Part 3: Decluttering Your Workflow [Reset Your Relationship with Reselling In 2025]

It started as a dream: shopping! Working from home! Packing cute little orders for happy customers! Thank you stickers!

But then reality crept in: piles of clothes with problems. Unhappy customers. Endlessly pricey supply restocks: tissue paper, lint rolls, and those damned Thank You stickers.

What happened? And what can you do about it?

The upside of having all the responsibility of working for yourself is that you also have freedom: freedom to work when you want, how you want, in the environment you want. So let's start reshaping things.

In this series we'll address key trouble spots of the reselling lifestyle and help you make intentional choices to boost your happiness, productivity, and quality of life.

Let's do it!

Last week we discussed the 80/20 Principle when it comes to choosing inventory: how 20% of the items you sell likely generate 80% of your income, so it makes sense to try to increase those types of sales and target that kind of inventory when sourcing.

Let's next apply that principle next to our day to day work reselling. Which tasks generate 80% of sales, and which have little impact but take up lots of time? And how can we tip the balance back in our favor?

Highest ROI Activities for Poshmark Resellers

When managing your reselling business, certain activities yield significantly higher returns than others. Here are a few of the activities that generally have the most impact that are worth focusing on:

Sourcing

Obviously sourcing great inventory is key to your business. Boost your efficacy with these high return sourcing tasks:

• Researching and identifying high-margin brands and categories before shopping (and comp-ing in-store to reduce bad-buys). Bonus: framing your shopping trips around these sections of the store first (especially if you're low on time)
• Researching inventory sources available to you; timing purchases around clearance events and sales; planning shopping trips around multiple locations where you're likely to pick up lots of good inventory at once
• Searching harder and longer for items with proven quick sell-through rates and high profit margins and leaving items with mediocre sell-through rates, poor condition, or low profit margins behind. ***This is probably the single simplest way to save time on all your other activities in reselling and maximize your productivity***

Processing/Listing New Items

Let's list that amazing inventory! Here are the parts of the listing process that have the most impact:

• Writing detailed, keyword-rich descriptions for better search visibility
• Taking clear, well-lit photos that show item details
• Taking measurements and noting fabric content in listings and/or tag photos (the time saved in answering questions alone makes this worthwhile, but it will also generate sales from folks who wouldn't bother asking for measurements or fabric details, but wouldn't purchase without them)
• Finding style numbers and specific product names when available (I also use stock photos when possible to show fit, but that's not for everybody)

Sending Offers or Price Drops

We all know sending offers drives sales. Here's how to maximize your time spent doing it:

• Send offers to likers within the first 24-48 hours (waiting much longer than this greatly reduces efficacy of offers, in my experience)
• Run strategic price drops during Closet Clearouts at peak shopping times, for items with recent likes
• Offer bundle discounts to encourage multiple-item purchases (FYI: you can set this up automatically in Poshmark so it's completely hands off, though sending buyers with multiple likes in your closet a hand-generated deal is nice too)

Shipping/Inventory Management

Inventory management tends to fall to the back burner for most resellers; packing and storing items properly doesn't feel urgent until you're suddenly tearing through everything, stressed, wasting time, and making a huge mess trying to find that one stupid skirt you sold. Here's what to focus on for the biggest return for that all important inventory management work:

• Quick listing of new inventory (within 24 hours of sourcing, before it becomes ~one~ with your workspace and thus invisible to you)
• Fast, batched, regularly scheduled shipping sessions for sold items
• Regular rotation of stale inventory through relisting (preferably from scratch/from a reliable tool to reset the just-in dates on items)
• Maintaining organized storage for fast shipping and less wasted scrounging time
• Tracking inventory by age, seasonality, and brand/style demand and adjusting prices accordingly (this will also provide you invaluable information for future sourcing)

Phew, that was a lot. Now that we have a sense of what's non-negotiable with reselling work, let's consider ways to trim down these processes and get them more efficient.

1. Streamline Your Photography Process

Photos are incredibly important in reselling: if buyers don't trust that they're getting a clear picture of condition, accurate color, or the photos are just dark and unappealing, it will cost you sales. That said, spending lots of time editing photos or dragging everything outside for a temporary setup is a poor use of time. Here's what I recommend for making the most of your photo work:

• Set up a permanent photo station with consistent lighting, and consider using pre-set lighting and camera settings
• Use pro settings on phone or camera that allows you to adjust shutter speed and color temperature to accurately capture color and achieve clean, bright photos
• Batch items in similar categories so the photo process moves smoothly/you need fewer brain cells to remember all the shots you need for shoes vs. jumpsuits
• Prep (steam and lint roll) items beforehand so they're ready to rock at photo time
• Sort by color for fewer transitions between camera settings (for example, transitioning from blues to reds and oranges may require white balance camera adjustments and eat up time)
• Have tools at the ready for tackling snags, pills, lint, schmutz, or errant wrinkles so you don't have to stray from your area (psst: a spray bottle of water is an excellent, lazy way to get out wrinkles if you have time to let the fabric dry)

