Resale platform Poshmark is encouraging some past shoppers to re-list the items they previously bought.
Since 2020, Poshmark has had a Reposh feature, which lets users generate a new listing of an item using the description and images from the original listing. The new listing also discloses that the product has been Reposhed by the user.
But since August, Poshmark has been promoting Reposh more aggressively through notifications sent to their individual closets on the app, encouraging people to Reposh past purchases. Some of these prompts include “Not a fit? Resell and earn cash for a new find!” and “Ready to swap for something new? Resell it now!”
Since making the change to promote Reposh more this past August, the number of people using the Reposh feature has increased by 45%, while the number of Reposh listings themselves has increased by 35%. The company also sees that one in four Reposh listings get sold within one week, making the conversion rate of these listings 25%.
“The adoption is significant, and I definitely think it will play a role in the holiday this season,” Kate Franco, Poshmark’s vp of customer engagement, said.
Franco told Modern Retail that since its launch over four years ago, the goal with Reposh was to make reselling on Poshmark as easy, simple and seamless as possible. Poshmark users can also opt out of having their original listing photos used for Reposh. But so far, the feature has proven popular.
“The real benefit here is that you’re able to list an item on Poshmark in literally just a few clicks,” Franco said. “We are leaning into Reposh now because we’ve seen that people are using it.”
While the tool itself has remained untouched since its rollout, Franco said, “We are promoting it in a different way and putting it in more places within the app so that it gets more visibility.” With that, Franco added that Reposhed items are “definitely effective in increasing the supply for the platform, which is good too.”
That seems to be the driving factor behind the increasing popularity of Reposh. It simply gives people more items to browse through and consider, increasing the likelihood that they will buy.
It does raise questions, however, about why people are choosing to resell the item in the first place. Franco said that potential buyers are asking for more information on the Resposh listing, such as seeing more recent photos showing whether an item is still in good condition. She said that, at the moment, Poshmark doesn’t have the capability to track the exact reason a user is choosing to Reposh or whether there was something wrong with that purchase. These improvements will be considered in the future as Poshmark improves on the feature.
But Franco said the fact that a Reposhed item was purchased in the first place indicates to the buyer that “it’s desired or in demand in some capacity.”
Currently, the highest volume of Reposhed items is coming from fashion categories like shoes, dresses and tops. Top Reposhed brands are Lululemon, Free People and Nike, which Franco said makes sense because those are some of the top brands on Poshmark.
“For us, it’s less about the brands and the styles and more so about the circular economy and keeping all items moving throughout the ecosystem,” she said.
As Reposh usage grows, Franco said Poshmark will evaluate ways to improve it to help the feature evolve with the platform. For example, figuring out how often to push out Reposh notifications to past shoppers and when. The company, she said, is “still testing to find the window or the life cycle that works the best for users.”
The spike in Reposh’s popularity is expected, said Jon Anthony of The Posh Kings, a Poshmark seller who advises others on best Poshmark practices. “[Poshmark has] really been leaning into Reposh lately,” he said. “We have seen an increase in our items being Reposhed, but we don’t always know why someone Reposhed an item.”
Anthony said that a spike in Resposh can also simply be attributed to a busy sales period; if more people are shopping on Poshmark during a particular month, there will likely be more Reposh listings.
Still, he noted that there are tweaks the feature still needs. “I think while Reposh makes it easy to re-list, the old photos don’t show the item’s current condition since it was last purchased,” Anthony said.
Franco said Poshmark will continue to invest in Reposh to keep bringing sellers and buyers back to the platform. “Reposhing is also an opportunity for us to truly encourage circularity within the product, which I think is really important,” she said.
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