Cruising through May
Comparing my earnings on Poshmark, Mercari, Depop, and Vinted (May 2021)
Haley here, with May’s report comparing my earnings on Poshmark, Mecari, Depop, and Vinted. If you want a little more background in what and why I resell, please check out my December & January earnings report which is the kickoff of this series. I have also done reports on my sales in February, March, and April if you want to check out how my shops have performed this year; it’s been a bit of a roller coaster.
This month’s sales were slow mainly because I put little to no effort into these apps. I was feeling a bit burnt out from past months so I decided to take a break from them. The reason I still wanted to report is that I did make sales despite having spent little time engaging on these platforms. At the end of the day I think all of us on resale apps want to make more money with less of a time investment.
Since this month’s theme on the blog is personal style, I figured I’d talk about my style and how it seems to appeal to buyers on these apps. I am not a reseller; all the items in my closet are ones I’ve bought for myself to wear. A few people have suggested I try Thrilling and I’ve looked into it, but that app seems primarily for resellers who carry inventory beyond what they are selling from their personal wardrobes, so I don’t think it is quite right for me.
My style is quite eclectic and it might seem like there is no rhyme or reason to what is in my shops. Especially since I feel like it’s only been in the last year that I’ve really figured out my style niche so a lot of the clothing in my online shops is from a more experimental time in my style journey. I think I will always wear and try a bunch of different styles, but recently when I thrift I’ve been using my reselling habits to assess the lifespan of an item in my closet. Through selling on these apps I’ve noticed that only full skirts stay in my closet, as I don’t wear many pencils. I also get excited at the thrift store when I find something funky, loud, and bright. Sometimes these items don’t even fit me correctly and I just bring them home as a result of the excitement of finding them. I am working on curbing this behavior because if I don’t love the fit of something it ultimately doesn’t stay in my closet.
I now have a good idea what items will sell on what apps. It is really interesting because now vintage is the easiest thing to resell on most apps. When I started on Poshmark you had to price vintage items pretty inexpensively to get rid of them. I sell the least amount of vintage on Poshmark; basics and contemporary pieces tend to perform best here. Vinted, Mercari, and Depop are all dominated by vintage sales. People seem much less interested in contemporary items on these apps. At this point I have gotten rid of most contemporary pieces from my wardrobe, so I’m predicting that I’ll have a harder time selling on Poshmark as I shift to reselling mostly vintage.
The other thing that has been funny has been the predictability of what sells on Depop. Literally every item I’ve sold on Depop has been an item I guessed would sell there, such as my 90s Betsey Johnson prom dress or a cute cat T shirt. My wardrobe is not very Gen Z friendly, despite the fact I’m a cusper (born in 1996). I primarily dress in formal and super femine clothing, so it is not surprising my wardrobe is not the most appealing to them. I tend to be drawn to the styles of the 40-60s and right now it seems like Gen Z is mainly into 70s-90s vintage. I do own quite a bit of 70s prairie fashion but I’m definitely not parting with those pieces any time soon!
The other thing that doesn’t surprise me is that most of my sales go to the East Coast (ballpark at least 75% if not more). I rarely get a buyer from the West Coast or even the Midwest. I think this speaks to the general formality of my wardrobe; people on the West Coast dress very casually. I’ve always struggled to resell at the local shops in Seattle, because they usually tell me my stuff is too formal. Selling online has allowed me to resell things I wouldn’t be able to locally.
Now, let’s dig into the numbers. Keep in mind that the stats reported below represent sales from May 1st-31st. 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 31st weren’t counted in May and will be counted in June (even though the sale was technically made in May). 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
Strategy: I shared my items maybe 3 times a week this month (if that). I also put in offers to likers which is how I made all my sales. One of the most successful methods has been making bundles of items people liked and offering a great deal on them.
Total earnings: $17.05
Number of items sold: 3
Average earnings per item: $5.68
Poshmark fees total: $5.95
Average Poshmark fees per item: $1.98
Percentage of sales earned: 74%
Mercari
Strategy: I’ve been continuing to make sure that my items are constantly lowering in price via the smart pricing feature and that seems to position my items high enough in the search algorithm to keep sales going for me (read about my strategy for Mercari in April, where I explain how the smart pricing feature works). I also make offers to likers every time I turn the smart pricing feature back on. Mercari continues to impress me with the proportion of effort that I have to put in to generate sales on this app.
Total earnings: $42.92
Number of items sold: 5
Average earnings per item: $8.58
Mercari fees total: $8.08
Average Mercari fees per item: $1.62
Percentage of sales earned: 84%
Depop
Strategy: No sales on this app, but I didn’t go through and edit and save my listings to keep them further up in search so I am not surprised about that.
Total earnings: $0
Number of items sold: 0
Vinted
Strategy: I’ve continued to make offers to people who liked my items, but no bites this month. I am not surprised. I didn’t relist a lot of my items, so they have probably fallen in search discoverability.
Total earnings: $0
Number of items sold: 0
Grand Totals for May
Total earnings: $59.97
Number of items sold: 8
Average earnings per item: $7.49
Total fees: $14.03
Average fee per item: $1.75
Percentage of sales earned: 81%
Conclusion
This month I only spent three hours on the apps and packaging up items. That means I made about $20 per hour which makes me very happy. It was nice to take a break from the apps and still make a little bit of money.
I will note that I put my Poshmark earnings toward a beautiful 1970’s Candi Jones California Maxi Dress, so the money did not go into my pocket. I had my eye on a pink colorway of this dress, but when I saw it in blue I had to have it. I used to believe that I was too short to wear a maxi dress. There seems to be this myth that wearing a maxi dress as a petite person isn’t flattering, but now that I have figured out how to own my style I don’t care about such arbitrary rules. I am short, so there is no dress that is going to magically make me tall and I’m perfectly okay with that. I have also learned how to hem skirts and dresses, so I can tailor a maxi to make it work for me. With vintage 70s maxi dresses, I make sure to hem them in a way that they can be let back out again for taller people. I want to make sure that these items fit the broadest possible audience if they leave my closet someday.
Next month my goal is to revamp my closet, starting with some new listings that I plan to style and model on myself. I am hoping this will help my Depop closet and sell some items that I think are beautiful but maybe don’t appear to their best advantage unstyled in a flat lay. I am a bit nervous about this. When I restarted selling on the apps (I was quite active on Poshmark in college) I decided not to put my body on display and intentionally chose the hanger method. There are more men on these apps than there used to be and I don’t want commentary on my body, which tends to happen when they’re around. Now I use a PO box as my return address, so I feel like I have more privacy.
So, check back here in early July, and we’ll see if my latest efforts yield some results!
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