The Truth About Why Your Items Aren’t Selling On Poshmark (And What To Do About It!)
There’s nothing more discouraging than putting in hours upon hours of work listing items on Poshmark only to be met with…crickets.
The frustrating part is—you’re doing what all the other successful resellers are doing! You faithfully watch their YouTube thrift hauls, you read all the “tips and tricks” on Instagram—heck, you can even recite BOLO brands like you’re friggin’ Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. So what gives?
I get it. It’s downright disheartening to watch other sellers post photos of sky-high stacks of sales while yours feel slower than molasses. Worse yet—you may even be questioning whether you truly have what it takes to successfully sell on Poshmark.
But don’t throw in the towel just yet! By simply understanding what you’re doing wrong and making a few vital tweaks to your Poshmark business—you could be sailing on the seas to success in no time.
In this blog post, I’m going to break down the truth about…
Why your items aren’t selling
What you’re doing wrong
Actionable steps you can take to start improving sales TODAY
So if you’re tired of inconsistent sales, feeling like you’re running on a hampster wheel and getting nowhere, and are overwhelmed by all the conflicting advice that steers you in the wrong direction, then you’re in the right place! Read on to find out how making small changes to your Poshmark strategy can result in BIG impact.
Why Your Items Aren’t Selling
Your Items Aren’t In-Demand
One of the most crucial elements to making consistent sales on Poshmark is ensuring that you have desirable, sought-after inventory. Ask yourself: do you have a solid sourcing strategy backed by research, facts, and data? Or do you primarily rely on “having a good feeling” about an item or making buying decisions because “it looked cute” to you? Reselling businesses that operate on intuition and emotion are at an astronomically higher risk for failure. If you cannot pinpoint exactly why you pick up each item you purchase and reasonably predict how fast or slow you anticipate it to sell, then your business (and therefore, your income) lacks a solid foundation. So what are some clues you can look for when deciding whether or not an item is worth purchasing?
OUTDATED VS. CURRENT
When was your item released in stores? Is it a current Anthropologie piece or was it produced back in 2008? Unless you specialize in vintage clothing, you want to make sure your items aren’t outdated. While it’s not always easy to determine when a piece of clothing was manufactured, there are several ways you can attempt to figure it out.
Check the care tag
Occasionally, the season and year that your item was produced can be located near the care tag (the same place you’ll find the fabric content breakdown). You’ll know you’ve found it because it will say SP ‘17 (Spring of 2017) or FA ‘21 (Fall of 2021). I find these indicators frequently on both Madewell's and J.Crew’s clothing.
Compare the brand tag to the most up-to-date version
Every few years, clothing companies will update their brand tags to stay relevant with the times. They understand that keeping the same tag they had from back in the ‘90s will make their clothes feel less modern and more outdated. Sometimes you can tell just by looking at a brand tag that it’s newer because the fabric is higher quality and the chosen fonts appear sleeker and more sophisticated. A quick Google search can be one way to figure out what the most up-to-date brand tag looks like. Browsing a brand’s brick-and-mortar store is another way to get a good look at the current tag. If Google yields no results and there’s no flagship store nearby, checking the care tag for the season/year is another route you can take.
Peruse the brand’s current website
It’s a brand’s job to conform to the fashion industry’s latest styles and trends. Spending some time browsing their website to get a look at their current offerings is a great way to figure out what looks are “in” right now. That way, when you’re sourcing you can quickly determine whether the item you’re looking at fits in with the brand’s current aesthetic vibe.
Follow fashion influencers on social media
If you want to know what styles will be trending before they even hit the shelves, do yourself a favor and follow the trendsetters themselves! Fashion influencers on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube get paid to influence the masses for every upcoming season. Followers look to them for styling advice and inspiration on how to coordinate the perfect outfit. By regularly seeing these accounts come through your Feed, you’ll subconsciously be “influenced” yourself—which will majorly come in handy when you’re sourcing!
Browse the latest clothing trends on Pinterest
Pinterest is the ultimate platform for staying on top of the hottest trends. Because the site operates more like a search engine than a social media app, they’re constantly gleaning data about what users are looking for during any given season. Try typing: season/style/year (i.e. “Fall style 2022”) into the search bar and start “pinning” your favorite looks. That simple action will trigger Pinterest to serve similar Pins to your Home Feed. Just think of it as the “fun research” you get to do as part of your job!
SOLD OUT VS. OVERSATURATED
Having a highly sought-after item that is sold out everywhere (in stores and online) is like striking reselling gold. In economics, this is referred to as high demand/low supply. If everyone and their mother is dying to get their hands on a particular Ulla Johnson dress but you’re the only seller on the market who has it (or maybe even the only one who has it in their size!), you now hold the cards. You set the price. Depending on just how desperate buyers are, you may even be able to sell the item for higher than what it retailed for!
Consequently, if you have a LoveShackFancy skirt that is still available in stores (with all sizes in stock in abundance) then you have less power to control pricing. Similarly, if LoveShackFancy no longer carries the skirt but it’s showing up in droves on Poshmark, that means the ball is [figuratively] in the buyer’s court. Not only does this make your item look totally undesirable—your best option for having a “competitive advantage” against other sellers is by offering the lowest price.
MOST OF YOUR ITEMS ARE OFF-SEASON
I will be the first to tell you to list every item you have—even if it’s a heavy winter jacket in July! You never know where buyers are traveling to or why they’re buying a bikini in the dead of winter (St. Barts vacation over Christmas break, perhaps?). That being said, if autumn is well underway and you have very few sweaters, jeans, and fall boots listed—this could be a big reason why your items aren’t selling. While there will be a few stragglers who purchase off-season clothing, if you rely on consistent sales as part of your income, then your inventory needs to reflect what the majority of buyers are currently searching for during any particular season.
