If you are decluttering your closet while making some extra cash, you have come to the right place. We will walk you through possibly the best place to sell clothing online so that your clothing, shoes, and accessories will find a new home. Plus, we will give you 10 additional tips so that you can make the most money on your listings.
Best Place to Sell Clothing Online
If you have been searching on the internet looking for e-commerce platforms that offer a place to sell, you will find many options. You may have come across platforms like Poshmark, eBay, depop, Etsy, mercari, tradesy, and many more.
Each definitely has its own appeal and every seasoned seller may have a favorite that has worked for them. We go through a comparison of several of them here and here.
However, the most user-friendly and hassle-free process in terms of listing and shipping is by far Poshmark. If you are a beginner, this is where you will want to start selling your fashionable, on-trend, gently worn to new with tags pieces.
Selling Clothes on Poshmark
Now that we got that out of the way, why sell on Poshmark?
Large User base
As of September 2019, Poshmark has a user base of 50 million people. This number is much higher than its competitors like Depop and Mercari. While platforms like eBay may surpass this number at 182 million, Poshmark mainly caters to clothing, shoes, and accessories.
Poshmark is the platform to sell popular brands like Kate Spade, Zara, Tory Burch, Michael Kors, Lacoste, Off-White, Reformation, Ralph Lauren, Kuhl, Patagonia, and Lululemon. Fashion is always changing so if you keep up with what’s on-trend, Poshmark is the place to be.
Easy Selling Process
While listing an item on Poshmark, Mercari, and Depop are similar, what makes Poshmark stand out is the number of pictures per post that you can post. The listing process is straightforward and intuitive to go through with the easiest shipping process.
Unlike any of the other platforms, Poshmark only offers shipping through them. You cannot ship with your own shipping label. That means once your item sells, Poshmark will automatically send you a pre-paid shipping label.
You don’t have to go out to buy any fancy packaging material. Instead, you can simply stick the item in any USPS envelope or box that is not marked “Express”. You can then simply drop your package off at any USPS drop box or building.
And the best part? As long as you have described everything correctly, all sales are final. There is no hassle of dealing with pesky returns like on eBay. If there is an issue, Poshmark’s moderators are quite fair in determining whether a return is justified.
How to Get the Most Money On Your Poshmark Listings
While we would all love to be able to get back the money we spent on our clothing, we need to be realistic about depreciation. Clothing depreciates just like any other good. While there may be some exceptions for vintage, collectible, or rare releases, managing your expectations for what you are planning to sell is important. So to maximize your sale, here are 10 tips to help you make the most money on your Poshmark listings.
Check the condition
Before you are planning to sell your piece of clothing, check for rips, stains, pilling, or any imperfection. Check to see if you would be able to get any stains or marks off. If you are savvy with sewing, check to see if you can patch up any holes or rips.
Fixing small imperfections does wonder for a sale. But some items may not be worth your time or effort. So go ahead and weed out what is unfixable or not worth the time fixing.
Prepare your items
Once you have weeded through the condition, prepare your items for listing. That means washing, drying, and steaming your garment. You would be surprised how often people sell clothing that was not washed after wear.
We have even received clothing with their body odor and all. Steaming does wonders for a clothing item. It is extremely helpful to steam your garment so it looks the best that it can be. Invest in a steamer that you can also use for traveling. If your clothing has been dry cleaned with the dry clean tag, it helps sell the item for more.
Take clear pictures
It is very important to present the item that you are selling in the best clear lighting to a potential buyer. They should be able to see every print, color, and shape as close to the actual item as possible. Make sure there is no clutter or other things in the frame that would distract from the item that you are trying to sell.
Take clear pictures of any imperfections and disclose this in the description. If you are able to find a stock photo from the brand, it helps as a cover photo. It also helps the buyers see how it will look on a person.
One additional tip is to include measurements. This includes the bust, length, and waist. That will save you a lot of time from going back and forth with someone that may be looking for that information.
Check for completed listings
The first thing to do before you price your item is to see how much similar styles have sold for. You can find this by typing out the brand and style of your item and filtering the availability to show “Sold Items”. This will give you an idea of how much you should expect to make.
Use keywords
When you are listing an item, be as descriptive as possible. Do not just write “dress” or “midi skirt”. Describe the item’s brand, style, print, and whatever descriptive name that the brand has to describe the clothing. This is to give you the best chance to search when someone is looking for a particular brand, style, print, or color.
Even if someone is not using Poshmark, searching on google brings up results on Poshmark listings. This means your user base is multiplied by those that use google search. So it is crucial to describe your item well in order to appear in front of many pairs of eyes as possible.
Price your items higher
While we have sold hundreds of items on Poshmark, it is very rare and often a surprise when someone buys the posted price without an offer. This is because most people see the price and automatically want a discount. Keep in mind that there are also many low-ballers on the platform.
Lowballers mean people that will offer 50% or less than the actual posted price. To give yourself some negotiation room, you can price your item about 20-30% higher than your bottom line.
Mind the price filter
To add to how you should be pricing your items, do keep in mind that there are price filters. A potential buyer may have a limited budget and search accordingly. There are 6 price filters on Poshmark: under $25, $25 to $50, $50 to $100, $100 to $250, $250 to $500 and over $500. So avoid pricing something at $27, $53, $105 for example. You would instead do $25, $50, and $100 so that you are able to capture two price filters in one.
Send offers
Send offers to those that have like your listing with a shipping discount. The shipping discount will take that discounted amount from your earnings. But remember that you have priced your item to give you some negotiation room to make up for that.
If you offer discounted shipping, it will take that discount amount from your earnings. If you offer free shipping, it will deduct the full shipping amount. Shipping price is subject to change because USPS shipping prices can fluctuate.
Share your closet often
One feature of Poshmark that is necessary but can work is sharing. Sharing your items to your followers or to a themed “party” with different brands is very important to bring your items up to the most recent feed. While Poshmark encourages you to share other people’s closets, we have not found the time spent on doing this to bring in sales.
Use the bundling feature
If someone has “liked” more than one item in your closet, you can actually “style” them by adding all the liked items in a bundle. You can then offer them a discount on the bundle along with discounted or free shipping.
You can do this by going to their profile and clicking on the shopping tote icon on the top right. Then click on the three dots and choose “Switch to Sell View”. This will bring up items that they have “like” from your closet. You can then click on the plus sign to add them to a bundle.
One thing to note is while we have done this many times, there are instances when you follow the steps but the items liked do not show up. In this case, you can share the post with the individual user to make a bundle.
There you have it, clear out your closets, and happy Selling!