Meeting with Poshmark – All the Deets!

I reached out late last week to see if I could get a meeting with Poshmark, as indicated in my last post. After reaching out to Manish he connected me to Nyzelle, Community Development Specialist. They acted within hours of me reaching out, which was wonderful!

Nyzelle and I met on Monday evening via Zoom and spoke for about 40 minutes. She was gracious and open and answered my questions directly and honestly. For everyone who feels you’re not being heard – you really are!!

Below is a summary of what we talked about.

Search: What changed and how do we pivot to accommodate?

Relevance: Poshmark is working on how to return more relevant listings when users search within the app. The search algorithms are very complicated, especially when you have multiple filters being used as the default. While Just Shared is the default, they are also working on Relevance. We all know how frustrating it is when we search for something specific and there is a closet that hasn’t been active since 2019 pop-up. Their developers are working on ways to shove inactive closets way down in the search results in addition to looking at other ways of handling inactive closets.

One of the other items we’ve been seeing is, when we search for something very specific (such as if we’re searching for comps) the search returns some wonky stuff. At one point I did a search for “Anthropologie wide leg linen pants” and I got a few at the top of my search but it quickly devolved into tops, necklaces, etc. It makes it hard to find comps!

As a person who works in the software development world, I can tell you firsthand how difficult it is to work with data and search functions (data = closets & listings). You try one thing, another breaks, you try another and it breaks something else. This is an extremely complicated undertaking but they have heard us and are working on Relevance, specifically inactive closets. No word of deactivating old closets.

Simple Search: Poshmark has been open about the fact that they have changed search results to make the user experience easier to find items while they’re in the app, so they have implemented some simple search features to assist. This has complicated things with SEO and searching for comps. Nyzelle and I talked about strategies for working with this and I will post a new write-up by the end of the week about how to both retain SEO and satisfy simple search. This will not be going away however they will continue to tweak. This is our new normal, but there are ways to work around it that are actually quite simple and effective. The best news is this won’t be a drastic change or require tons of work to fix in your closets so everyone can relax a bit. There are admittedly also still some issues with search. I was assured this is the highest priority and they are working on fixing it.

One cool new feature that I wasn’t personally aware of is that the simple search phrasing works not just with the title but with your descriptions! So, if you have a title that’s fully SEO’d it shouldn’t be affected by simple search. If you have the search phrase in your listing description** the search engine will find it and send your listing to the searcher. For example, if you have a listing title that says, “David Yurman Citrine On Point Cable Silver Ring w/ Diamonds 20mm” you can add a different phrase in your description that says “Sterling Silver Citrine ring” and it will send your listing out if someone uses that phrase to search.

**Important Note: This does not mean that you should keyword stuff your listings!!! I’m sure you’ve all seen listings that have a ton of keywords at the bottom of the description; that’s “keyword stuffing”. Please do not do this. Keyword stuffing actually penalizes your closet in the SEO realm. Nyzelle and I spoke about this and she confirmed this is a practice that needs to stop. Search engines are programmed to ignore pages (our listings) that do this and it will not help you in the Poshmark search engine. It’s a pretty negative practice. If you SEO your listings and are descriptive of the item this is sufficient and your listings will be found.

Testing – Group A & Group B Clarification

While on the Fireside Chat, Tracy mentioned how they used two groups, Group A (control group) and Group B (test group). The community felt like there was some ambiguity and there was concern about whether they were testing these changes on live closets – myself included.

This was simply a misunderstanding and was not stated correctly in the Fireside Chat.

They did test on live closets however the people who were testers knew about it and had a mechanism to report any issues they were experiencing. Testing happened over a year ago!! Poshmark’s software development lifecycle (the way they program) is quite robust and they are doing things “the right way,” so we can all relax about that one.

This also means, for all of you stating, “I want to be taken out of the test group!” This isn’t a thing… Everyone has the changes already (since February) and no one is singled-out, they’re not in specific groups, there is no shadow banning, and there are no offline or shadow servers that people get stuck on. These are all conspiracy theories that have arisen in the community and in groups and it’s wildly incorrect. If anyone is interested in hearing how software platforms are set up and the infrastructure (servers) to run a platform let me know and I’ll be happy to do a post on it.

