How to Start a New Poshmark Shop - Strategies and Education from a 9 Year Tenured Seller

I have been selling (mostly) clothes on Poshmark since February 2015. In that time I have gained nearly 100k followers, achieved Posh Ambassador I & II status, and I am considered a top seller and top rated seller. These are all great accomplishments, but I’ll be honest- I really haven’t taken my Poshmark account seriously as a business until pretty recently. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen the potential in it and gone through phases of paying more or less attention to it, but it wasn’t until people started asking me so many questions about Poshmark that I realized I may have done something here without realizing it. In short, this is why I started this whole blog.

Additionally, I started a brand new Poshmark account on March 27th, 2024 with the idea that if I can accomplish these things without putting in a ton of effort on my original account, what would happen if I was VERY intentional with a brand new account. With this experiment, I am rebranding my Poshmark, trying new things, recording how long it takes to reach certain milestones, and more, and it will all be documented here! With that said, please understand that this will be a living post. I will try to give weekly updates here and on my Side Hustle & Self Care Instagram (@sidehustle.and.selfcare).

You can also follow along and shop my new account on Poshmark @ShopTrendsByAP. Here’s a link to my shop as well as a code - SHOPTRENDSBYAP - for new users to get $10 off their first order.

Posh Ambassador I

The first thing I would like to accomplish with my new account was to see how quickly I can reach Posh Ambassador I status. For those who are not familiar, this is basically the equivalent of being a recommended seller, and there are two tiers which you can accomplish, I & II. You must reach level I status to unlock the ability to work towards level II status. The criteria for each level is similar, level II just has greater requirements for many of the same criteria. Here’s a look at each level:

As you can see, level I has more requirements, but level II is asking for more on many of the same ones you would have completed in level I. Consider it as level I is establishing yourself in the community, and level II is establishing yourself as a seller. These are screenshots from my new account as of April 22, 2024. Obviously, all of level II is locked, and many of level I are completed or in progress. It does not show the percentage of completion on this page that I screenshotted, but the previous page does show that information. For those wondering, this is 72% complete for Posh Ambassador I. So let’s unpack these requirements a bit and get into my strategy for completing them.

I knew, from experience, that the most tedious task is the community shares and the self-shares. Community shares are sharing other sellers’ items and self shares are sharing your own items. Where do they get shared? It sort of depends- if you tap the little arrow circle icon on a listing, that is the share button, and it will give you options of where to share this item. Community shares are the very top option (also sometimes the second option, but hang on). The top option says “My Followers,” so basically that’s just sharing something someone else is selling so that the people who follow your account are able to see that item. The second option is a Posh Party, if one is going on. Posh Parties are basically an aggregation of items shared that fit a certain criteria, for example - all dresses and skirts, certain brands, or even things like kids’ clothes, plus size, petite sizes, etc. So, if you’re sharing something that falls into the category of the current Posh Party, you can also share it there, but it doesn’t make a difference for your metrics. For me, I tend to only share my own items to parties because I can be very intentional about it - meaning, I know there is a party that includes Free People and Anthropologie, and I know I have those brands in my shop, so I’m going to share those at that time to increase visibility. Posh Parties are where some people shop to see a number of their favorite brands together, so you’re basically putting it out there for active shoppers. Okay back to the community shares. Posh Ambassador I requires 5000 community shares. Sounds like a lot, kind of is a lot, but it’s pretty painless to knock out, which is why I chose to do it first, and do it quickly. This took me less than a week to do and I actually completed another requirement at the same time, which is sharing 50 New Poshers.

This was my strategy: I followed a few of my favorite brands when I created the account. You can do this at any time, you just search the brand and there is a “Follow” button at the top of that page. When you follow a brand it will pop up in your feed and say, for example, “Billabong: New Listings” then preview a few items. Just below those items it will say “Shop Billabong: Just In” meaning just shared or newly listed. New listings often mean new users. There ya go.

