As a Poshmark seller, we all have our up and down slumps as sellers. As a new Poshmark seller you may be still working towards that first sale or maybe you’re a seasoned seller who has been listening to crickets. As sellers, we can become frustrated, overwhelmed, and stressed. We put in countless hours building our business with sourcing, listing, prepping, photographing and even sharing. In this post, we will discuss the keys on How to increase sales on Poshmark. We have sold on Poshmark for over 10 years building a fulltime business.

How To Increase Poshmark Sales: 19 Easy Tricks to Become a Top Seller on Poshmark

Keys to Increase Sales on Poshmark

When a buyer searches for an item on Poshmark before that buyer selects your listing to learn more that buyer will see the:

Now here are 19more 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

16) Prompt Shipping

In the day and the age of Amazon Prime where a buyer can purchase an item while at work and arrive home with a package on the doorstep. As a seller, we need to keep shipping in mind to attract return buyers. Providing prompt shipping will show your buyers that they can count on you in the future. Waiting 3 full business days to ship could make or break a return buyer.

17) No Spamming

Poshmark takes spamming very seriously in addition to attempting to communicate for offline transactions. Leaving comments repeatedly on other users listings or about listings may result in a user reporting your account!

18) Social Media

Part of branding is building a social media presence creating an Instagram page for your Poshmark business will only promote your listings further. Share your closet with your friends and family!

Think like a Buyer

Placing yourself in the shoes as a potential buyer and their potential shopping habits, social media habits, fashion trends with a well-constructed closet will increase Poshmark sales.

How to Avoid Poshmark Scams

I recently spoke to a new Poshmark seller who wanted to list expensive jewelry for sale but was worried about being scammed out of them. I shared with her some of the common scams I see on Poshmark and how to avoid them. Read on to find out more about those scams and what you can do to protect yourself too.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means that I may receive compensation when you click on a product link or purchase an item linked on this site. Click here for details.

** If you don’t have a Poshmark account, you can receive a free $10 bonus when you sign up with my code SFGIRL2015.

Examples of Poshmark scams

1 | Off-Poshmark transactions

If you browse Poshmark enough, you’ll see comments in listings asking the seller to email or text or connect via PayPal. Once you start talking to the person, she may want to send you a check or money order instead of buying through Poshmark. She may offer more than the item is worth to entice you to sell it.

You’re nearly guaranteed to lose your money and/or your item if you do this. Scammers target new Poshmark users who don’t know any better.

Taking the transaction off Poshmark also invalidates any protection Poshmark could provide you. Not only that, you risk getting a warning or suspended from using Poshmark because it is against their terms to do off-Poshmark transactions.

Often these comments get automatically caught and taken down by Poshmark. I couldn’t even find one in the new listings to take a screenshot for this post.

What to do:

Ignore the comment. You don’t have to respond and explain anything to the person.
Mark the comment as spam and it will be removed.

2 | Using or wearing an item and returning it during the acceptance window

This is a scam as old as returns have been allowed. You’ve probably heard of people taking advantage of stores like Nordstrom accepting returns for any reason.

People would buy dresses, wear them for an occasion, and then return them. The same thing happens on Poshmark and other marketplaces. This may be more common for high-end or dressy items like gowns and heels than everyday clothes.

Ways to avoid use & return cases:

Ship the item so it arrives on Monday. The buyer will have to accept the item within three days or the transaction will finalize before Friday. The buyer is stuck with the item if she wants to use it on the weekend, which is when events are most likely to happen.
Put an invisible mark, a zip tie, or an attachment of some sort on the item. The attachment is obvious so has to be removed to use the item. If the buyer wants to return it, she needs to return it with the attachment on it.
I’ve heard of people finding their buyers on social media and finding pictures of the buyer wearing the item at an event. This seems a bit extreme to me, but if it proves your case, it might be worth considering.

3 | Ruining an item to force a return

In this scenario, the buyer does not want or like an item and ruins the item, then opens a claim stating she received a damaged item. The buyer does this because Poshmark doesn’t allow returns for fit or buyer’s remorse.

It’s difficult for Poshmark to know who is telling the truth in these cases. The seller could have accidentally overlooked damage. If it’s a fragile item, the item could have gotten damaged in transit. Or the buyer could have damaged the item.

