Poshmark Ninja: Buyer Strategies

Based on your feedback, I’m back to talk about all things Poshmark. Last time, I went over my searching strategies; today, I’m going over what I do once I’ve found a listing of interest.

I generally try to avoid spur-of-the-moment buying. Thrifting is bad for that sort of thing; you can’t “sleep” on a purchase because the item is almost guaranteed to be gone by the end of the day. It’s one of the things I dislike most about thrifting. I have become more discriminating with time, but I still have plenty of regret buys to my name. So when it comes to Poshmark, I am stricter with myself about thinking about a purchase for at least a few days before I decide to buy, unless it’s something I’ve been hunting for a long time or some truly unique and fabulous bargain (and those are rare).

So, in most cases, the first thing I do is “like” the listing of interest. This is equivalent to “watching” on eBay; it adds the listing to “My Likes” list, and allows me to be notified of seller offers, price drops, etc. Sellers are notified when someone likes one of their listings, and many of them will send an offer within the next few hours (I think this may be an automated feature but I am not sure since I don’t sell on Poshmark). These unsolicited offers are usually in the 10-15% range, though I’ve seen some as high as 30%, and often include discounted shipping. This is another reason to pause on purchases, especially more expensive ones; you might get offered a deal without even having to ask.

If an unsolicited seller offer is good – i.e. within the budget I have to spend on the item – and I am ready to commit to the purchase, then I will accept it. The reason why I don’t generally counter-offer in these situations is to avoid losing any discounted shipping the seller is offering.

Let me pause here for a moment. It’s important to note that most of my Poshmark purchases are under $50, and that is reflected in my approach. Here’s an example to illustrate what I’m talking about. Let’s say a seller has an item listed at $40. Standard shipping is now about $15 (I know, Canadian shipping costs are terrible). My preferred budget is $40 all in. The seller sends me an offer of $35 plus $10 shipping; with taxes, this comes out around $47 all in. If I use the auto-counter feature to ask for $30, my out-of-pocket cost stays the same because I lose the shipping discount. I would have to message the seller and ask them if they would accept $30+$10 shipping, and for a possible $5 in savings … well, I don’t usually bother. My decision is basically: do I like the item enough to pay $7 above my preferred budget? Obviously, if we add a zero to these numbers, the math – and my strategy! – would change.

Now, if there is no discounted shipping in play, I will sometimes use an unsolicited seller offer as a springboard to my own counter-offer. However, on a sub-$50 item, I won’t counter for small amounts; it usually has to be at least $10. Anything else feels petty to me, but this is a personal decision. I don’t usually counter-offer at all on any item that is $20 or less because I know the seller makes almost no money on that amount after Poshmark fees, though I will happily accept discounted shipping if offered, or bundle items (if feasible) to save shipping. I hate spending $15 for shipping on a $20 item! I will, however, make exceptions where it makes sense – for example, I recently paid $15 shipping for a pair of wool Paul Smith trousers after the seller dropped the price to $20, because I knew the retail value of those trousers was $$$ and I was getting a fabulous deal regardless.

Okay, let’s say I like an item but the seller doesn’t do anything right away. What next? It depends on how much I want the item and how much it costs.

If I’ve slept on it and decided that I really want it, my next move is decided by cost. If the list price is within 30% of my preferred buy price, then I will make an offer and hope for the best. If the list price is more than 30% over my preferred buy price, then I wait. Sellers will sometimes either drop the price or send offers whenever Poshmark is pushing some promotion. If an item doesn’t have a ton of likers, I will sometimes wait out 1 or even 2 price drops – taking the chance that no one else will buy the item out from under me. Sometimes, I will send my own offer following a price drop if I want to nudge the price a little bit lower.

If I decide that I like an item but not enough to commit yet, I follow the same wait and see strategy. After a few months, if the price has not dropped and my desire for the item hasn’t grown (or has, in fact, faded) then I will un-like the listing.

Let’s talk about offers. As with everything else I write here, these are simply my personal guidelines. You can adopt different ones; I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules apart from being polite (more on that in a moment). As I mentioned above, I generally do not send offers that are more than 30% below asking price. If a seller has an unreasonably high list price, I do not bother to offer. If the price is not unreasonable but still significantly higher than my budget, I wait for a price drop first rather than make an offer at, say, half price. My rationale is: if a seller tries but can’t sell at their asking price then they will be more receptive to a deeper cut.