Ambassador 2: How has this Affected our Closets?

For some of my long-time followers and people who have been on the platform since the original Ambassador program rolled out, you may remember when we saw a similar slow-down at the beginning. (I explain it here.) It is my hypothesis that Ambassador 2 has resulted in a similar slow-down and that we should see basically the same trend as in 2017. Since we are three months in I will be closely tracking the next three to confirm.

The whole purpose of the PA2 program is to create sales for us, to drive traffic to our closets. There are a lot of people who are concerned their new followers are new users – but this means the algorithms are doing their job, not that you’re not getting quality followers. The whole idea behind it is to decrease our amount of hustle so that we can let the platform bring the sales to us.

Another community concern is the requirements for keeping PA2. Many of you are concerned about losing it since sales have been slow – the 50 sales benchmark is daunting for those who have decreased sales. Nyzelle told me that if you’re reaching the end of the quarter, have met all the other requirements but are missing on the number of sales you can reach out to PM support to get a manual review. Their goal is not to penalize people if they have a bad quarter – they want us to succeed, and they can manually override you losing it.

The good news is that we are now on the upswing and everything is rebounding. People are seeing increases in sales and closet traffic, engagement from new people, lots of follows and shares. With OG Ambassador we saw sales rebounding around about month 3-4 and everyone was back in full swing around month 6, so I am hoping we see a similar trend. As a reminder, the Ambassador algorithms send traffic to your closet based on what you’re selling. When new users come on board PA2 will promote your closet to them if your items match their My Size & brand follows. PA2’s are also promoted to established closets the same way. We also benefit from extra perks. You can find details here on the PA2 program.

Listing: Pictures

One item confirmed is that Poshmark is recommending plain, white backgrounds for pictures. This makes a lot of sense because this is what search engines “like” also. Clear pictures of your item are like candy to a search engine so if you’re using SEO & implement this for your photos you should be a happy camper. This doesn’t mean you have to go change every listing in your closet, although you can if you want. You can phase this in with new listings if that’s a big challenge for existing listings. For all of you who spend tons of time editing, putting borders on and text of the brands, this is hurting you. Go back to the basics: well-lit, plain background, clean, crisp photos.

Just make sure your for sale items are…how do I say this?…relevant. Check the trend reports, see what’s selling and act accordingly. If you’re a person who has worked really hard and hasn’t had any luck be super honest with yourself. Are your items dated and are the styles those that people want to buy right now? Are your items of good quality? Are your photos great? Are you including measurements in your listings? If you have a whole lot of 10-year-old Maurices items, wrinkly, faded Old Navy, or mall brand items from 2010, chances are that’s a big part of your problem. Have a very clear vision of who your buyer is!

What does this all mean?

All of these feature rollouts along with Ambassador 2 have created somewhat of a perfect storm that’s slowed everyone’s sales (not to mention, we are still in a pandemic).

Summarized, here is what we’ve been dealing with since February:

• Changes in search by adding simple search
• Flip-flop in search from Relevance being the default to Just Shared being the default
• Tweaks to include Relevance as a second filter
• Ambassador 2 program rollout

That’s a lot! It’s no wonder sales have wigged-out!

Poshmark Visibility

We ended our conversation talking about the frustrations of the community, one of the most frustrating being that Poshmarkers don’t have any visibility into what’s happening or what’s coming, and that we have no time to prepare for changes. I explained to her how the lack of transparency, especially with major changes that we’ve had this year, is causing a lot of discord, creating mistrust, and leading to these wild rumors and conspiracy theories in the community – because we have nothing that’s telling us otherwise. Nyzelle agreed. They are hearing us and will try to give everyone a heads-up in the future when changes are happening.

Poshmark is also having internal discussions about ways to increase community engagement and has heard the community – truly. I cannot share with you specific plans, but they have some exciting things coming in the future that will ensure sellers have everything they need, will be doing more education, will implement more transparency, and are planning ways for more engagement between PMHQ and the community.