I actually found that this strategy also helped me to find items I wanted to buy as well (go figure, right?) and that helped me to knock out my next metric - “1 Love Note Given.” This is Poshmark’s way of saying “leave a review,” which means you must buy something. And buy something I did. A couple of things. So, with allowing shipping time for my newly purchased items, these three metrics took just under 2 weeks to accomplish.

While I waited for my purchased items to arrive, I decided to get busy listing my own items for sale, which I had not done at all up until this point. While we’re talking about our own listings, let’s touch on the related Posh Ambassador requirements, there are five that relate only to your shop/items. You must complete 5000 self shares, have 50 available listings, make 15 sales, ship sold items in less than 3 days on average, and maintain an average seller rating of 4.5 stars or higher.

Technically, to complete this you actually have to have 65 total listings, because if you only had 50 listings and sold 15 items, you would no longer have 50 available, so that one feels a bit perpetual as you are filling your shop, but also (hopefully) making sales. Sharing your own items its a bit tedious as well, while you are filling your shop because you only have so many items to share, so it will feel redundant until you have a lot of available inventory.

May 1, 2024 update- great time to chat about making sales. We are just over a month into creating this shop (remember I started on March 27th and didn’t start listing items until about a week later) and I have made 5 sales! I’m not gonna lie, I was actually a little surprised to have made that many with not even 40 listings available in my shop. I’m currently at 41 available, with a few new items to add tonight, but still not going to reach that 50 Available Listings metric today, or maybe even this week. But, on the bright side, I am at 79% completion on reaching Posh Ambassador I status, and I only need to make 10 more sales to complete the 15 Sold Listings metric. Honestly, for barely over one month, this is excellent and perfectly doable for others trying to do the same thing. With luck finding the last of the inventory I need, and extra luck making some sales, I think I may be able to accomplish the entirety of Posh Ambassador I by the end of May. Let’s hope those words age well!

Branding

Now onto other things, like the direction and branding I envisioned for this new shop given my 9 years of experience. I really wanted to have a clear brand, and I really wanted to make sure all of my social platforms as well as this blog were following at least somewhat of the same aesthetic. You may be wondering how you could brand yourself on a selling platform that is already its own brand, has its own layout, etc. What I have found is that if you commit to presenting your listings in a very intentional, uniform manner, and have your profile photo and banner photo match/compliment that look, then you can easily create a distinct aesthetic for your shop that will become recognizable to your shoppers. All of my items feature the same background for every single photo, not just cover photos.

My cover images all also feature the words “Super Fast Shipping” in tasteful font that does not overwhelm the cover image. This is essentially a selling point. If you have ever worked a sales job, you understand that you want to have as many good selling points as possible. But, if you have ever worked a sales job where you speak to customers in person, then tried to sell items like this online, you may find that you are unable to communicate all the selling points as easily because you can’t just add them to a conversation. This is the best way that I have found to add this selling point but not be too in your face about it. I don’t want to send a message every time someone Likes my items, and I don’t want to miss the opportunity for someone to know that I’ll ship same or next day and pass by my item because they’re unsure if they’ll get it in time for an event or something like that. In addition to this text on the cover shot, I add the image below to each item to build trust and report with my potential buyers. As far as visual branding goes, the background matches my cover photo so that if the shopper clicks through to my shop, they see consistency.

The expectations listed here also build my brand. Customers know now that if they go to my shop, they will find only really good quality products, not things in poor condition or random brands they’ve never heard of. My shipping conditions are listed here as well so that clear expectations are set.

How are “trending brands” determined? The Posh Parties I mentioned above include parties where only specific brands are allowed to be shared. These brands are hand picked by Poshmark employees because they are popular and they sell. I use these parties as a guide when investing in new inventory. To help you out with this, I’ll be adding a master list of trending party brands in its own blog post for you to reference, and yes, I will update it as often as needed to keep it current.

I’ll leave things here for now, but like I said earlier, I’ll be updating this at least weekly with what I’m trying, what’s working for me, what’s not, and so on. Please feel free to comment with any questions, suggestions, or anything else related!