In this episode we are joined by Andrea Messer, one of Poshmarks top 1% sellers. She works full-time from home reselling clothes on Poshmark and Andrea is going to share her secrets to success with us. In this episode we talk about how she got started reselling with literally NO upfront investment. For anyone who is looking for a new work from home opportunity that’s completely on your terms, Poshmark might just be for you!
Follow Andrea on Twitter and Instagram
****Update 12/7/2016**** Andrea has updated her Poshmark username to @ShopHerPosh
Check out Andrea’s Poshmark Closet
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Andrea and her Poshmark Journey:
I am from Belleair, Florida where I grew up playing competitive golf. From age 9 until college I traveled the state and then around the country playing in golf tournaments then earning an athletic scholarship to Vanderbilt University where I studied History and English. I’ve always had a love for fashion and obsessed over Vanity Fair ads cutting them out and decorating my walls with them in high school and college. I was also a compulsive shopper and spent a lot of my money from the many jobs I had in high school and college on clothing I’d usually buy at steep discounts from outlet stores, thrift stores, local boutiques, etc. While at Vanderbilt I discovered an entirely new appreciation for fashion. I was introduced to more labels and up and coming designers like Tory Burch. The Tory Reva flats were everywhere!!!
After college I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do after giving up a former dream of law school and thought I wanted to teach. I got into graduate school in Chicago and moved there to attend an intensive graduate program to become licensed to teach high school social studies while also gaining a masters in history. My plan was to do that program full-time while also nannying full-time. In only two weeks I quit the program and got out of the $50k+ in federal student loans. I’ve never regretted it and never looked back! I am now dating a teacher and know that I was not cut out for that profession.
It was within a couple of months that I decided to finally unload my massive closet of clothing I had held on to since high school. I knew about the app Poshmark and I figured I could make a few much needed extra dollars. Right away I listed a few pieces of jewelry and then clothing and within 2 weeks I had sold over $200! My first sale was a pair of gently used Black Coach tennies I bought at Plato’s Closet for $14 and sold them for $35; My total profit was actually $14 (since Poshmark takes a 20% cut).
I realized that this hobby would be profitable.
I continued to learn the ropes of Poshmark quickly listing almost 1000 items in the first 10 months. i went to local consigment stores when they had their $1-3 sales and bought as many items as I could whenever I had some extra cash just to make sure I was “growing” my Poshmark closet. In addition to my full time job of nannying I found that I was able to make another $500-800/ month at this point doing Poshmark as a hobby.
It wasn’t until January of 2015 that I decided to really take my little Poshmark business to the “full-time” level and take it more seriously. I decided that my long commute to teach in the brutal Chicago winter was too much for me and that not having to leave my home to work was ideal. Around the holidays I came upon about 500 items that were donated to me from some friends who truly were just unloading their items. I also received another 500 items around this time that I was consigning for friends (I paid them a cut once the items sold). I quit my job and took the “plunge” into Poshmark. I tried to list my over 1000 new items as quickly as possible and then do whatever I could to actively sell them as quickly as possible. My first goal was to sell on average about $100 a day while also shipping those items out on time and listing new items. It’s a lot for one person to juggle. In my first month I saw my sales jump to $2800. That spring my sales stayed consistent around $3,000/ month until the summer slowed them down a bit to $2,000/ month. During this time I did hold onto a 1 day a week part time job that I continued to have until the following May. This was to alleviate some of the pressures of working solely online and to get me out of my apartment and actually be around people!
I became a Suggested User (SU) after learning about the program in December 2015 and saw my followers jump from 20,000 after two years to almost 90,000 in 9 months. As an SU, Poshers are put on a “wheel” and their closet is highlighted to all Poshers usually gaining almost 1000 new followers every time they are on it which is about once a week.
Since November 2015 until the present my sales have fluctuated between $3,000 and now $4,000-5000/ month even in the “slower” summer months. This increase has been due to an increase in followers and also to me ensuring that I have around 400-500 new items listed a month and that I am keeping in touch with my over 2,000 customers on a weekly or monthly basis. More than half of all of my sales are re-orders.
Now, I am aiming at hitting $8,000 a month in sales by the winter seeing that the winter months can almost double from the summer. I’ll be able to do this by continuing to increase my customer engagement, adding even more items and improving the quality of my items and ensuring that they’re on-trend and seasonally appropriate.
Recently I moved from Chicago to Boston after my boyfriend asked me to move with him. My sales throughout my move and while in Boston have stayed consistent. I don’t know of many other jobs that I could run from home anywhere at any time of day. This life transition was made much easier because I had an online business I had total control over!
I was asked to speak at PoshFest this year at their annual conference in October as part of a consultant panel however I am unable to attend due to a conflict of a religious holiday and inability to fly from Boston to LA since the holiday starts the same day as the conference is ending. For now Poshmark has been a great source of income and given me a lot of confidence to be able to run my own business. More importantly, it has allowed me the ability to serve over 2,000 women across ALL 50 states and to learn a great deal about online sales and sales in general. From here, I will definitely continue to see where my Poshmark business will take me. I am hoping that they will design a mentorship program or the ability for Poshmark Power sellers to be rewarded financially for coaching newer sellers but this remains to be seen. Right now there are almost 1 million people selling on the app. But I only know of around 2 dozen who are selling at a full-time level. I would love to see that number rise and to help other women or men do that.
Aside from Poshmark I am considering starting another business as a stylist and mentor in direct to consumer sales in the men’s fashion space. Both businesses I believe will compliment one another and the latter one will get me out from behind my smart phone and out into the world meeting other young and more senior level professionals a bit more. But if it weren’t for Poshmark I would not have had the confidence to consider this second opportunity.
Being a Poshmark entrepreneur has also provided me the opportunity to gain the respect and admiration of many baby boomers to which starting a business online seems foreign. I’ve also been able to gain some PR opportunities and interviews from my alma mater due to the unique nature of starting a fashion commerce business.
I highly suggest anyone look at Poshmark as a new opportunity to gain sales skills and to even start a business. You’ll have a lot of fun and learn a great deal about fashion along the way!
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