Last updated on October 9th, 2022 at 04:39 pm
Any small business owner knows the feeling when you hit refresh on your email one too many times just waiting for an order to come in. How many days has it been? One? Three? A week? You wonder what is doing on. Is there a glitch in the website? Are everyone else’s sales slow too?
I completely understand the feeling. This past summer was slow for me. I was used to seeing this constant growth in my business that when I had a slump hit I took it hard. I had to reevaluate my online store and why my sale volume had slowed. After taking some time for thought, I compiled a list of 8 things to do when your items just aren’t selling on Poshmark.
#1 Double Check Item Prices
One of the most common reasons for slow sales is your items are priced too high. Search for similar items (whether it’s the same style, brand, or both) and see what other sellers are pricing their items. If your look in the advanced search feature on Poshmark, there is a filter tool that allow you to only see items that have previously sold. Pay close attention to these items to make sure your pricing is competitive.
The balance between pricing to make a profit, but competitive enough to make a sale can be a fine line. Through lots of trial and error you will figure out what is a comfortable spot to be for you. Ultimately if you choose to price your items higher than average, it doesn’t mean your item will not sell. Just be prepared to wait longer or have to send a few offers out before finding a buyer.
#2 Make Offers To Likers
Offer to likers is one of my favorite features on Poshmark to make a quick sale. When buyers like your item but aren’t quite ready to take the plunge they add to your tally of hearts on an item. When an item in my closet gets 3 or more likes but no sales I send out an offer to just those likers. This allows you to privately send an offer to each of your likers for a lower price in addition to a shipping discount. A potential buy may see this sweet deal and accept it!
Yes the price is lower than you previously listed it for, but hopefully you padded your listing a bit to still make a profit on this sale.
#3 Review Listing Titles
In the past few years Poshmark has become flooding with so many new listings each day. This is awesome for buyers who want lots of options during their shopping, but can lead to your listing getting lost in a sea of second hand clothing. Optimizing your titles is important to make your items searchable and appear as high as possible in results. Here are the top things your need to fit in just 80 characters
- The item's brand
- The item's style name (if it has one)
- Size
- Color(s)
- Condition
It can be difficult to fit all of this information, but pick and choose what is most important for searches if you cannot fit it all. At the very least include the brand name and garment style.
#4 Update Item Descriptions
Similar to title optimization, you need to have clear and detailed descriptions in order to catch a buyers eye and reduce hesitation. Perhaps your listing needs improvement on the condition of the item. Or maybe you want to include some measurements to help your buyer know if the item will fit them well. Some items that came from my closet I even gave advice as to how I had styled the piece in the past. Anything that helps your buyers picture the item in their own closet will help make a sale!
When I started focusing more on my item descriptions, I looked at popular Poshmark sellers as well as regular retail sites. Use these as guide for wording, style descriptions, and fabric details that will inform your buyer and help make sales!
#5 List More Items
This is a simple game of math. If you have more listing and more variety of items to sell, statistically speaking you will make more sales. When I first starting trying to grow my site as an actual business, I looked at all these Poshmark Sellers that would sell several dozen listings a day! I was lucky to sell maybe two or three a week. The biggest difference between their closet and mine was the size. Most of those “full-time resellers” have over 1,000 listings in their closet and they are constantly posting more. It wasn’t until I reach 100 listings in my closet that I make a consistent amount of sales a week.
Getting to 100 sales a week overnight is just not realistic. Focus on small goals that are achievable and keep adding to them. Do you have 20 listings right now? Try and add another 10 next week. Have 50? See if you can get to 100 listings total by the end of the month. As you slowly increase the volume of your closet the sales will start to come!
Check out my post here for some ideas on places to find inventory for listing.
#6 Become a Poshmark Ambassador
Poshmark has this program called Poshmark Ambassador that it encourages all of its sellers to achieve if they can. It requires you meet a certain criteria such as:
- The number of items you have sold
- Fast shipping
- Community shares
- Personal shares
- Love notes
This is a status symbol you can use to show your buyers you are reliable and a trustworthy seller. There are some other perks such as an email newsletter that will keep you up to date on the latest Poshmark news. Achieving ambassador status can be done quickly and can greatly boost your sales if you are up for the challenge. Check out my post for more details on how to become a Poshmark Ambassador Fast.
#7 Share Items
Sharing items on Poshmark is one of the best ways to get more people to see your listings. You simply click on the share button on your item of choice, choose where to share it to (followers or a party of one is active), and done! Your item has now jumped to the top of the newsfeed for Poshmark. This is because the site is run like a social media page, the more recently share the higher the item appears on searches. Sharing can be a time-consuming process, but if done right you can increase the number of eyes that see your listings and boost your sales!
#8 Wait Out The Slow Times
Nothing is constant. That is true for online selling too.
During the summer people are busy with vacations and spending time with their families that online sales overall tend to slow down. Sales often pick up in the fall and towards the holiday season as people are shopping more for loved ones. Chances are the slowing down of your shop has little to do with you and more to do with your buyers. Be patient. It may take some time, but sales will increase if you keep working hard and don’t give up!
Online selling and being your own business owner is always going to have ups and downs. Sometimes sales are fast and its exciting, while other times it can be slow moving and discouraging. Don’t give up! Keep learning and improving and the sales will come.
I’d love to hear from you! Which have these strategies have you implemented? Are your sales improving? Leave a comment down below or jump over to my Instagram and let me know how you are doing!
Ready to get started reselling? Click on this link and use my code CurrentlyJess to open your own reselling closet. And continue following my site for more reseller tips and tricks
