Texas Mom Profits from Poshmark Sales

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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In today's story, a Texas mother of two uses Poshmark and other platforms to buy and resell clothes earning an extra $1,000 a month. Reselling remains a very easy and accessible side hustle. It's pretty much as evergreen as it gets. In fact, even in the age of COVID, which does present some logistical challenges, which I'll discuss a little bit, it is still possible. It's very possible, in fact.

This story will also neatly and briefly summarize a few top tips for selling clothes you already have, or if you want to go thrifting, like the person you'll hear about in the story. A few small things can make a big difference in turning over your items quickly and for the maximum price. So we'll talk about that. I will also recap those tips at the end with a short analysis. All that is coming up after this quick message from our sponsor.

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Chelsea Bagley finds clothes and other in-demand items have thrift stores, yard sales, and estate sales, and then she then resells them online, essentially spinning used threads into gold, or at least cash money. In addition to working part-time at a fashion company, Chelsea looks after two young daughters at home. She discovered thrift and consignment stores when she had her first child. Her daughter grew out of her clothes so fast that buying expensive new outfits seemed like a waste of money. While looking for used baby clothes online, Chelsea discovered Poshmark, an e-commerce marketplace.

She realized this platform would not only allow her to purchase clothes for her daughter, but it would also enable Chelsea to sell some of her own clothes that she didn't wear anymore. She took photos of a few items and posted them. Within a week, she made her first sale. With that easy $20 in her bank account, Chelsea reinvested by hitting up her local thrift store and picking out four more shirts that she thought she could resell. She thought, why not?

She'd only lose $20 if it didn't work out. But two of the shirts sold immediately for $25 each. From there, Chelsea was hooked. It was just a small profit, but she saw the future. She discovered which stores have the lowest prices in her area.

She researched various ways to ship and save money. And she learned how to properly check comps before even making a purchase. At the beginning of 2020, Chelsea expanded beyond Poshmark by cross-listing her clothing items to eBay. She now also lists on Facebook Marketplace. Over the course of selling hundreds of items, she's made some bad buys, things she was certain would sell, but never did.

But the more she researches and the more she learns about certain niches, like clothing, glass and antiques, the more likely she is to spot the duds and avoid purchasing them. If she could go back, she says, she would focus on one niche or market at a time. But she wouldn't have waited so long to expand from Poshmark to the other selling platforms. That's because instead of spending her time looking for customers, these platforms bring Chelsea's customers to her. But she's also applied some general marketing techniques to help the process work as well as possible and to stand out from the crowd.

What are those techniques? Well, she's learned photos must look attractive and professional, especially when selling on eBay. White backgrounds typically work best and mannequin or modeled photos tend to give a boost whenever she's selling clothes. In terms of SEO, she's learned to always put the brand name first and give as much descriptive language as the character limits will allow. She admits it's basically keyword stuffing, which is not usually recommended for websites and blogs, but it can be good for eBay and other selling platforms.

For Chelsea, the best thing about it is she doesn't feel the need to worry about money as much as she used to. If she needs a little extra money one month, or if she and her family want to save up for something special, she can work a little harder and get what she needs. With reselling, you typically get out of it what you put in. So if Chelsea is disciplined and adds new items on a regular basis, she can now easily clear over $1,000 a month in net income. Other months, she may take a break and only make a few hundred.

She gets a lot of joy from helping used items find new life. A lot of the things she sells would otherwise end up in a landfill, but instead they go to people who will enjoy them. Plus she almost always chooses nonprofit thrift stores. So her money goes to the organization and ultimately helps her community. But what about the pandemic?

Reselling has become a little more difficult due to COVID-19. It isn't as easy to rummage for promising new items when stores are closed or limited, but Chelsea is keeping at it. And she's also blogging about non-toxic living through a new blog called Nesting Naturally. [Music]

All right, so let's recap those tips. And as mentioned, reselling is still totally possible these days.

And I don't just mean in terms of 2020 pandemic life or, you know, whenever you're listening to this, I just mean, you know, 20 years ago, I started selling stuff online and buying things and learning how to resell it. And that model still very much exists. You can learn a lot by doing it, even if you don't do it for the rest of your life. So top tips from this episode. Number one, buy the right items.

So I said something about checking comps. Basically what she's doing is she's going online to see before she makes a purchase, is this item selling elsewhere or has it sold elsewhere in the past few months? So you can usually see expired listings, listings that have recently sold or closed on these various platforms. So good to check that out. Number two, more than one platform.

So she says, you know, she wished that she hadn't started selling a whole bunch of other items first, you know, before she learned more about it. But on the other hand, she wishes she had been on more than one platform. Okay, so specialize in something, but list those items in more than one location. It's very easy to do with these platforms like Poshmark, eBay, Facebook Marketplace. There's some others.

Those are just three of the bigger ones. Number three, photos matter a lot. I would say photos matter a ton, especially if it's for clothes, but really for anything, you definitely want to stand out, have really good photography. It's not that hard to learn, you know, some basic photo skills, even with your phone. They can make your photos look a lot better than what other people do.

And speaking of what other people do, there was this tip about stuffing your keywords. You know, it sounds kind of negative when you say it like that, but basically it just means, you know, use those brand names. If you're selling, you know, a branded fashion item or whatever it is, make sure that keyword is in the title. Make sure it's in the first sentence of the description. Repeat it a little bit later.

If there's multiple keywords associated with that brand or that item, don't be afraid to use them. I mean, this is an auction listing. That's what people are searching for. So don't hold back. And of course, remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you find these stories encouraging. I hope they get you thinking and nudge you along the path. Today's show notes, including links to everything I mentioned in the episode, as well as Chelsea's new blog, anything else, sidehustleschool.com/1373. One, three, seven, three.

All right, that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the "Onward Project."