Final Thoughts

Long story short, while everyone is blaming search for their problems it’s actually the PA2 rollout that’s decreased sales. This doesn’t mean you should run to PM asking them to remove your PA2 status, because I can tell you from firsthand experience, when it kicks in you will get tons of traffic and increased sales. My sales have gone way up in the last couple of weeks which is a pleasant surprise and I’ve had many saying theirs are rebounding too. This will happen for you too!

I left the call feeling very encouraged. Nyzelle was open, honest, informed, and answered every, single question with full transparency. I really appreciated that! I’ve shared with you what I can but we left the call with plans to stay in touch and have future calls. I know it sounds like I’m drinking the Kool-Aid but, quite frankly, they are a robust company that is approaching these problems quite seriously and I’m super encouraged by what I was told. They realize how upset the community is and they are taking steps to solve these problems.

In the meantime, remember what I said above – you should start to see increased traffic if you haven’t already. If your closet is complete crickets you can reach out to PMHQ Support to see if anything is wrong, but if you stay active (share, follow, list, like, buy) you will see the same coming back to you – this is social commerce, after all! Don’t be afraid to change up your routine for a week or tweak the way you’re listing to see if you can stimulate new traffic, and if it works, keep it up. Remember: Poshmark is a social commerce platform, so the more active you are, the more active your closet will be! Feel free to message me with any questions by commenting below.

Hang in there Posh Fam! I know this has been hard but I’m extremely encouraged by what’s coming.

XO,

poshmark_paige

Hey Poshmark, Let’s Talk

I have worked in software development and e-commerce for over 15 years. I have an acute understanding of the software development lifecycle and how companies should develop and test platform changes because it is my job to do these things. 

One of the rules that is not broken, ever, is to test out platform changes on live data. When I refer to “live data” I am referring to users closets and real time activity. You can imagine my surprise when, listening to the fireside chat, I hear them speak about testing being performed on Group A and Group B, live closets on the Poshmark platform. The logical assumption is that the platform changes were tested out in the live, production system that is the Poshmark platform. I’ve never seen a company do this. It’s just not done. It’s not only unethical, it’s completely against everything developers KNOW to do. 

How can Poshmark explain away using these groups as test subjects when answering a question about why sales drastically decreased, why the search algorithms were not working correctly, why users were not given the opportunity to opt in or opt out of being in a beta test group?

Is Poshmark really saying they’re the direct cause of sales decreases / lost revenue for these two groups of real time, live closets? Is there really to be no mention of reparations that need to be made to the sellers who lost a lot of money during this undisclosed testing phase? A testing phase that was neither communicated nor truthfully represented in the following months when users were begging for answers?

I’m really disturbed. 

We are the First Poshers, who have been here since the very beginning. This platform was built on our blood, sweat & tears. We have developed the SEO Method, educated people about how software algorithms work, navigated not just one, but two Ambassador programs, and learned how to create a sustainable business working within the vague and unknowns. We figured it out. Poshmark has learned from us and has gone public on our backs.

We deserve truthful answers from developers who know what they’re talking about. I am offering to speak directly with the developers and can translate the meaning to the Poshers I’ve educated for years. 

It’s time we had some real talk. Y’all know where to find me.

Poshmark Paige

Poshmark Rolls Out New Bulk Features

I’ve been thinking a lot about the new bulk features Poshmark has rolled out to most users. This is a real game-changer for everyone. The normal activity of sharing your closet seems a little lost now that the feed is flooded with listings from people bulk sharing their closets, doesn’t it? People are reporting slower sales, which normally happens in the summer months, but this year, it feels a lot slower all around. There are ways to combat the summer slow-down. With this new roll-out we have to strategize what we do on a day to day basis.

First, let’s review the changes:

If you look at the top of your closet you’ll see a gear/tool icon:

The bulk sharing feature is here:

To bulk share, select the listings, then click on “Share to Followers”:

Poshmark will start sharing from the bottom items up, retaining your closet order.

