Poshmark vs. eBay: Seller Edition

Happy Thursday all!

A couple of weeks back I shared the pros and cons of Poshmark and eBay for making personal purchases off of each respective platform. Different items are available at the best prices on each app so it is important to understand the details of each system. The same goes for selling! Whether you want to start a small business or just make some extra cash out of something you no longer wear, keep reading to learn more about each system and what to expect when selling!

-Only when I switched to thrifting and reselling full time did I start cross-listing my items over to Poshmark. I had bought a few items through Poshmark in the past, but never really saw it as a big platform for selling to a large audience. But honestly, in the past two months since going full time I have sold double the number of items on Poshmark than eBay and it is really my favorite site to sell through!

Poshmark Pros:
- NEVER any fees for listing (no matter how many items you have up for sale!), only the final fee when your item sells
- Buyer always pays for the USPS priority flat rate shipping, unless you are willing to provide discounted shipping (you pay 1/2 or all)
- Seller receives a priority flat rate shipping label (for boxes up to 5 lbs) directly from Poshmark, so packaging and shipping are super easy!
- Poshmark is a fun community of following other sellers and sharing items to shopping parties (usually themed, like "best in jeans" or "summer fun")
- Creating posts are easy because most of it is self-generated through a template
- Poshmark is much more strict on buyer returns, and will only allow returns if the buyer can prove the item description does not match the item -- plus buyers only have 72 hours to "accept" the item and request a return
- You can transfer the money earned from Poshmark directly to your bank account = no PayPal fees!

Poshmark Cons:
- There is a 20% sellers fee for each item sold, so anticipate Poshmark taking a big chunk of the selling price
- There is not yet an option to create drafts of the items you want to sell to post later
- Poshmark provides basic measures of success, but does not provide an indepth analysis (how many people view and click your items, your sales overtime, etc.)
- You do not receive payment for you item until after it is delivered AND the buyer has either "accepted" the item or 3 days pass (whichever comes first, but you are safe after 3 days from return requests) -- which means you could not see any money until up to a week after you ship your item

The Items That Sell Best For Me On Poshmark:
- Mid end womens clothing (Ann Taylor, J. Crew, Banana Republic) in the $15-25 price range
- Jeans
- Women's shoes

eBay is really the very first site that comes to mind when it comes to private selling and buying. It's where I started and I am grateful for its large platform and performance tools to grow as a seller!

eBay Pros
- VERY large buyer base --171 million buyers!
- eBay provides in depth seller analysis to better understand how often your items are showing up in searches, how many clicks you get per view, your sales within a specified amount of time, etc
- eBay will only take a max of 10% as a seller fee from your item's sale price
- eBay offers mass editing (like a spreadsheet) of your items which you can sort and filter by different categories -- I use this tool often to audit categories, buying options, etc.
-Promotion options are great to hold a sale and bring attention to your store

eBay Cons
- There are limits to how many free listings you have, despite whether your item sells or not (a personal eBay account allows 50 free listings a month before charging .30 cents per each additional listing)
- While eBay does have a program with the USPS to offer discounts on shipping, this system is much less efficient than Poshmark and can be way more expensive if you offer free or discount shipping because you either ship by the weight or an expensive flat rate
- eBay has a much more lenient return policy, and pushes on sellers to have a 60 day free returns option (aka seller pays for return shipping within 60 days no matter the reason for the return) and in the event that a buyer files for a return that is sketchy eBay 99% of the time will agree with the buyer
- As a seller you have to accept your money earned through PayPal, which costs additional fees on top of your seller fees

The Items That Sell Best For Me On eBay
- Men's dress clothes (slacks, blazer jackets, button up shirts
- Unique and/or vintage pieces
- High end designer clothing pieces

Hope this is helpful!

Also I'm excited to announce that I'm going to start offering reseller boxes very soon! If you are interested in trying out the resell game and don't have the time to source for yourself, I'll soon be selling mystery boxes of inventory with awesome brands (some NWT!) that you can profit off yourself! If this is something you are interested in, please let me know in the comments below or send me a message!