Poshmark vs eBay

If you are looking to build a side hustle with reselling and trying to decide which platform to sell on this is the post for you! We have been resellers on eBay for the past 18 years in addition to selling on Poshmark for the past 10 years. We will compare selling on Poshmark vs eBay.

Fees

As a reseller, we are in business for Profits! Fees have an impact on those profits. Let’s compare the selling fees on Poshmark vs eBay.  When selling on Poshmark there just two fee structures. If an item has a final sale price of $15 or less you are charged a flat selling fee of $2.95.  An item that has a final sales price of over $15 has a 20%  commission. Poshmark does not charge a listing fee.

eBay, on the other hand, has many tiers to is selling fees.  For starters, eBay charges a 10% commission on the final sales price which includes the shipping price. eBay allows users 50 free listings once you used your free listings eBay charges a listing fee of $0.35 per listing. For sellers who have a large inventory of items, eBay Stores may be the option for you. eBay stores require a monthly subscription fee in return your listing fees are removed and you may qualify for lower final fees. eBay offers five different levels of stores. Determining which store option is best depends on the number of items you plan to list. Additionally to the commission rate, eBay payments are processed through PayPal. PayPal charges a processing fee of 2.9% in addition to  $0.30 per transaction.

When it comes to comparing Poshmark vs eBay fees, the Poshmark fee structure is very easy to understand. eBay fees are actually less than Poshmark fees but can be very complicated to track. 

We will compare the fees involved with selling a pair of shoes with a final selling fee of $40.

Poshmark 

$40 x .80% (20%-100%=80%) = $32 Profit

eBay

$40 x .87% (10% eBay Fee + 2.9% PayPal Fee = 13%) =$34.80 – 0.30 Paypal fee = $34.50 Profit

Shipping

When looking at Poshmark vs eBay, shipping is very easy on Poshmark compare to eBay.  On Poshmark the buyers pay a flat shipping rate of $7.11 unless you as seller provide a discount. The shipping rate covers packages 5lbs and less.

eBay is a very competitive market place on the pricing of products. In the Amazon prime era, buyers expect items very quickly.  With many sellers competing with each other most sellers offer free shipping. On eBay, the sellers are responsible for setting up the shipping.  If you have sold on Poshmark for some time and decide to sell on eBay as well shipping can be challenging at first.  If you plan to offer free shipping a good rule of thumb is to review or have an understanding of what it cost to ship different items from your zip code to other locations. You will soon find out how good we have it on Poshmark shipping.  Below we will compare shipping an item on Poshmark vs eBay.

Estimate to Ship a 5 lb item Priority from New York to California

Poshmark Cost – $7.11

eBay Cost- $26.70

If that item was able to fit in a flat rate:

Small Box – $8.30

Medium Box- $15.05

Large Box – $21.10

As you can see shipping items on Poshmark will be cheaper in most cases. The one exception you will find that is a much better option on eBay is when shipping items that are under a 16oz. Items under 16oz qualify for first class shipping. Shipping on eBay you will need to either pad your price with the shipping cost to offer free shipping or pass that fee on to the buyer which can be expensive. Passing the fee on to a buyer can make or break a deal. 

Listing Process

Listing items on Poshmark compared to eBay is very straight forward.  The listing process is very user friendly and easy to understand. eBay listings require a lot more information than on Poshmark. For example, listing a pair of shoes on eBay requires 15-20 minimum fields not including shipping, compared to 8 fields on Poshmark in addition to the description field. 

Poshmark only allows users to submit 8 photos per listing, which are in a square format. eBay allows users up to 12 photos for free, additional photos are an added fee. Where eBay wins the battle is the title and description fields. eBay allows up to 80 characters in the title compare to Poshmark’s 50 characters in the title. The description field on Poshmark only allows 500 characters compare to eBays 4000 character limit. 

Exposure 

eBay was founded in 1995, with that comes a large number of users, 182 million as of 2019. Poshmark was founded in 2011, and as of 2019 has 50 million users.  Poshmark has built a strong presence as a selling market place in a short time frame.  With selling on eBay you are not restricted to just the country you sell in but can sell to users on the other side of the globe. 25% of our sales on eBay are shipped outside of the United States.  Many sellers who sell on Poshmark sell on eBay, Why? You now have more possible customers. There are many times that sales may slow on one platform when sales pick up on the other. 

What You Can Sell

The Poshmark platform was built around selling clothing and fashion apparel until recently were they now allow home good items to be sold as well. You can just about sell anything on eBay, including a piece of toast! Ha.

Biggest Complaint With eBay

Our biggest complaint against selling on eBay is the lack of protection eBay gives to the seller. eBay has a very loose return policy and is nearly impossible to police. Although eBay allows sellers to select a no return policy this is not that case, if a buyer would like to return an item for any reason in the first 30 days eBay will approve these returns automatically. Over the years we have seen all sorts of issues when it comes to returns. 

• The buyer returns an empty box and keeps the product. eBay stance is they can not tell who is telling the truth and tells the seller it’s apart of doing business. The seller takes a loss. 
• The buyer allows a 30 day return period to elapse, then files a claim on Paypal. PayPal then deducts the funds from your account, your out of luck. 
• When we sold electronics we saw the highest level of cases. We would have individuals who would buy a new item and return broken items.

Complaints User Have with Poshmark 

Probably the largest complaint you will hear from users who are selling on Poshmark is the interaction required. Poshmark takes work a good bit of work! The platform is built around requiring a lot of interaction. As a seller, you need to continue to share your listings in order to keep your listing fresh and at the top of the platform. If your a seller who has 1000 listings this could take you 30-60 minutes each time. In order to bring in steady sales on Poshmark, you need to share your closet 3-4x times daily. That’s where we come in, Closet Assistant was built by resellers and is aimed to help you share your closet on Poshmark with ease. Poshmark is built just like Instagram or Facebook, you follow people, people follow you the more you have the better!

Conclusion

We have sold on both platforms and still sell on both to this day. They have their advantages and disadvantages, for a new seller, Poshmark is the easier of the two.

Happy Selling!

Other Blog Post

Our blog is filled full of Poshmark Tips! Check out our other post to learn more!

Sourcing for Poshmark 

How to Increase Poshmark Sales

Increasing Followers on Poshmark

Virtual Assistant’s – The Facts

Celebrities on Poshmark 

Learn To Ship on Poshmark