Sounds great, right? It really is and it combats the bots (huge!), however it does create a new problem: an insanely flooded, fast-moving sharing feed. What does this mean for us? TIME TO USE STRATEGY. It’s time to go back to some fundamentals that we know work:

1) SEO

I’ve been spending the last two weeks testing my theory. I already have SEO in my closet, and I’m still seeing the same amount of guest buyers so this hasn’t changed in the slightest and still remains the most important activity we can do! Some have pointed out that this is old info from a few years back. Yes, yes it is, but guess what? Everything on this blog is still relevant! Search engine optimization remains the gold standard for closet strategy, so if you haven’t implemented this into your listings, now is the time to do it.

2) Following

Many people don’t believe that following others makes a difference. Let me tell you – it does! I stopped following for about a month just to see what would happen. I wanted to test the theory. My closet came to a screeching halt, especially with these new features. It felt like someone had tied cement blocks to my closet and dropped it to the bottom of the ocean. Four days ago I started following again. On the first day, within an hour, I received a high offer on an item. Within the next two hours I had a full-ask purchase and two more offers.

Want to know why? Visibility!

If you think about your News feed you can see when someone shares your item and you can see when someone follows you (but not all the noise from shares in the feed). This is the activity that is going to become key right now. I have been following ~1000 to 3000 users per day and my News feed has blown up with shares and follows. It feels to me like people are going back to the basic fundamentals of the News feed. They are responding more to the direct activity in their closet and less about what they are seeing in the sharing feed so we have to act in kind.

Want to help research? I’d really love it if some of my followers would help me test this activity! If you follow this blog and are so inclined, spend a few days and do what I have and report back in the comments. I’d love to hear your findings!

How One Little Word, “Authentic”, Can Be a Game-Changer For The SEO Method & Poshmark

I’ve written a few times about the SEO Method and how to use keywords to drive sales to your Poshmark closet. A couple of months ago I was talking with some Poshers about SEO & keywords for the Luxury market and I had a giant “AH HA!” moment. These Poshers were talking about having higher-end items in their closets and how tough it can be to sell them, both because of the high price tags but also fighting against serial listing reporters, aka The Posh Police. Their authentic Louis Vuitton, Gucci (especially belts!!) and Chanel bags (and similar items) were being reported as not authentic and removed due to other Poshers reporting them. They were also talking about the struggle to get sales on items such as these when there are soooo many on Posh – both authentic and replicas (sadly) – because, let’s face it, for every authentic bag there are an exponentially higher number of replicas that aren’t being caught.

If you carry luxury items this is a battle you’re always going to have to fight, and there’s always going to be someone out there who is reporting Neverfulls and Boy Bags like a mad-Posher who, lets be honest, may not know as much as they think they do and are reporting authentic bags.

So, I sat back and thought about it for a minute… and realized that one little word can not only solve some listing problems, but also have the benefit of driving outside sales to your closet via the SEO Method!

💡 “Authentic”! 💡

Let’s say I’m someone who is on Google searching for a new-to-me (used) Neverfull. I sit down to search and type in “Louis Vuitton Neverfull”. I’m going to get hits from the LV website, naturally, and other high-end department stores. I’ll see some Poshmark or The Real Real in the shopping section, but as I scroll I’m also going to see sites selling replicas. There are a LOT of them out there and they’re not going away. By adding one little word, I’m narrowing my search, because most of those replica sites will never use the word “authentic”. These are fly-by-night pages who rank fast & high but that also don’t stick around long due to Google taking them down with their own algorithm Gods.

By searching “Louis Vuitton Authentic Neverfull” a whole new search engine world opens! It’s going to show more listing hits than junk – and if you’re the one selling that bag you want to be high-up in that search result (ranked)!

How do you do it? Add the keyword “authentic” to your Poshmark listing in the:

1. Title,
2. First ten words,
3. Last ten words

That’s it! (If you don’t understand this please read the SEO Method post, learn how to SEO your listings and this will make sense.)

Also, remember to share your listing to Pinterest and Tumblr, and add Instagram for good measure if you’re active there. This gets your images out there which is the second most important piece to getting a high SEO ranking for your listing. Original images rank the best! If you’re dead set on using a stock image make sure it’s not the first one but remember that there are thousands of them out there already. Using them doesn’t help you stand out. (Again, I talk about these items in much more detail on the other SEO posts so go check them out!)

