#8 strategic scrolling
a few personal techniques for clicking swiping and scrolling, + my affair w shopgoodwill.com
This issue has less links for you to click in favor of some reading……. where I explain some of my personal strategies for finding quality things on poshmark.
I know i’ve said it a million times at this point but poshmark is a really weird site with a really weird user interface that is not at all similar to depop or ebay. digging through everything enough, you develop different ways of finding what you want… usually i’m sending you guys the results of those searches, but i’m also usually searching for things I want to begin with. I feel the need to share some of the ways I get there so that you can fine tune your own process !
side note - this means that this issue is finally, again, relevant to those of you who are not exclusively in the market for women’s clothing ! u r welcome 🥰
first off, though, I feel compelled to share the gospel that is shopgoodwill.com
it’s apparently been around for years, but I only learned of it a few months ago. it functions like ebay: an auction-style site where you’re bidding on items (usually name brand) from goodwills across the country. the prices are pretty great– not as good as in person, obviously, but that’s the point: they’re getting people to bid up items they’d normally sell for $5-10. you can filter by geography, which is very fun when you want to see what the stores of southern nevada have to offer.
my first couple of lazy attempts at bidding failed (forgot about them/mistakenly assumed I wouldn’t have competition), which prompted an overcorrection, a manic evening spent entering five auctions and waking up the next morning with emails that i’d won four of them and to please paypal us asap
yes i did end up having to pay for shipping four separate times but i think you’ll all agree it was worth it to get this oversized leather belt for $15
i’m trying to keep myself from entering any more auctions right now so let me live vicariously through you, please send me what you’re entering and winning!
unpatented techniques that took years to develop that I am generous enough to be giving you for FREE
🏆 my #1 strategy that (I think) is not obvious: look at people’s shares (similar to retweets) …
poshmark sellers have the option to “share” other people’s listings– and you have the option to look at their shares, from a tab on their storefront. what does this do? unclear. the website makes sellers share a certain amt of listings to become a “posh ambassador” 🤪, so the tab can be a little overwhelming, but I think a lot of people also do it while they’re searching for themselves. and they’ll share anything that fits their style, whether or not they intend on buying it.1
how this helps you: if you find someone on poshmark who sells your sizes (ESP shoe sizes since those don’t really change much brand to brand / era to era) - look at what they’re sharing. if you’re really into a particular style and find a seller who’s got a lot of it, check out their shares.
this strategy in action: I’ve followed this seller for a minute, but recently, I spent some time in her shares bc i was looking for linen workwear. she sells a lot of it, but her shares tab shows what SHE’s been looking at: wicker cole haan, birk-style ll bean shoes, gingham dresses, and loooots more linen. not fully sure what it’s doing for her, but for *me*, it’s a shoppable page curated by an actual human who shares my style, not an algorithm
again, this works really well for sizes. I have kind of large f**t and I keep track of a couple sellers who exclusively share size 10-10.5-11 shoes.
SIMILARLY… found someone you like? look at who they’re following. i mean if it’s like a thousand people just ignore it but <300? scroll through that list and click a few
💰 feeling comfortable haggling
also I think i’ve said this before but you should probably always try to offer ~20% less than the listing price on poshmark. sellers price their shit with the expectation that they will receive and accept lower offers (unless it says in the description that the price is firm).
but… want a good idea of what the seller is gonna accept first? scroll down to a seller’s “sold” items (if they were sold on the poshmark platform, they’ll have a red ribbon on them). are those prices generally lower than the “for sale” prices up top? that’s because poshmark updates “sold” listings with the price that it was purchased for, meaning the offer that the seller accepted.
🔎 finally, saving search terms
keeping a running list of brands should go without saying, but I’m specifically talking about keywords here. I am admittedly not as good at this as I would like to be, but I do try to keep a notes app list of terms i wouldn’t think of off the top of my head that I’m seeing sellers use. you can save searches on ebay, so even when working across a bunch of platforms at once that might be a good place to store them too.
a term i’ve been seeing EVERYWHERE recently is "[insert decade] does [insert other decade]” – I think this is not new but i’m seeing it everywhere bc I just learned about it. basically for vintage clothes that are reminiscent of other eras, conveniently giving sellers xtra keywords to use in their descriptions
i found it while looking for slinky dresses, and saw a billion “90s does 30s” titles on vintage 90s dresses that have 30s era silhouettes (read: bias cut). I don’t know when it was started or popularized but good god does it have a foothold in the etsy community
hope you enjoyed this break from the usual hyperlink avalanche
will be back soon with more!!
you can also look at people’s “likes” on depop - which can be helpful - but you also have the option to “save” items on depop, which is not public, allowing for some gatekeeping among the more in-demand items