16 min

Poshmark tips and tricks for new and experienced sellers in 2021

Amelia
Community Manager

Poshmark is your business

You must treat Poshmark as your personal business. Here, we have gathered useful information for both new and experienced Poshmark users on how to be competitive in these uncertain times.

Poshmark business

This article is divided into several sections, so if you are interested in a particular topic, you can jump on it right away:

  1. Sourcing Your Inventory in 2021
  2. Tips for Spotting Great Deals
  3. Organizing and Scaling Inventory
  4. Make Full Use of Poshmark Tools and Features
  5. Strategies for Closing Sales
  6. Use the Holiday Season Wisely
  7. Tips for Starting With Poshmark
  8. Summary + Bonus Tip

Sourcing Your Inventory in 2021

Let's start with sourcing, including where to get your inventory and the new strategies arising from current events in the world. Before the pandemic, you could safely shop for hours at the nearest Goodwill or Savers second-hand stores. Now, depending on your location, they are either closed or not safe to stay in for long.

Poshmark sourcing inventory

Here are some alternatives for improving your sourcing strategy:

  • Start sourcing online by looking for items on liquidation sites and online wholesalers.
  • Start sourcing from Poshmark by looking for wonderful deals there. Look for brands that you like to sell and that you know there is a demand for. Also, look for what you would like for yourself. Look at other items in the user's closet and create bundles with other items that you could sell so that you can earn money while getting something for yourself.
  • If everything in your state is open, plan more carefully for when you go so that you don't have to stay in crowded rooms or wait in long lines. The longest lines are usually in the morning, so consider going in the evenings, when the stores often pile up the shelves for the next day and you can find a lot of new things.
  • Often, you can find bags with goods at good prices in Reddit groups, so keep your eyes open. You can also find good deals online.

Tips for Spotting Great Deals

Following are tips for spotting the really great deals and what to look for when you're at the thrift store.

  • For brands that you don't recognize or haven't seen before, consider the quality. You can usually feel if it is a high-quality product. For example, if it is cashmere, then it must be very soft. You can also view and follow the care tag. Then do quick research on Poshmark to see if it actually sells well. The more often you do this, the easier it will be to quickly say that it is a quality product.
  • If your second-hand store does not have popular brands like Saint Laurent, Lululemon, and others, you can try the following approach. Look for something different, cool, unique, original, or vintage. Slowly look at each shelf. Take the item in your hands and carefully look at it. That way, you'll be able to find some pretty cool things. You can hone your niche and be unique with what you offer in your closet.
  • Search Instagram where other people mention clothing; capture things that interest you and that should be explored in more depth. This will help you gain a new perspective and get out of your usual box by exploring new brands that you may not have noticed in the past. Then do some quick research on comps to understand how this brand sells on Poshmark and how much others have sold it for. This will give you a good idea of which way to go.

Organizing and Scaling Inventory

Poshmark organize inventory

Following are tips on how to organize your inventory and how and when to scale up.

  • When should you scale up? Is your inventory located all over your house and do your spreadsheets at the location have a long description, such as under a living room couch? Do you want to expand your business—for example, you have 700 items on Posh and want to grow to a thousand? If so, you should have a place where all the items can be stored together and easy to find. These are very good reasons to start looking for some great deals on storage units.
  • If your closet is smaller, it will be easier to manage. For example, if you have about 200 active listings, you can set aside a separate closet for formal dresses that are hung in care bags. Plus, you can use bins to store pants, shorts, and such things. Use labels like “shirts” or “pants” instead of spreadsheets to help you find them more easily.
  • Another alternative for large closets with more than a thousand items is to create a kind of “Posh” room. You can install hangers for jeans, shirts, and the like. Also, use containers for other products, numbering each item to make it easier to find. The numbers will also allow you to delegate work so that others can easily and quickly find the product you need.

Make Full Use of Poshmark Tools and Features

Here are some tips on how to use the tools and features available in Poshmark.

  • Copy listings. If the price of the item has dropped as low as you want to sell it for, you can set it aside for a while as a non-seasonal item, such as a swimsuit when it is mid-winter. Just use the copy listing feature to copy it and then delete the original from the main page. Your copy will be saved in drafts. Then, for example, you can activate it at the end of January. It's easy and you don't have to think about anything. You can store up to 50 listings. Do drafts have expiration dates? No, they don’t. They never expire but they do max out at 50.
  • Bundles. You can use the bundle feature as a communication tool with your customers. Sometimes you receive an offer that is too low; this is a great opportunity to reach out to that person and say, “Hey, I'm very glad you looked at my closet and thank you very much for your offer, but are you willing to negotiate a bit?” This way, you can communicate a bit privately with your customers and keep the channel open. This is a good way of treating potential buyers like real people. Keeping in touch with them is a smart move. It is very easy to forget that a real person is on the other side of the phone or keyboard.
  • Offers to likers. Anytime you receive a new like, you can send an offer using “offer to likers.” This way, they know that you are active. Then they can either immediately accept the offer or start a conversation and move on to making a purchase.