One other piece of advice that goes along with this – if you’re going to start revamping existing listings consider a fresh re-listing of the item altogether. This will accomplish a few things; you’ll:

• Hit Fresh Closets
• Hit Just In for that brand and be at the top
• Make the algorithm Gods happy by getting rid of a stale listing
• Have a listing that is starting outside search engine optimization ranking fresh & clean

Sure, it’s tough to lose likers if you have a lot of them but, if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll realize that those buyers probably would have pulled the trigger a long time ago if they were really gonna. The benefits far outweigh the loss of some likers and you’ll gain a ton of new ones plus run a very high likelihood of getting a full-price sale from an online shopper new to Posh (isn’t that the BEST?!)!

The SEO Method continues to be one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal as sellers and by adding this one little tip, one little “Authentic” keyword, I am hoping Luxury Market sellers’ lives will become just a little bit easier and a whole lot more profitable!

I will continue to improve the SEO Method as I learn more about Poshmark & keyword triggers but I think this new discovery is really going to be a Poshmark SEO social commerce game-changer!

Happy Poshing, y’all!

♥️ Poshmark_Paige

Poshmark, VA’s & Bots: What to Know When Hiring a Closet Service

We see them everywhere. VA’s tagging us on Insta. Website promising amazing closet bumps when using their services.

If it sounds too good to be true – IT IS.

Posh has started cracking down HARD on anyone using bots. Accounts are getting suspended (as in, entire closets wiped out) and they’re flagged as bot users and Posh is requiring them to sign an acknowledgement that they will never use a bot again. They’re getting one shot and Posh restores their closets, but if caught again, they will be banned permanently. It’s a start, but is like putting one of those teeny 1″ band aids on a slashed artery.

A “bot” is an application that will share, follow, etc. for you and is purchased from someone else. They’re all over Instagram and they’re targeting the community promising amazing results and increased sales/exposure. They’re also *strictly prohibited* by Poshmark, but they are everywhere and the providers of these bots are growing exponentially every day.

The problem with bots is that they are random programmers who do not work for Poshmark and they’re developing software that is hitting Posh’s network without any knowledge of how Poshmark is actually coded.

That’s a BIG PROBLEM. Posh has to put resources into combatting this problem when it could be using them to create new features!

Posh’s network is set up to accommodate PEOPLE, not bots. The bots overload the servers, eat up all the memory and processors (the engine behind Posh) and essentially wreak havoc. Posh works hard to recover, but that is not an easy process and people are NOT obeying the anti-bot mandates. From a programming standpoint, it’s pretty hard to identify a bot but there are ways (and to protect Posh, I’m not going to tell y’all how they would discover it because I don’t want to give anyone the tools they need to find a bot that would be hard to detect. Love y’all, but mama didn’t raise no fool. 😊).

“So, what does this mean for me?” you ask.

Make good decisions. Use your brain. If we’re being honest it’s unlikely a VA or service is actually making a significant amount of money without using a bot themselves. That is not to say there are some who are successful but if it’s a challenge for everyone else, it’s a challenge for them. There’s a reason why bots were built – because people don’t want to put in the work themselves.

If you’ve hired VA’s (virtual assistants) make sure you’ve done your due diligence. These have been *widely* known to use bots, so if you don’t *really* know your VA or their methods you run the risk of getting your account restricted if they don’t follow the rules. Not to mention, if Posh sees you logging into your account in the US and you’ve hired a company outside the US you are opening yourself up to a whole host of problems and risk that Posh will flag/restrict your account.

And if your entire closet suddenly disappears and you’ve been using a bot – this is why. Email Posh, fess-up (because they already know), delete the sucker and don’t do it again! 😊

ADDITIONAL NOTE. Remember – a plug in is also a “bot”! The bots run as plug ins in your browser and act like you. You have to direct it places. Just because something isn’t labeled specifically for Poshmark doesn’t mean it doesn’t fall under the category as against Poshmark policy. Food for thought.

Poshmark & Social Commerce – The New Way to Shop

Manish Chandra just posted a blog that makes this geek girl’s heart SING! It’s just full of DATA and yummy tidbits we’ve been itching to get our manicured mitts upon. (I especially loved seeing what’s trending across the country but also cringed a bit that it seems like fanny packs are back in!)

