Little Effort, Big Payout
Comparing my earnings on four different fashion resale apps (April 2021)
Haley here, with April's report comparing my earnings on Poshmark, Mecari, Depop, and Vinted. If you want a little more background in what I resell and why, please check out my December & January earnings report, which is the kickoff of this series, and you can also check out my February and March reports to see how sales have gone historically.
April was a dream; I had lots of sales with little effort. Compared to the past four months, I spent the least amount of time on these apps and I still made a lot of sales. I haven’t really changed my strategy too much, aside from the fact that I no longer spend much time on Poshmark sharing things to parties. Instead, I focus the bulk of my time relisting things on Mercari, Vinted, and Depop, which I think gets better results than spending hours resharing on Poshmark.
Keep in mind that the stats reported below represent sales from April 1st-30th. This is the money I earned from items where the funds were released in this time period. When a buyer purchases something on Poshmark, Mercari, or Vinted these companies don’t pay the seller until the buyer has received the item and approved it. Any funds not released before the 30th weren’t counted in April and will be counted in May (even though the sale was technically made in April). I don’t count my earnings until the funds are in my pocket. Whenever I pay shipping for an item, I add this to the platform fees that I subtract from my profits. Platforms often pressure sellers to offer “free” shipping, but this is actually a vendor expense.
Earnings Breakdown
Poshmark
Notes: Sales here are iffy at best. This month I spent no time sharing other people’s items and shared my items about every few days. While my lower effort is reflected in the sales, I am still pretty happy that I didn’t waste time sharing things on the app. Poshmark recently changed their policy so that sellers are obligated to cover part of shipping when they make offers to likers; this means I get even less of the profits on those sales. Poshmark already charges a 20% fee (compared to Mercari and Depop’s 10% fee and Vinted’s 0% fee) so I find it pretty appalling that they are now forcing me to take at least $1.50 out of my profits to make an offer to a buyer.
Total earnings: $34.20
Number of items sold: 5
Average earnings per item: $6.84
Poshmark fees total: $20.80
Average Poshmark fees per item: $4.16
Percentage of sales earned: 62%
Mercari
Notes: I feel like I have Mercari down at this point. My main tip: Don’t offer free shipping here. Buyers are accustomed to paying for shipping, which helps you hold on to your profits. I continue to use the smart pricing feature, which lowers the pricing of an item automatically to bump up your listings in search. I check in about once a week to make sure that my items are still on smart pricing and when my listings hit $10, I send out one last offer to likers. If no one bites, I relist the items and begin the cycle again. This is a pretty low effort approach that definitely gets sales, and I’m also earning a higher profit margin (see “Percentage of sales earned” below) here than I do on any other app (besides Vinted).
Total earnings: $89.94
Number of items sold: 10
Average earnings per item: $8.99
Mercari fees total: $29.06
Average Mercari fees per item: $2.91
Percentage of sales earned: 76%
Depop
Notes: I still don’t know what I am doing on Depop, but sales are up anyway. I’m trying to remember to edit and save my listings at least a few times a week to give them the algorithm bump. What I am liking about Depop is there is less haggling and people will pay more for items here then they do on other apps.
Total earnings: $46.87
Number of items sold: 3
Average earnings per item: $15.62
Depop fees total: $20.50
Average depop fees per item: $6.83
Percentage of sales earned: 69%
Vinted
Notes: I also think I am finally getting the hang of this app; I go in once a week and make offers to everyone who likes an item. This is super low effort timewise and I get to keep 100% of my profits. Also, they have no free shipping option, so there is no pressure to cover shipping costs as a seller.
Total earnings: $87.00
Number of items sold: 6
Average earnings per item: $14.50
Vinted fees total: $0
Average vinted fees per item: $0
Percentage of sales earned: 100%
Grand Totals for April
Total earnings: $258.01
Number of items sold: 24
Average earnings per item: $10.75
Total fees: $70.36
Average fee per item: $2.93
Percentage of sales earned: 79%
Conclusion
This month was amazing; I hardly put in any time and made a good amount of money. I didn’t list anything new, so I’m pretty shocked that things went this well. This month I spent about 10 hours engaging with the apps, packaging, and shipping, which means I made $25.80 an hour. This is just a few dollars below my hourly rate at my full time job!
Right now, I’m loving all the apps except for Poshmark. I think their fees and the updates that they’ve made to the platform are highly disadvantageous for me, the seller. Depop takes the highest percentage of my profits, but this bothers me less because I don’t have to sink so much time into it to make sales. What I hate about Poshmark these days is that I have to waste so much time sharing my listings, hoping to get lucky, AND they take such a high cut. With all the other apps, I have a working sales strategy that represents a reasonable time commitment and doesn’t rely as heavily on luck. I’m predicting that Poshmark’s efforts to take in a higher profit are going to incentivize sellers to go elsewhere. It is pretty wild that after just a few months of anti-seller updates, Poshmark has gone from my most recommended resale app to the only one I wouldn’t recommend to a new seller.
A quick update on packaging from my last post. So far the recyclable padded mailers, compostable mailers, and paper-based packing tape have held up so I would definitely recommend all of it, especially switching from plastic tape to paper and rubber tape! I still try to reuse packaging as much as possible, but I think these are all better options when I have to use brand new packaging.
What’s ahead for next month? I finally did a big load of hand washing, so I have about 10 new listings to post. I also have a ton of jewelry that I need to list, but I keep putting off. I am taking some of my friends' clothes and listing it for them. I'm trying to decide if I’ll include those sales in these postings, as I’ll only be keeping a small percentage of the profits. Let me know on Instagram whether you want me to drill into all of those details!
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