What You’re Doing Wrong
Your Approach To Pricing Is Inconsistent
Your pricing strategy should reflect the current value of your item on the resale market. Period. If you majorly overprice an item (even if it’s because you intend on sending out massively discounted offers) you’re likely missing out on a lot of “likes” (aka interested buyers) who swiftly scroll past your listing without a second thought because they figure, I’d never buy that at such a ridiculous price.
Likewise, pricing something too low can make an item seem less desirable. While you think you’re offering an irresistible deal, if the item doesn’t sell like hot cakes immediately after you list it, your potential buyers are likely feeling a little leery wondering, why do they have it priced so low? Why hasn’t anyone bought it yet at this crazy low price? Is there some sort of flaw? Is it a knock-off? Pricing competitively is key (so no—this doesn’t mean being the seller with the lowest prices on the market).
Still feeling stumped when it comes to pricing? Check out my Posh To Profit Pricing Equation to take the guesswork out of pricing your items—once and for all.
You Rely On Other Sellers’ BOLO Brands
Too often, inexperienced Poshers treat other resellers’ BOLO (aka “be on the lookout”) brands like they’re some sort of “holy grail” or reselling “Bible” without understanding what exactly makes these “BOLO” brands desirable in the first place. Tory Burch could be considered a “BOLO” brand—but only if you know which items still hold their value. Others might swear that Anthropologie and Free People sell “horribly” now, and while that may be true for a lot of their older items, these brands can still yield a pretty penny if you know what to look for.
You’re Focusing On The Wrong Tasks
If you’re still spending time sharing to parties, trying to gain followers, sharing other Poshmark sellers’ items, or spending ungodly amounts of time completing all the ‘objectives’ to become a Posh ambassador, I can tell you with full confidence that you’re wasting time on the wrong tasks. In fact, I wrote an entire blog post breaking down these myths called 11 Common Mistakes Poshmark Resellers Make (And How To Fix Them!) if you really want the detailed 411.
Another pitfall I’m sure every Poshmark seller is guilty of is getting sucked into scrolling for hours on social media. I get it—it can be incredibly difficult to resist the temptation when our work (aka the Poshmark app) is on our phone. It can sometimes feel downright unavoidable! A great way to combat this is by turning on the “Work” or “Focus” mode on your smartphone during set hours of the day to reduce unwanted, distracting notifications. If you’re really committed, you may even want to consider deleting apps that you struggle with most.
So…what are the better task that you should be focusing on?
What You Should Focus On Instead
SHARING YOUR OWN CLOSET
While (in my humblest of opinions) sharing to parties and sharing other Poshmark sellers’ closets is totally pointless, sharing your OWN closet is still pertinent for driving traffic to your closet and listings. If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you know I’m a HUGE advocate for automation. Not only does this free up your time to focus on the areas that actually require your expertise (*cough* sourcing in-demand inventory *cough*), I firmly believe that everyone deserves to spend more time living and enjoying their lives—not mindlessly pushing a silly “share” button into oblivion.
That's why I personally use a bot (Closet Tools to be more specific) to automatically share all of my listings for me. And yes—I am aware that Poshmark has a “Bulk Share to Followers” feature under Seller Tools. However, you still have to go in and scroll and manually press buttons yourself. Plus, it only shares your entire closet once. While this is a fantastic feature for a hobbyist Poshmark seller, I’d rather have my Closet Tools bot sharing my listings non-stop throughout the day with the click of a button. I can set it and forget it. And since it only costs me $1/day, it’s quite literally a no-brainer.
SENDING OUT ENTICING OFFERS
While highly sought-after inventory almost sells itself, if you’re stuck with a bunch of “bad buys” you need to clear out your storage so you can reinvest that cash into smarter inventory. To do that, you’ll need to do some persuading. Heavy persuading. The best way to do this is by sending out irresistible offers—the kind of offers that will make shoppers think, I would be crazy not to snag this immediately.
I’m talking 50-70% off deals here. We’re not playing around—we’re on a mission to make sales. Even if you’re only making couple of bucks in profit (or merely just breaking even!) that cash is better off reinvested into quality inventory that doesn’t require deep discounts in order to sell.
Likewise—this is your friendly reminder to ACCEPT THE DAMN OFFER. When stale inventory sits in your storage for months on end it is actually COSTING YOU MONEY. I mean this in the nicest way possible—but your stingy, frugal attitude could literally be holding you back from making better profits. And you deserve those profits!
LISTING FRESH [DESIRABLE] INVENTORY
Now—don’t get this one twisted. I’ll never advocate listing inventory simply for the sake of meeting some misguided “25 new listings” goal each day. What I will advocate for is consistently listing desirable, in-demand inventory. Some buyers only browse Poshmark using the “Just In” sort option, so this will help expand your audience to reach those specific customers. And when you list hot inventory, shoppers won’t be able to help but wonder what other amazing items you have available in your closet!
While slow sales can feel daunting to overcome, the biggest factor in having success on Poshmark is not letting the bumps in the road destroy your morale. It’s imperative that we have the ability to pivot and shift—that’s why channeling your energy into optimism will help your brain focus on solutions so that you’re open to receiving those exciting “aha!” moments.
I hope now you have a better understanding of why your items might be struggling to sell on Poshmark. Hopefully, you feel empowered to begin implementing these simple changes because I know with a little effort you can start seeing results. I’m cheering for you!
Want to skip years of trial-and-error and become a Poshmark pro in under ONE HOUR? If you’re ready to learn how to make an extra $100-$1,000 per month selling your clothes on Poshmark the quick and easy way—CLICK HERE.
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