What I particularly love is this new e-commerce term: Social Commerce.

Think about it.

Social.

Commerce.

My mind is particularly blown a wee bit because, in retrospect, I realize that’s what we’ve been doing the whole time we’ve been Poshmark sellers, but did you ever really think that this is a benchmark moment, a new social construct in the making??

Sure, online selling and buying is normal for us but the numbers! Seeing how Social Commerce evolves into being by mixing all the social media platforms, influencers, and online resale platforms all together has formed a new way of shopping and developing style is mind blowing. It’s no longer out of the realm of possibility for someone who sees an item on HRH Meghan Markle (Aquazurra heels & Everlane cashmere sweaters) and be able to purchase the same styles – and feel confident doing it because they can actually talk to the seller about how items fit & feel!!

People are now becoming much more confident and daring in their purchases because introducing a social element to the shopping experience empowers them to make bolder choices, not second guessing themselves about price, fit, condition – because there’s a conversation involved! Poshmark was (and is) on the leading edge of this new wave of how we shop. Poshers are members of the Posh community which doesn’t just include Poshmark. It extends into Facebook where there are tons of groups dedicated to the platform, allll the social media platforms, but also when you’re out & about and someone mentions your fabulous new boots, “Where did you find them?” — “I bought them on Poshmark!”, to consignment stores when you knowingly lock eyes with and grin at a fellow thrifter.

We are socially shopping online, moving and adapting what we’re doing based upon the platform we’re in but there’s still a non-screen phenomenon that happens when you’re bit by the Poshmark bug. You want to tell people about it. You want people to ask about your new boots because you want to crow about the deal you got! You want to empower the people who are Marie Kondo-ing their closets to signup and sell it on Poshmark instead! (Or, lets be real, you just want them to give you their trashbags instead of taking them to Goodwill, amiright??)

Fashion is now accessible to any and all who want to discover it and we have a social network behind us that’s cheering us on all the way. I, for one, am thrilled that I joined up six years ago and I’m going to be barreling into 2019 full tilt, confident that, even if I don’t always know what I’m doing, I have lots of other people I can lean on, talk to (even at 2am), and am doing it on a platform that supports me socially, ethically and is on the front-edge of this new fashion era. “Social commerce” for the win!

Happy Poshing!

Poshmark_Paige

Insta: Poshpaige661

What is “The Algorithm” & How Does it Affect Me on Poshmark?

First of all, I want to say that it’s FANTASTIC that people are trying to learn more about the inner workings of Poshmark. Kudos! That’s what’s going to set you apart. Today, I want to focus specifically on what a software algorithm is and consider how the algorithms affect you in your everyday Poshmark business model.

By its very definition, an algorithm is a formula that is coded to take a very specific action in a software program. Poshmark (the program) as a whole is a huuuuuuge, elaborate & beautiful puzzle of many, many algorithms all set to make Poshmark work. Every algorithm solves a problem, takes an action, triggers an action from another algorithm, helps gather data….it’s all quite complicated, really. You don’t have to be a software programmer to understand the basics of algorithms and why you should consider how your Poshmark closet actions are being affected by them.

I get a lot of questions such as:

“Did The Algorithm change? My closet slowed down a lot this week!”

“If I block this person will The Algorithm see that as bad or slow me down?”

“Everyone is always talking about ‘The Algorithm’ but I just don’t think it’s real. Is it real?” <—- my favorite question because it just makes me laugh. YEEEES, it’s real!! Algorithms are the very basis of software programming, ding dong!

The answer to all these questions is, “Yes,” but it’s a lot more complicated than just….yes. If Poshmark rolls out a new feature, that’s both new algorithms and changes to existing ones. Sure, it affects you. It can cause a temporary rhythm change in your closet. That’s normal; that’s software programming and releases. Want new features & bug fixes? Posh will be rolling out new programming (algorithms) to do that.

I’d like everyone, essentially, to stop obsessing about “the algorithm” and concentrate on how to leverage the Poshmark software platform to run your business.

But, back to the blocking question because this is one I get a LOT and I’m constantly counseling Poshers to hold back on the block button.