These cases can go in favor of the buyer or the seller. I’ve seen both honest sellers and honest buyers on the winning and losing end of these cases.

Ways to help your case:

Take lots of pictures documenting the condition of the item before sending it, even if those pictures were not part of the original listing.
Video record the item’s condition and your packaging. Poshmark doesn’t accept video in their cases, but you could try sending the video to Poshmark Support. Sometimes just the mention of having a recording or having sent it in is enough for a buyer to back off in the case.

If you receive the item back in worse condition than you sent it, you can open a counter case requesting Poshmark reimburse you for the item. Poshmark is most likely to send you a standard response and give you $15 Poshmark credit.

4 | Selling counterfeit goods

I can’t believe how many counterfeit goods I see on Poshmark. Look up items like Louis Vuitton and Chanel purses and Apple AirPods, and you’ll see lots of fake items for sale.

You’ll see them in the sold listings too, meaning that unsuspecting buyers have purchased them. I hope they recognized that they were being scammed and got their money back.

Poshmark removes some items that are reported as counterfeit, but sometimes obvious counterfeit items will remain up for sale for a long time.

Even if Poshmark were to take down all the counterfeit items on the marketplace one day, the scammers would be back making new accounts and listings the next day. That’s why you have to be extra careful when purchasing items that are often counterfeited.

Some ways to avoid counterfeit items:

Check a seller’s profile before purchasing. A seller with lots of high-end goods at cheap prices is a big red flag. Also, don’t buy lucrative items and luxury items from new users with accounts opened just this month and no feedback. If you want to buy those items, buy from sellers with established closets and lots of positive feedback.

Search the available and sold listings for that item. Ignoring stock photos, do you see the same unique picture for many of the items? That’s an indication that the listing may be mass replicated and fake.
Educate yourself to recognize the signs that the item you want may be fake like the stitching and date stamps on purses and luxury clothing.

Remember the adage that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Example #1:

A few weeks ago I was browsing Catbird jewelry on Poshmark and came across a popular ring that sells for about $700-1000 listed for less than $500. I wondered how the seller could sell it at such a low price.

When I looked further, this person had only two listings in her closet and both were for Catbird jewelry. The other listing had a comment from another Poshmark user who was upset that her listing had been copied.

I also wrote to the seller to get some details about the ring and never heard back. All the signs pointed to a scammer.

Example #2:

This person is selling Apple Airpods. There are many signs that this may be a scam.

The listing pictures shows multiple of the item, so it’s not likely her own picture.
The listing had all stock photos of Airpods.
The user opened their account this month (November 2021).
The user has no other listings and no feedback as a buyer or seller.
A Google reverse image search of the cover photo pulled up several past Poshmark listings using the same photo. Those listings had been removed.

While this seller could be legitimate, signs point to a scam and you’d be better off buying it from an established seller or another site even if it costs more.

Example #3

In another listing for Airpods shown below, the description is teeming with red flags:

2-day shipping? That’s not guaranteed. Any seasoned Poshmark seller knows this and would not write this. USPS Priority mail is 1 to 3 days depending on location.
“Thank you for your attention!” is odd. Some sellers may say thank you for your interest.
“please don’t buy if you don’t really like it”. That’s strange to say, and you wouldn’t find that in a normal listing. Of course, who’s going to buy if they don’t really like the item? Poshmark only uses USPS Priority mail so it doesn’t matter if you like or dislike the mail service.

5 | Changing the address on the shipping label

You purchase an item on Poshmark. The seller uses a program to edit the shipping label to a location near your address. The seller puts whatever they want in the package. It’s likely something of little or no value like a pair of socks or filler paper. Whatever it is, it’s not the item you ordered.

The package gets delivered to the wrong address but in your zip code so it looks legitimate. USPS shows it was delivered, but you never receive the package. The seller gets their funds because tracking shows the item was delivered.

How to avoid shipping label changes:

There’s not much you can do to keep this from happening to you except perhaps shopping from established closets.

I wouldn’t worry about this too much though because as the buyer, you would be covered by Poshmark’s buyer protection policy and receive a refund. Poshmark would eat the cost unless they could recoup the money from the scammer.

After writing 19 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?