer items, items from popular brands, items new with tags, and items in great condition. Examples include a Coach purse in excellent condition or a gently used bohemian style Free People dress.
Here I have new Lilly Pulitzer and Kate Spade dresses at the top of my closet. Share or edit them to keep them at the top.
2) Use a template
List faster by using a template, if not a written one, then at least a mental one. When I see listings that include no or minimal description, I wonder how a buyer can have confidence in what they’re getting. Give your buyers confidence by including as much detail as possible.
My template includes the item’s condition (excellent, good, fair) as well as any flaws or unique details, item size, and measurements. I also state no trades because I used to get a lot of requests to trade items. Customize your template to include information important to you and your buyers.
3) Share your items at parties
Poshmark now hosts four parties a day with each party focused on a category, theme, or a few brands. Sharing to these parties is a great way to get exposure for your items because you’ll reach people who aren’t your followers.
People who are at the party will be active in sharing too, so you’ll likely see an uptick in the number of your items shared. Just be sure to share back if you can.
4) Share your own listings too
I remember starting out on Poshmark thinking that I was supposed to share other people’s listings and not my own. Nothing could be further from the truth.
While it’s good to share other people’s items, don’t be afraid to share you listings as much as you can too.
I haven’t read any official recommendations from Poshmark for the best times of the day to share listings. From my own use, I think people are most active early in the morning before work and during the day Monday through Friday.
I see less activity at night after the last party, on the weekends, and especially on holiday weekends. I think I hear virtual crickets coming from the app Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Related posts:
5) Request to become a Poshmark Ambassador and party host
Becoming a Poshmark Ambassador or hosting a party are great ways to gain exposure for your closet. As long as you meet the criteria to become an Ambassador, you can become one.
You no longer have to wait around hoping that the Poshmark gods will find you to become a party host either. you can email the company letting them know of your interest.
There is an application to become a host, but I didn’t link to the here because it’s from 2014 and hasn’t been updated. Your profile, and therefore your closet, are shown at the top of the page during parties so you’ll gain visibility that way and from interacting with other Poshers during the party.
6) Follow thousands of other users
Poshmark thrives on people sharing items. In order for your items to reach as many people as possible, follow as many other people as you can. You’ll find that many of them follow you in return, and some will even start sharing your items right away.
The best way I’ve found to do follow people quickly is to go to the Poshmark party pages and click on the hosts’ followers and following. Then I run down the list and click away.
You can end up following hundreds of people in a few minutes. While you might not like all their items filling up your feed, it’s worth it to market your items and gain sales.
7) Curate what you sell
I would bet that most Poshmark users simply want to clean out their closet and declutter the home, so they list whatever they have around the house and are happy to make some of their money back.
If you’re looking to sell more goods and earn more money, however, think about what sells well on Poshmark.
Most Poshmark users are young women so seasonal and trendy items sell well. If you’re thinking about obtaining goods to sell in volume, consider whether the potential profit would be worth it to you if you subtract 20% in seller fees.
Would it be worth it to the buyer to purchase these items with the additional shipping cost? Unfortunately, both of these are steep on Poshmark and affect what people are willing to buy.
Poshmark has recently made a push towards selling men’s and children’s clothes. Children’s clothes are overall cheaper at retail than adult clothes and the same holds true in the second-hand market.
Second-hand children’s clothes at thrift stores and online can sell for cents to a few dollars. On Poshmark, items that are a few dollars tend not to bring in much profit due to 20% seller fees (or $2.95 for items below $15).
Consider also that buyers may not want to pay the $7.05 (as of 3/2020) shipping cost for a few dollars worth of children’s clothes that may soon be outgrown.
I personally think it’s difficult, although not impossible, to sell enough children’s clothes on Poshmark to make it a very profitable venture.
That said, children’s clothes are more frequently bundled than adult clothes, which means it may be easy and worth it to clear out your children’s closets. Don’t forget though that buyers will often want a discount if buying a bundle of items.
So if you’re selling to get rid of clothes and make a few dollars like at a garage sale, Poshmark may be worth it. But if you’re selling to make a steady and sizable profit, it’s difficult if relying on children’s clothes.
8) Offer a bundle discount or use the bundle feature
Poshmark has two options for providing a bundle discount.
One way is to set the percentage off a buyer would receive for however many items you decide (e.g., 20% off of 3 items). Once you have this activated, you can publicize it in your listings or your profile to encourage buyers to shop. You can turn it on and off whenever you’d like too with a simple tap on the app.
The other way when a person adds your items to a bundle or you add the items for them. Then you or the other person can make an offer or negotiate privately there.
Example of a bundle with the option for private messaging and an offer.
9) Drop prices on payday
In my last post on selling tips, I mentioned that Poshmark sometimes offers discounted shipping when you drop prices on items. Discounted shipping lasts for six hours so you want to drop prices on strategic days and times.