Blocking one person won’t hurt you – but blocking excessively will have a negative impact on your closet as its anti-community as well as unnecessary.

Why isn’t blocking necessary?

Because Posh has a ton of algorithms to handle the behaviors that make you want to block them in the first place!

Is the person you want to block spamming your listings? Flag their comments as spam and the algorithms written to solve that problem will remove the comment(s).

Are they a perv? Report them for harassment and flag their comments and let the software (algorithms) handle it. Even if you block them they can still see your closet so…what’s the point?

Ever notice how the spam accounts/comments where people are asking you to call them or email them just magically disappear without you reporting it? Algorithm!

Are they lowballing you? So what?? Counter with your lowest and let the Algorithm Gods get happy because you have positive activity happening in your closet (the act of receiving an offer and countering is “positive”). And I’ll reiterate what I always say – Always counter, never decline! Now, if you’ve countered them several times and they just seem to want to play games it’s completely fine to let a counter expire. That’s not negative.

I’m not saying there’s never a reason to block. Sometimes you just have to – and that’s ok! Just don’t be a block-happy person who automatically blocks every person that someone else has had a problem with because it’s completely unnecessary.

Everything we do has cause and effect and is monitored by the algorithms. We’ve talked about positive and negative behaviors before:

Positive

• Following
• Sharing (both self-shares & from the Feed)
• Listing
• Re-listing stale listings
• Welcoming/sharing new Poshers
• Purchasing & leaving Love Notes
• Reviewing reported listings when Posh asks (in your Comments feed)
• Fast ship time
• Sharing to social media
• Responding to offers (even at full ask!)

Negative

• Excessive blocking
• Using bots
• Spamming listings
• Making harassing comments
• Non-compliant listings
• Stale or old listings
• Canceling orders
• Slow ship time
• Multiple cases opened against you
• Excessive opening of cases against others
• Outright declining of offers (always counter!)

The moral of this story is that you don’t really need to obsess too much about the elusive Algorithm (duh duh duhnnnnn!). Posh has this; it’s what they do. But you do need to focus on what is seen as positive and negative and making sure you’re doing those things.

I’ve recommended before to research how to optimize your closet activity such as using Lyn McLaughlin Cromar’s “30 Minute Method”, using my SEO method, finding what works for you. If listing and sharing in the wee hours of the morning is working for you – keep doing it! If you see a drop in activity that seems to have no explanation, ask yourself why – and be honest. Did you get into it with another Posher? Did you have a case opened against you? Did you drastically change what you normally do? Did you start using a bot?

The great thing is – you’ll bounce back. If you got throttled (closet slowed down) because you were being a Bad Little Posher, concentrate on doing all the positive activities and things will get back to normal. The algorithms don’t hold a grudge y’all. They’re a few million steps down the road by the time you’ve figured out anything even happened.

Remember: Posh is all about #PoshLove. If you succeed, Posh succeeds. They don’t want to intentionally slow down your business but they aren’t going to give you a boost if you’re not a positive member of the community either! Now, get back to work. That death pile isn’t going to list itself! 😊

Happy Poshing!

Poshmark_Paige

The SEO Method & Poshmark – How to Use Keywords to Build Your Closet

Using the SEO Method in your Poshmark Listings (Search Engine Optimization) is one of the top tools for any serious Poshmark seller.

First, I’m going to start out by saying you don’t really need to read all the websites and watch YouTube videos that tell you how to optimize your webpages (eBay, retail pages, ecommerce, etc.).

POSHMARK IS NOT in that arena!!!

The Difference: Retail pages, eBay listings & websites all have static pages (and all kinds of stuff in the background you don’t even want me to get into). They don’t really change. To a search engine, those pages sit out in the wonderland of the internet and chill, and the search engine Gods “find” the content and do this thing called “indexing” where they find keywords and give it a score. When a page hits a certain score it goes up up up in the search engine results as its score gets higher – listed in the top 10 instead of number 10,156, for example. That’s called ranking. High ranking = Optimization.

Poshmark listings do not rank. They are not static pages. They change every time you share them. These listings do not have the capacity to *rank* so you have to be strategic in a different way to get them to come up in search engine results.

