My sister is the Queen of Poshmark, so I’ve invited her back to share her tips and tricks on buying and selling on Poshmark. Especially with our recent post about essential non-toxic items you need in your home. Many of these things we’ve thrifted from Poshmark to save on $$$.
– Elisha
Since COVID happened, I no longer go into the office every day (or even every week). I love to look stylish (my dad does call me his “fashion plate,” whatever that means), but hate spending money on clothes people never see.
One of my friends turned me onto Poshmark, and it is a great place to get some deals! It’s also a great place to clean out your own closet, vs just donating to Goodwill. You can negotiate and make deals, but sometimes it feels like people don’t get how the game is played. And it can definitely be a game.
Here are some tips on how it works from both sides of the platform and how to have the most success buying and selling on Poshmark.
This post may include affiliate links.
Please read my disclaimer page for more info.
*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*
Only buy the brands you know
There are no returns on Poshmark (unless someone misrepresented their listing), so it’s good for tried and true brands that you know your size in. It’s also great for finding “the one that got away”, a pair of shoes, a bag, etc.
I love Gucci circa 2017 and have found some amazing deals on items I couldn’t afford at the time – some even new with tags! The key thing is you must know your size in the brand you are buying, because if you purchase incorrectly, you’re stuck with it. You can always “reposh” it and sell it, but you can’t return it.
Tips from Elisha: Buy a fabric tape measure! It’s cheap, and helps in confirming a bunch of measurements, like pit-to-pit, waist, inseam, etc., before you even offer on an item. I won’t purchase any t-shirts for my husband without first checking the pit-to-pit measurement of a listing against his measurements.
This has resulted in three perfectly fitting t-shirt purchases in recent Posh adventures.
The platform has a fee, duh
Of course there is a fee when you sell, Poshmark keeps 20% (more if the item is under a certain amount).
There’s another site called Mercari, I hear their fee is less, but they tack on other fees for buyers, and I don’t like the interface as much (also, their site has problems, and it was nearly impossible to sign up for an account).
Additionally, there is The Real Real for designer things, and you can find some great stuff, but their listings don’t have a lot of photos and are sometimes inaccurate. Also, their fees can be outrageous for the sellers. If you’re just starting to sell with them, the fee they take is based on how much you sell, so it can be very high. If you have a lot of great designer things and are selling all the time, they say it gets lower as you sell more. Also, after they’ve had a listing for a certain amount of time, it goes on sale and keeps dropping the longer it sits. So your beloved designer bag you paid thousands for could only sell for a few hundred, then take out their fee and you’ve hardly got any money left.
Overall, I find Poshmark has a relatively easy-to-use interface, and the fee is reasonable. You can find many-a designer item on Posh as well, and if you pay more than $500 it will be sent to be authenticated. Now, sometimes on The Real Real you can get a real steal on items that have been there a long time, much cheaper than on Posh. But of course, it all depends.
Don’t expect to get or pay full price
On Poshmark, the name of the game is deals. If you’re selling and someone likes your listing, you should offer them a discount; the minimum you can offer is 10%. Most people on Posh know this, so you should assume at a minimum the item will sell for at least 10% less than the listed price. In general, it’s probably going to sell for 20-40% off, of course, it all depends on the item, the condition, and how rare it is, but if you’re buying a mid-level brand, this is pretty accurate.
As a buyer, you can always make low-ball offers too. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. It really depends on the seller and how long the item has been listed (which is nearly impossible to tell).
Some people on Poshmark resell items as their business, and many others are just like me, and want to clean out their closet and make a little money to spend on new clothes.
One tip for sellers: no one cares what you paid for it. If you’re reselling something and you list it high, it’s not going to sell. Just because you paid $500 for that dress and wore it only 3 times doesn’t mean that someone else is going to buy it for $400.
