EVERY dollar in the reselling game counts! I'm not exaggerating, you can literally turn $1 into $10, $20 or more just by visiting Goodwill on their $1 Days. This post is an interesting one because there are only 2 ways to go about it when it comes to the packaging on Poshmark. Either you spend money on it or you don't; I'm obviously in the latter. Let's dive deeper into a practice that cost people more money than they think in the long run.

While there are many reasons and some might have their own unique justification, I came up with few ideas as to why seller's pay for fancy boxes and trimmings:

1. Branding purposes
2. Making it memorable for the customer
3. Raises the chance of them buying from you again
4. To get that 5 Star rating
5. Makes them feel good inside

If I'm missing something, leave it in the comments. Next let me justify why I'm qualified to talk about this topic.

I've been selling on Poshmark since August 23, 2018, that's almost 9 months now. Over that period I've done well for myself and here are some of my stats:

• 9380 Listings
• 6751 Active Listings
• 2629 Sold Listings
• 4.9 Rating
• Never paid 1 dime for packaging except for tape and labels for my Dymo label printer.
• The only time I put tissue paper in a package was when I had some laying around that I didn't buy.
  
  

So why is this important? In statistics, you need a good sample size before you make an inference about almost anything. I know my numbers are sizable enough for me to make an assessment of this topic. Just think of me as your Poshmark guinea pig. Next, let's quickly debunk the 5 reasons why I think people pay for packaging. 

Again, I'm going to go through these quickly since I have other important things to discuss.

1. Branding Purposes
For the most part, most of us are not selling ANYTHING that has our brand on it. We're just reselling clothes from brands that have already established their reputation with the customers. In other words, they're not buying something from PrettiBone because it's from PrettiBone. They're buying an Adidas jacket that they like at a good price and it just HAPPENS to be sold by Prettibone. I brand myself in other ways but that's beyond the scope of this article.

2. Making it Memorable for the Customer
For like what...5 minutes? Customers don't spend the day pondering about all the trimmings that was put in the packaging. And I'm sure they don't keep the cards you put in it. The most that will happen is they'll save the tissue paper to use when someone else orders form them.

3. Raises the Chance of Them Buying From You Again
This is simply not true because the item goes before the packaging. If your item is as described and you gave them a great price, they'll keep coming back. They're definitely not coming back for the packaging. If that's the case they can go to their local Party City and buy all the ribbons and tissue paper they want and swim in it.

4. To Get that 5 Star Rating
No, just no. 2629 units sold and I'm at a 4.9 rating. Moving on...

5. Makes Them Feel Good Inside
People have told me this in my comments and I'm truly stunned. If you need that type of affirmation, go volunteer or donate your money to a good cause for those that really need it.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the important points.

I'm sure we all know by now that the fashion industry is detrimental to the environment. This is tough because we all need clothes, some of us just buy more than other. But for those of us reselling clothes, we're extending the life of the piece therefore extending the time it takes for the piece to hit the landfills while making money. It's almost a win-win. With that said, all this tissue paper and love notes that you’re including in your order is just adding more waste to an industry that’s already a drag on the environment. 

How that doesn't compute with people make no sense to me. Don't claim the benefits of reselling then do a 180 on the environment by adding more crap to it.

Has a potential customer ever asked you "hey, do you promise to wrap it with tissue paper, twine and a handwritten card before I buy?". No? Me neither. Having good pictures, a good price, a good description and good ratings are enough to make a sell. You will never be able to leverage packaging to make a sell on Poshmark. Again, the product precedes the packaging. 

If you’re trying to make real money from reselling clothes, this method is definitely not scalable. You will not be able to keep this up if you get more orders. And by doing this you’re holding yourself back from reaching that stage where you get a lot orders. I wouldn't know what to do if I had to wrap, twine and add a handwritten card for 400+ orders every month.

Think about this, AMAZON is the biggest and most efficient online retailer. Have you ever received a handwritten card from them? No, but you don’t care because they ship you exactly what you ordered in the condition you expect CONSISTENTLY. Don’t think you’re “making a connection” with anyone when you’re adding all of this other stuff. Amazon's only connection with us is their accuracy, price and shipping speed. We don't really care about anything else but those 3 things.

I will argue by the time you finish packaging a sale with all your packaging trimmings, I would have already steamed, shot and listed 1 item. In the long run, it really adds up. Don't fool yourself into thinking "It only takes 20 seconds". Literally someone told me that. This type of hyperbole will mask the true cost of your time. My team literally time ourselves over and over again down to the second to get our efficiency up. That's how serious we take it when it comes to our time, I advise you to do the same.

1. Sourcing quality items
2. Good Pictures
3. Accurate Descriptions
4. Great Price
5. Quick Shipping

These 5 things are the ONLY things my team and I focus on. Everything else is secondary. And I must say, after 2629 units sold, we did pretty well using this strategy.

I'm sure most of you know this already but here's to those who are new or are still in the dark. You can get FREE USPS Priority boxes by clicking here. These boxes will fit mostly everything you're shipping. My favorite is this bad boy right here, I use it for a lot of my orders.

Sometimes I forget the majority of us are doing this a hobby or just trying to clear out our literal closet with no intentions of getting bigger. I guess my downfall is I write in a tone that is directed towards those that want to be the best clothing reseller they can be, those that want to make this a real business. Whoever you are, thanks for reading this one.