It Started as a Hobby
My reselling journey began back in the early aughts when eBay was new and the only game in town. I loved hitting local garage sales in Phoenix, where I was living at the time, and flipping my finds for a small profit. I had a very good full-time job so I didn’t need the money. It was just kinda fun and who doesn’t like a few extra bucks in their pocket each month? In 2019 I decided to try it again. This time, focussing almost exclusively on clothing. It was mostly a way to justify my new obsession – Thrift Shopping. After a while, I felt like I needed to justify the time I was spending. I was just making things up as I went along. It turns out, just like everything else, there is a skill to reselling. So, here I’m going to share about the biggest mistakes I made when I first started reselling.
Haphazard Sourcing
When I first decided to try reselling, I was already a resale shopper. It felt like I hit the jackpot when I first discovered Poshmark and could buy brands that I loved at a fraction of the retail price. Before I was a seller, I was a buyer for 6 years. I decided to try selling because I was seeing so many great clothes at the thrift stores…more than I could ever wear or fit in my closet and I thought….someone would love this!
When I first started sourcing one of the biggest mistakes that I made was just buying stuff I thought was cute and not doing any research at all about the brand or the style. Big mistake! The #1 best way to make sales when you are a reseller is to source and sell items that people are actually looking for. Once I learned to research sold listings I could also see how much they sold for and whether or not my sourcing investment would be worth it.
To check out some of my favorite tips, check out my Thrifting for Profit Blog Post.
No Research
At first, I was too intimidated to research brands I found in the thrift store while I was there. I guess I didn’t want people to know I was a reseller. I’ve since gotten over that. Now, I go through the racks quickly, pull what I think is a quality or in-demand item, and then, I pull my cart or my basket over to a discreet corner of the store and I research each piece one at a time. This is an investment in time but worth it. I end up putting 80% of what I find back on the rack. Better to get a few good pieces than a ton of stuff that’s going to sit in my closet for a year.
Bad Pictures
I have never been a photog! I really admire people who have this skill. But, I just don’t seem to have the eye for it. In fact, one of the very first items that I sold on Poshmark was a pair of brown CROCS that my husband didn’t want anymore. The picture was so bad that I got a 1 star review when they finally did sell. Why? Because in the picture they looked blue! I just wasn’t paying attention and didn’t really care to spend the time to try and get good photos. This was one of the biggest mistakes I made when I first started reselling! Truth be told, it’s a common mistake I see a low of new resellers making. So, if this is also your challenge, don’t feel bad! I had to do a lot of trial and error to get good pictures. I tried different locations around my house – the bedroom, the hallway, the living room floor, etc.
Eventually I found a dress form at an estate sale and used a curtain as a backdrop in my garage. When it was time to take pictures, I just opened up the garage door to let in natural light. (Always the best choice!) It’s also important to pay attention to the best time of day to take pictures (morning for me) and plan accordingly.
This made a really big difference! How do I know? I decided to retake some pictures of items that were sitting in my closet for about a year. After re-taking the pictures and re-listing, these items sold in about a month. Take a look at these before & after pictures.
Doing What Everyone Else Was Doing
There is a lot of information and misinformation out there when it comes to reselling. You can find endless YouTube videos and Instagram posts with people sharing their tips and tricks. The beauty of the Internet is that all the free information we’d ever need is right at our fingertips. However, be cautious about who you take advice from. This was one of the biggest mistakes I made when I first started reselling – not being choosy about whose advice I followed. I just assumed everyone knew more than I did.
For example, I was in a reselling Facebook group and several people shared about how they run sales in their closets, using cute emojis to mark the items that were part of the sale. So I decided to try this. Bad idea. Why? Because it messes up the search-ability of the listing. Trust me, no one is searching for the garment they want with an emoji in the search field. But I saw SO. MANY. PEOPLE. doing this, that I thought it must be the way to go. After learning more about search-ability I removed all those emojis and started getting a lot more traction in my closet.
What could you do with an extra $800 a month?
Again, one of the biggest mistakes I made when I first started reselling was following the crowd and not being careful where I got my reseller advice. Then I discovered Jen @abritishposher and her Poshmark Sales Accelerator course. What a game changer! Jen goes DEEP on the 5 pillars of poshing: Research, Sourcing, Listings, Driving Sales, and Systems. She has a proven track record of sales and has created a wonderful community of supportive resellers.
As a part-time seller I went from $197 in sales in January to over $1000 in October and still counting! I now make consistent daily sales. Consistent enough that I can actually factor the income into our family’s monthly budget to help pay for things like activities for our kids (our son is going to Sacramento in February and our daughter is going to South Africa in June!), contribute toward our health insurance (which is expensive when you are self-employed), and more! If you want to up your reseller game, make consistent sales, and extra income, check out the PSA course HERE.