When I go to list an item, I usually search for it before I list it to see what’s happening in the market. Are there a lot of them listed? Are none of these items listed? What is the condition of the others being sold (same, better, worse)? That will give you an idea of where to start your pricing. If you’re motivated to just get it out of your house, list it for a little less than the averages you are seeing to signal you’re ready to make a deal.
The art of offers
Ok, so this is what I find to be the most misunderstood part of Poshmark.
- For sellers:
- Don’t be offended if someone lowballs you, just counter (don’t ignore offers). If someone is going back and forth with you and you’ve reached your final price, just counter back with that final number as a signal you’re done. At that point, if the buyer isn’t being reasonable, you can be done or decline. I rarely use decline and usually just let it sit there.
- For buyers:
- I never decline an offer because I read once that if you do, you won’t see future offers on that item. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it’s not something I’m interested in at that moment, I usually just ignore the offer.
- I also like a lot of things as I’m searching, this has paid off a few times when months later someone is really motivated to sell, and you’ll get an offer that’s just too good to refuse.
- Also, if you make an offer on something you really want and the person doesn’t accept, wait a week or two and try offering again. If they’re really being unreasonable about the price, it will still be there. Sometimes people need to see the item not sell to realize when a reasonable offer is being made.
Don’t nickel and dime
Hey, we all want the best deal, but don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. If you’re within a few dollars of the price you want, it’s probably best to accept the offer. I’ve lost sales because I got too into the negotiating, only for the item to just sit there for months without any other traction.
Remember, unless it’s a super hot brand, most people are only coming to Poshmark to get a deal on something they know fits them.
For sellers, if you keep your price too high and the item is still currently for sale in store, why would they spend with you? They’ll go spend a little more and buy it directly from the retailer, where they can probably return it if they decide they don’t like it.
Do your research
For buyers – ok great, you found that one item you’ve been looking for and you decide to low-ball. Your seller probably knows if they’re selling the only pair of shoes in that color combo in that size on Posh because they looked when they listed it. No shame in trying to low-ball, but you have to take into account what is a reasonable price if it’s the only one.
Asking for a 50% discount if the listed price is already below all the other listings is probably not going to fly. In this case, I would expect to pay a little more compared to if there are multiple listings of the same item in the same size on Poshmark.
Buying on Posh “gamifies” the buying experience, but at the end of the day, if someone paid full price and is trying to resell something that’s limited and in good condition, you have to meet them in the middle. Don’t get greedy (unless of course someone is being unreasonable, and then you should just walk away – another listing will come up if you’re patient enough).
For Buyers: What does “reposhed” mean?
If it says “reposhed” on a set of pictures, it means someone else purchased it on Poshmark and is reselling it. There are two things you should keep in mind in this instance.
- Do they have any new pictures included? (ie Did they wear it?) Hopefully it says in the description but if not, you should leave a comment and ask so that you know if something has pictures with tags on it, but arrives in a different condition, you are not surprised.
- You can find the original listing and see what the person selling it paid for it.
- On Posh, when something says “Sold” on it, that means it’s the price it sold for. In the “Reposhed” photo you’ll see a username. You can go to the search function and change it to search by stores and enter the username.
- Once on that shop, filter by sold items and then by brand to find the original sale. Usually, the person has listed it for the same price or a little more to accommodate for having to give a discount.
- Remember, they may have paid $100 for something, but now if they sell it for $100 they’re only getting $80.
- Of course this isn’t really your problem but I think it gives you an idea of what they might think is a reasonable offer. I’ve seen some wild things too. Sometimes, people think they can upcharge! I was searching for a particular Gucci bag and found one listed for $2,800 but it said reposhed. I went and looked at the original listing and girlfriend only paid $800 for it! I’m sorry, no, that’s crazy. If you’re buying designer items, at least looking on The Real Real can give you an idea of what the ballpark price point should be, and for this bag, it was $800-900. All that to say, sometimes sellers are greedy.
The search feature kind of sucks
The Poshmark app sometimes feels like it needs a little update. The search feature is kind of garbage but filtering can really help.