How Do I Get My Listing to Show-Up in Search Engines and in Insta/Pintrest/etc.?

1) Have a Perfect Title

Example of a “perfect title”: Michael Kors Mercer Snakeskin Tote Mulberry

Example of the same bag in a not-so-perfect title: Micheal Kors Lizard Bag in Red

What’s wrong with the NSP title?

-Spelled “Micheal” incorrectly

-Did not use the product style name

-Did not use the correct color or material

Note: ALWAYS put the brand in your title!!! That’s your main buzz keyword(s)! Search engines do not search on the brand listing tag that you use when posting a listing. The *only* search engine that uses that is Poshmark!

2) Have a Perfect Description

Research your product! If you search for the MK Mercer online you should go to the manufacturer’s website whenever possible. If you cannot find it in a current manufacturer site, search for it as a “comp” on other sites like The Real Real, eBay, etc.

Example of a “perfect description”:

Picturing the Mercer Tote from Michael Kors in color Mulberry.

**STOP**

Notice that first sentence?? It has a very specific formula!

-It’s no more than 10 words! (Important – search engines look at the first 10 words at the beginning of a section)

-It has all the same keywords BUT they are changed-up a bit (search engines HATE repetitiveness!!!)

…..Continuing…..

Picturing the Mercer Tote from Michael Kors in color Mulberry. Style# 30H7GM9T3L

Genuine snakeskin, with an ultra-rich take on the MK original Mercer tote. The streamlined silhouette features structured top handles, a removable shoulder strap, with a median zippered compartment for smaller items. Finished with a new MK minimalist lock charm, this tote combines signature style with a wild spirit.

DETAILS

• 100% Water Snake

• Gold-Tone Hardware

• 12.5″W X 9.75″H X 5.5″D

• Handle Drop: 5.5″

• Adjustable Strap: 15.75″-18.25″

• Interior Details: 2 Open Compartments, Center Zip Compartment, Back Zip Pocket

• Lining: 100% Microsuede

• Imported

OBSERVE LAST LINE (I’ll come back to this)—->Grab the Mulberry Mercer Snakeskin Tote & embrace the wild!

Awesome description right?? IT SHOULD BE! I grabbed it from the MK website, BUT I changed it just enough that it kept all the buzzwords without being outright plagiarism.

Know what that does?? It piggy-back’s on an already-proven top-ranked website and uses the same keywords which will automatically put you right up at the top, too.

Don’t forget to include that style number (and style name)! People will search for those just to find a very specific product. Clothing has an RN# on all the inside tags. Replace the style number with the RN# on all clothing.

Check out that last line though… Also VERY important. I’m closing the listing with the last ten words containing a lot of the same keywords used in the 1) Title and 2) Description First Sentence. You don’t have to have all of them if you can’t make an only-ten-word sentence, but you should keep the most important. Search engines will look at the beginning ten and the ending ten for those keywords so this completes the SEO formula. Just remember to change it up! Keep it within ten words, use the same keywords but don’t duplicate the same sentence anywhere because search engines hate repetitiveness (even though I’m repeating it to drill it into your skull!).

Obviously this listing example has a very specific product in mind. If you don’t have those kinds of details just think about what people would search for! If you have a royal blue racer back tank then use “Royal Blue Racer Back Tank Top” in your title and in keywords. Do NOT say, “Blue Top” because it’s not specific enough. No one looking for a racer back tank is going to be taken to your listing with a title like that…

I know this seems confusing and like a ton of information but it’s genuinely quite easy once you have done it a few times. If you follow the formula, you’ll always pop up in those searches!

To recap:

1) Have the perfect Title – ALL the right product descriptive keywords that people would search

2) Have the perfect Description – First ten words have keywords and last ten words have keywords, but in different orders/sentence structure. In the middle, make sure your product description is as close to the manufacturer’s as you can get without plagiarizing.

3) And, for goodness sake, have most-excellent pictures!

It’s truly that simple! Happy to have a Q&A about any of this content. I know it’s A LOT. Just read through it slowly and practice. You can’t get it wrong and kill your listings – you can only IMPROVE your results by following the SEO method!

Kim @poshmark_paige