I do not believe in contacting sellers to tell them their prices are too high; people are free to set their prices as high as they want, and I will simply avoid those which I consider out of whack. On the flip side, I do not understand sellers who get upset by “lowball” offers (unless the buyer is otherwise argumentative or persistent with repeated counter-offers). Just decline and go on with your day. If I send an offer and it’s declined – especially declined without a counter from the seller – then I get the message: either accept the original list price or move on. There was one time when I had my first (and only) offer declined AND the seller blocked me, which felt weirdly aggressive to me but I shrugged and moved on.

I also rarely counter-offer. Let’s say the list price is $70, I offer $50, and the seller counters at $60. I will not counter $50 again for obvious reasons – this is the equivalent of arguing with the seller. I will probably not counter at $55 either unless I think the item is overpriced and I’m willing to take the chance the seller will decline and nuke our conversation. To me, going back and forth over $5 isn’t usually worth it, but I am also not the haggling type in general. That being said, I almost always make at least one offer (or wait for one) unless the item is $20 or less to begin with. You never know unless you ask (once) 😊

One thing to note: Poshmark will now notify all likers of a listing when an offer has been submitted. This change hasn’t drastically affected my buying strategies but it IS something to consider in certain cases. Here is a hypothetical example: I have stumbled on a major bargain, a desirable (and authentic) designer piece with a retail price of $400+ listed for $40. Normally, on a $40 item, I will attempt an offer (most often around $30). However, if there are other likers and I know this is hot deal — and an item I know I would regret missing out on — I might forego making the offer because the notification of the pending offer might push one of the other likers to pull the trigger, and the $10 difference isn’t worth losing the piece. This has actually happened to me, from the other side: I was one of the other likers watching a piece and waiting to see if the seller sent an offer; when I saw that another person made an offer, I swooped in and bought the item at asking price so as not to miss out. This situation doesn’t arise often, but it is always worth keeping in mind that offers are not entirely private anymore (others don’t know what the offer price is, though).

One other thing to note: asking for discounted shipping means money out of the seller’s pocket in most cases as they have to cover the difference (unless Poshmark is offering a discount shipping promotion) so keep that in mind when deciding on an offer.

In general, I do not engage with buyers unless I have a question about the listing or a purchase, or they send me a personalized message. Sellers sometimes send automated messages when I like an item (e.g. “bundle to save!”), but I don’t usually bother replying. To me, it’s an annoying feature of Poshmark – the equivalent of a sales associate asking me if I’m looking for something specific as soon as I step foot in the store to browse. Similarly, I don’t send messages when I make an offer; I was surprised to read something on Reddit once that suggested it was “proper etiquette” to send accompanying messages with offers. I disagree. The app has these automated offer functions for a reason, and I am not there to make friends (sorry not sorry). As far as I am concerned, on Poshmark, etiquette primarily comes down to not wasting someone’s time; it’s why I avoid offers for less than 70% of the asking price — not because such offers are “insulting” but because they are unlikely to be acceptable to the seller and, therefore, represent a waste of time.

The one area where I do get mildly annoyed by lack of communication is when sellers ignore questions about measurements. If sellers did their job properly in the first place, IMO, all listings should include specific measurements not just brand size. I know it’s extra work, but it is such critical information when buying online; I sell a bit from my own closet (though not on Poshmark) and I always include this information when I post an item.

However, if you are in a situation where the listing doesn’t include measurements and the seller isn’t being responsive, but it’s an item you are really interested in, then I recommend searching for the piece on Google Images. Sometimes you will be able to find the original brand listing, which will include sizing information (and, better yet, customer reviews). Other times, you might find a DIFFERENT Poshmark listing (even an expired one) where the seller did post measurements. Even if it’s not the same size you are looking at, the measurements can give you a general sense of whether the item fits small or fits large. Of course, this can still be a risky proposition so you have to decide how much of a calculated risk you want to take that the item will fit properly.

I have once again written a novel, but I guess it takes a surprising amount of words to describe my very basic (hah!) Poshmark buying strategies. Hopefully, it hasn’t been entirely useless! If you have your own strategies and tips, please share with the rest of us in the comments.