One thing to know, you should change the sort to “just listed,” and that alone will make your searching experience better. The default is “just shared,” but anyone can share a listing at any time, so if it’s sorted this way you may see the same listing over and over (which makes you feel crazy).
You can also set things like “your size” so you see listings in only those sizes, this can be good but can also be bad if there is a brand that in some items you’re a small and others you’re a medium.
Also, occasionally someone might not tag their item Women’s > Tops > T-shirt as an example, or they might not tag the color. So if you dial your search in too tight, you might miss that magical thing you should have bought five years ago but didn’t. Depending on how badly you’re looking for “the one that got away” you may need to play with your search parameters.
Tips from Elisha: Some brands also have their sizes listed a couple of different ways, e.g. my favorite jeans come from Everlane, in the size chart on their website they have “denim size” and “bottoms size.” When looking for these on Poshmark I have to look under both size categories because not everyone lists both, and I get different results depending on my search.
Pics or I’m not buying!
For Sellers – we want to see pictures of the product! Real pictures, not just the ones you stole from the product’s original website. No pics? I’m not buying your stuff!
Show us it still has its original tags, or show us that tiny hole in the sleeve. We want to see pics with pit-to-pit measurements and how it looks on a hanger, and anything else you can come up with. The more helpful pictures you can share in your Poshmark post, the more likely we are to purchase from you.
Key takeaways
(What is this, a corporate PowerPoint?)
Be reasonable! On both sides, you need to be realistic on what the item is going to sell for.
For sellers – no one cares what you paid or the emotional attachment you have to that item.
For buyers – sorry I’m not here to let you steal my old clothes either, just because they’re used (of course, condition dictates everything). Everybody has to meet in the middle and BE REASONABLE.
Tips from Elisha: Download Beni ASAP! If you’re looking for something that’s not quite out of season and you can still find it on the original retailer’s website, Beni will help you find it secondhand. I love using this browser add-in because it helps me to A) look for secondhand options instead of buying new, thus by B) saving me money, and C) sometimes saves me from having to go directly to Poshmark and add all the filters in for my search. Beni finds it for me.
and it’s free, so…how much more convincing do you need?
Some general price points and thoughts
- I like Mother Denim, and would say I can get barely worn jeans typically in the $30-$60 price point depending on condition
- My favorite tennis shoes are white ECCO’s, again, I can typically get these in the $30-$60 price point depending on condition
- There’s a lot of clothes out there that have been worn just a few times if you’re open to something not brand new. If being new with tags matters to you, you can search that way as well.
- The more of a no-name brand it is the better luck you’ll have buying it for less
- Designer items are always going to go for more, but again, that Gucci bag is probably not going to sell for $3,000
- There are still scammers on Posh – beware. If the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Remember, Posh doesn’t authenticate unless the sale price is over $500. If you are getting a steal on that Louis Vuitton bag at $400 you really need to look at the pics and assess if they seem authentic. If it arrives and it seems like a fake, you can try contesting, but there are no guarantees.
- Personally, I keep my Posh earnings in Posh to just spend; it’s easier to justify if I’m not spending “new” money on clothes.
Have any additional tips? Want more content like this? Let us know in the comments!
Explore other recent posts:
- How To Have The Most Success Buying And Selling On Poshmark
- Essential Plastic-Free, Natural Fiber Swaps For Every Room
- My Favorite Apps & Websites To Use While Traveling Or Living Abroad
- Non Toxic Activewear | My Favorite Microplastic Free Yoga Pants
- Come See My Peruvian Textiles: Including Fabrics, Yarn and Ribbons
Find us on social media!
P.S. If you’re looking for an activity you can do on a bad flare day and from bed or with your virtual community, download our free trivia here.
Playing trivia is a great way to still participate in fun activities with your friends and family without ever leaving the comfort of your bed. It’s perfect for keeping in touch with friends who you may not be able to visit regularly. Check it out and let us know what you think! 👇
Leave a Reply