Strategies for Closing Sales

Poshmark closing sales

Sometimes it's not enough to just list an item and wait for someone to buy it. Here are some strategies for communicating with customers to close a good deal.

  • When they receive a low offer, many people reject it immediately. Instead, if someone submits a too-low or unreasonable offer that you can't accept, just write a message to them. Let them know that this is your lowest and that you hope that you can agree on a price that will make both parties happy. Tell the potential customer that you can send out the item today or tomorrow. Whenever you start communicating with a customer, be firm and honest. Your customers will appreciate it.
  • Try using Closet Clear Out (CCO) and communication with the client to make a win-win deal. For example, if you have an item with a standard price of $25 and if someone sends you an offer for $20, usually this would be a good offer. However, during the closet clear out, you can send a note stating that you can sell the item for $22 (which meets the minimum requirements for at least a 10% discount). Tell them in detail how the closet clear out works—that if you accept the $20 offer, they will pay a $7.11 shipping fee, but if they accept the $22 offer, the shipping fee will be $4.99, which means they will save a bit. People will appreciate this information and openness, and there is a good chance that they will agree. In this case, they will save a little money and you will also earn more.
  • Sell brands and items that are in demand on Poshmark. Explore the Poshmark website, where you can see the current trends and the most popular brands based on data from last month and last week. You will probably be amazed to discover which brands are in demand. You can use this information to your advantage when you go to get new items for your closet. How to find this information? Once you have logged out of your account, go to poshmark.com and scroll down. You will see a lot of useful information about the current trends on Poshmark.

Use the Holiday Season Wisely

Poshmark holiday season

Use the holiday season shopping surge to your advantage. Here are some tips on how to do it.

  • Prepare new little things to buy as gifts. For example, choose a popular brand like Patagonia and prepare lots of new beanies, hats, fanny packs, and other small accessories. Also, small new makeup items in boxes work well.
  • In general, any new items with tags will sell well before and during the big holidays, when people are looking for gifts for others and themselves. As the holiday approaches, you can start sourcing and saving new items; use this time to earn more for new things.

Tips for Starting With Poshmark

Start

If you are thinking about starting your own small business on Poshmark and have not yet listed any products for sale, here are some tips just for you.

  • Don't let the stress and pressure of feeling that you need to do everything perfectly the first time keep you from starting. Just get started. Find the things in your closet that you want to sell, take photos, write short descriptions, and list the items on Poshmark. Don't let all the little things stop you—what photo is better to take, how to deliver, what packaging to use, and so on. The longer you spend stuck in the preparation phase, the longer it will take you to start making money. Just start and then gradually improve every step and the small details.
  • One of the main things, if you really want to get started successfully, is to source for things to sell on Poshmark. Don't get carried away with things that cost only one or two dollars. Do some research; look at comps and at what's selling. What are the current Poshmark trends? Do all this before you go out to source. Of course, there will be some things you won’t be able to find, such as brands that sell well right now, but be sure to do some research, as you may end up stuck with inventory that no one buys.
  • Join several Poshmark communities to learn and get the latest information on strategies and the latest features. The Instagram Poshmark community is very extensive and supportive; you can find a lot of useful tips there. A lot of valuable information is available; you just have to go out and find it.

Summary + Bonus Tip

There is no single formula for being successful on Poshmark. You can be successful by selling only one brand or by selling only one type of item, and you can be successful by having 100 active listings, 300 active listings, or 1500 active listings. All you have to do is find your way; your success with Poshmark will follow.

As you can see from all the tips, for your Poshmark business to be successful, you will need to put in a lot of work and time. You need time to communicate with customers, look for new products, prepare products for sale, create listings, and more.

If you want to save time and be ahead of your competitors, try this automation tool. It will save you time automating such mundane things as sharing, following new users, sending bulk offers to likers, organizing your closet, and more. Try this 7-day free trial without your credit card.

Want more sales on Poshmark? Test our browser extension for free.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Further reading