I’ve found that the best times to drop prices are on paydays. Paydays vary but are frequently weekly or bi-monthly on Fridays and bi-monthly on the 10th and 25th or some close variation of that.
10) Answer questions in a timely manner
Poshmark and general etiquette recommends responding to questions and comments within a day if possible. Several times I’ve been interested in items with credit card in hand and asked a question, only to get no response.
There are lots of inactive closets on Poshmark. Responding quickly will let potential buyers know that your closet is active and that you likely ship in a timely manner too.
On a related note, keep in contact with your buyer if needed. If someone buys an item on Saturday and it’s a long holiday weekend, I’ll send a one or two line message reminding them that the post office is closed on Monday and I will ship on Tuesday.
Then the buyer doesn’t think you’ve slacked on shipping and he or she looks favorably upon your quick communication and the transaction.
11) Be careful about trading items
While trading items is not against the rules, PM has no way to protect you for the full cost of an item if you do it.
I’ve witnessed people trade expensive items for $3 each plus shipping, and one person ends up with a terrible item. Poshmark can only reimburse the $3 purchase price if the item was not as described.
12) Approach the Wholesale Portal cautiously
When the Wholesale Portal opened in 2015, it created a lot of chatter and the first rounds of items sold out quickly.
The Wholesale Portal allowed people to buy items at wholesale price in order to then sell them at retail price, thereby making a profit. Before you decide to do it, here are some things to consider:
Wholesale Portal prices are high for wholesale goods.
Brands offered in the Portal are relatively small or unknown, which means lower demand and likeliness of being purchased.
Competition is tough. If reselling on Poshmark, the site is filled with the same product and you will end up competing against other Poshers to sell it. The only way to compete is on price. Lower prices mean less profit.
When selling physical goods, they take up space in your house and ultimately have to be sold or you’re stuck with them and may lose money.
The Portal does offer you items to sell if you don’t have easy access to any on your own.
To give you a better idea of your possible profit, here’s an example of calculations I did for a cute shirt I found. The listing provides three shirts at the wholesale price of $54. MSRP is $35 each or $105 total.
If you sell on PM, there is a 20% fee so your profit is $84. Now subtract the $54 cost of the items and you make $30 total.
That’s how much you’ll make if you sell all three shirts at the suggested retail price, which is unlikely given the factors mentioned above.
There’s profit to be made in the Wholesale Portal, but go into it with caution.
13) Customize your profile
I touched on this in my previous post, but customizing your Poshmark profile can improve to your sales.
Top fashion bloggers and sellers typically add a picture of themselves as their profile photo. This gives a face to a name, or username in this case.
The next step is to create a Meet Your Posher listing. People can easily follow your closet and communicate with you because that listing will not disappear like those for sale items.
You can include up to 16 pictures, video, and text in the listing so highlight things about yourself as well as your selling points.
Perhaps you offer a bundle discount, have new products coming soon, fundraise for your children’s school, donate a percentage of your profits to charity, or even have a high Poshmark rating. Add a picture or write about these things to make your profile more personable and memorable.
14) Perfect your packaging and shipping process
Save time by organizing shipping supplies and perfecting your packaging process. Poshmark uses USPS Priority shipping and thankfully, USPS offers those shipping boxes in various sizes for free.
If you can’t get to the post office to pick them up, go to USPS.com to sign up for an account and have them shipped to you.
Then determine what works best for you in terms of steps needed to package items quickly. If you have the space, set aside the boxes, scissors, wrapping paper or bags, tape, thank you notes, and anything else you need in one area so that everything is within reach while you package.
I also try to set aside a short window of time each day to package items versus doing them one by one throughout the day.
Finally, if you find going to the post office time-consuming, try scheduling a USPS pickup. I’ve saved so much time by scheduling pickup instead of trekking to the post office.
You can schedule the pick-up for your school or office if you’re not at home. Or try leaving your packages with your receptionist or in the mailroom.
I can say that selling on Poshmark became more enjoyable and required less time and thought once I got a packaging and shipping routine in place.
15) Treat selling as a business
When I read articles about people making thousands of dollars selling on Poshmark, I see that they treat selling as business rather than as a fun, casual pastime.
While a lot more can be said about this, if you want to make big sales too, here are some basics to consider:
Set aside scheduled time for all aspects of selling on Poshmark from acquiring items to listing them to packaging and mailing them.
Keep your closet stocked. Ten quality listings is great for a start. Twenty-five or even a hundred quality listings is better.
Keep track of your income and expenses.
If you have a presence on social media, share your listings on Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest in a way that fits with your persona on those platforms.
Remain professional towards lowballers, scammers, and any other difficult people you come across.
Remember to enjoy it! That’s why I continue to sell on Poshmark today.
After writing 15 tips, I still have so much more to say about selling on Poshmark and online in general. I’ll post more on the topic in the future.
Do you use Poshmark or are you interested in trying it? If you're already on the app, what are some ways you recommend improving sales on Poshmark?
