I joined Poshmark in 2013. Over time, the platform has evolved, and so has the seller’s strategies in remaining successful. In the past, we listed, shared and followed easily. There weren’t any options to bundle, send offers, or message on a private bundle. Yet, the sales were there and occurred nearly on a daily basis.

As the environment continues to evolve, so does my strategy as a seller. Like many others, I saw a decline in sales over time. As more sellers joined, and the platform gained popularity, things began to change. Poshmark began to offer various tools to sellers, and they became instrumental in our success.

I’ll admit in the beginning – I didn’t always embrace the tools. They were a change from what I was doing in the past, and I wasn’t sure if that was something that would help. Yet, as we all know, adapting is key. When I didn’t adapt, my sales suffered.

At the beginning of the year, I stayed true to my old process, sharing when I could, and listed weekly, but not on a certain schedule. Following and sharing others were done as time allowed. I found that while I sold the same amount in volume each month as the previous year, the gross and net profits were lower. The following month, sales tanked; I didn’t even sell half of what I was used to. Month after month, I continued to struggle, not able to get to where I was used to.

I finally decided to change my strategy, and adapt to the market. In doing this, I’ve seen an increase in my Poshmark sales, including volume and overall profit. Some of the tasks in the strategy were things that I would not have done in the past. However, considering the fact that sales were down, how much harm could be done?

Poshmark has consistently offered “Offer to Likers” and “Closet Clear Out” to help sellers with sales. However, I have never quite had any success with either one. I have participated in the past, but didn’t see much out of it. I also had some issues with the process itself. The Offer to Likers (“OTL”) requires you to offer a shipping discount, which isn’t something that I want to do for every item. The cost of the shipping discount comes right out of your profit after Posh fees, so it makes a big difference. While Closet Clear Out (“CCO”) doesn’t require you to take on the shipping discount (Posh does that), the discount only appears if the new price is 10% lower than the historical lowest price of the item. Additionally, buyers who’ve liked the item for quite some time can see the history of your price reductions. This never sat well with me. I don’t want to continue lowering the price just to trigger a discount.

One strategy that I was aware of, but never took advantage of, was bundling a like / likes for a buyer. In short, a seller would utilize the bundle feature by adding buyer’s likes into a bundle. They then would offer a discount, and if desired, set a shipping discount. The shipping discount is not required. This strategy has been around for quite some time, and many Poshers have been taking advantage of it.

In the past, I never actively pursued the buyer. I felt like it was pushy, as if I was a persistent salesperson following a customer in a store. However, with the reduction of sales, I began to wonder if I should begin adopting that strategy. There are Poshers on social media who actively utilize this method, and it’s been proven to be successful to them. Last year, I decided to incorporate it into my daily process.

In short – it works. However, there are some things to consider before incorporating a Bundle Offer into your sales strategy:

• It still feels really pushy. A like is simply that – someone is interested or bookmarking the item. It doesn’t always mean that they want to buy the item outright.
• It takes time and you need to decide the right time to send the offer. You can offer at your leisure, but you need to decide who or how often you check your feed to offer. I don’t offer to every single like – there’s criteria that I use to decide if I should offer or not. I also try to follow a rule as to when I send them. Still, I do spend more time on the app for this.
• The discount that I offer cuts more into my profit. That buyer may have been willing to pay a better price.
• There are users who will still ask for a lower discount.
• You have to increase your list price to accommodate for the discounts. This could have impact on how many users will like your item, because a higher price may deter some.
• You aren’t the only one with this strategy. So, timing is key as a buyer may be seeing other attractive offers from other Poshers.
• There are times when no one will bite. It could be a price issue, your timing, or the fact that it’s just not something they want. Although we know the sale is never guaranteed, it’s still disheartening to make the effort and not see the reward.

However, I still maintain that the benefits are there. I followed the Bundle Offer strategy the last three months of 2019 and found some positive aspects of it:

• The last three months were the best of my entire year. My gross sales were higher than before. Net profit per item were sometimes lower because of these discounts, but I still made money.
• I consistently sold on a weekly basis, having multiple sales on most days.
• I was able to move older, stale inventory.
• I controlled who received the discount, choosing to target those who may be likely to purchase instead of everyone.
• It isn’t impacted by the rules of CCO. I don’t have to consider my last lowest price.
• I didn’t have to include a shipping discount like we do for OTL.
• It opened up conversations to buyers who were truly interested.
• The overwhelming majority of my Poshmark sales in the last quarter were made from this strategy.

Of course there are other factors that come into this, such as listing and sharing frequencies (I’ve increased both). The likes have to be there, and that only arises from consistent sharing. Re-listing was key on the older items. Keeping the likes on the older items didn’t really work – those Poshers have already seen the discounts. Thus, once I hit a certain time limit or number of likes, I would re-list and send offers to the new likers.

Because of the success I’ve seen, I will continue to use this strategy. It does mean I have to adjust my sourcing and pricing, but those are changes that may have come regardless.

What do you think of this strategy? Would you use it to increase your Poshmark sales?