Photo Time Wasters to Avoid:

• Constantly rearranging your photo setup between shots or transitioning between photos and prep work
• Excessive retaking of photos due to poor lighting setup or missed shots
• Over-editing photos when better initial shots would have sufficed

2. Eliminate Repetitive Work While Listing

Let's move on to the listing process. Crafting good listings is an excellent use of your time, but don't bother focusing on flowery descriptions and superlative adjectives. Instead:

• Create templates for descriptions that include info you put in every post. Mine have notes about how I take my measurements, what my condition details mean, and what my closet discounts are
• Save frequently used measurement fields for similar items, line by line (this is also a nice way to make sure you don't miss any key measurements). For pants, for example, you might include waist, rise, inseam, and leg opening, all in a bulleted list
• Keep to a standardized framework for listings. For example, mine follow a general flow of title, condition/flaws, bulleted features/details, measurements, and closet policies)
• Keep measurement charts ready for quick reference (common go-tos for me are skirt lengths in inches (ie. midi vs. maxi skirt definitions), chests sizes in inches for various sizes for men vs. women, and leg opening guides for different styles (to differentiate straight vs. bootcut).

Listing Time Wasters to Avoid:

• Forgetting info because you're writing listings from scratch and having to double back or answer questions
• Falling down research rabbit holes

3. Eliminate Lost or Damaged Items With an Organized Inventory System

Fewer things in reselling are more heartbreaking than ***FINALLY*** selling that one thing you've had forever, then having to cancel the sale because you can't find it anymore. The time and energy waste is just...the absolute worst. Fight the chaos with these best practices:

• Organize inventory with a clear labeling system
• Store similar items together for easy access
• Maintain a digital inventory tracking system, expecially if you crosspost
• Regularly purge slow-moving items
• Store items folded, sealed, and ready to ship so you don't get any last minute nasty surprises

Inventory Time Wasters to Avoid:

• Searching for items that aren't properly organized or labeled (sometimes tidying up your space before starting work is the biggest time saver of all)
• Maintaining too large an inventory that's difficult to track (purging old items is painful, but if you imagine each item getting free rent in your system, it's easier to let go)
• Repeatedly handling the same items due to disorganization (note: this item applies to just about everything on this list)

4. Automate Digital Work

It's so easy to let sharing, relisting, and sending offers eat up you work hours. Try these tips t0 keep digital work effective and boundaried.

• Share or schedule sharing sessions at peak times, and for goodness sake, use a tool for this (there are so many free ones, including ours!). It may vary for your target audience, but generally early to mid morning, lunchtime, and early evening are safe timing bets
• Use digital inventory or cross-posting tools for selling on multiple platforms, or just to stay organized. Yes, a Google Sheet counts as a tool!
• Set up automated offers triggered by new likes or set regular times to send the likes in batches by hand
• Drop prices instead of sending offers on Closet Clearout days to make sales while saving money on shipping discounts (PSSS CCOs are almost always on Fridays and Sundays). Then, drop items that have the most recent likes; they're most likely to sell
• Sort items by listing age to regularly relist stale inventory in batches

Digital Time Wasters to Avoid:

• Sharing your closet manually (there are just too many dang tools that do this for free, including ours)
• Reacting to each individual likes with offer sending by hand all day
• Getting sidetracked by messages and comments instead of scheduled response windows

5. Bonus Tip: Focus on High-ROI Items and Buyers

I write this while knowing damn well I have a pair of YSL heels sitting in my death pile because I'm too intimidated to list them. Don't be like me!

• Prioritize listing high-profit items first (if the markets change, you don't want to miss out on a chance to make your bag)
• Spend more time sourcing proven categories and brands up front vs. bring home lots of mediocre inventory
• Focus sharing and relisting efforts on items with high engagement
• Answer questions and provide extra info for big-ticket items first

Avoid:

• Sinking time and energy into low-value items with issues (sometimes it's best to cut your losses on a bad buy vs. relisting a million times, getting something repaired, or spending hours rehabbing pilled or shrunken sweaters)
• Haggling back and forth with low ball buyers or responding to lots of hyper specific questions about low cost items (buy it or don't buy it, Karen, it's $5)

General Speed Tips for Efficient Reselling

Efficiency speed round! (heh) Feel free to apply these to other areas of your life as well. Apply these tips liberally and often to any phase of your reselling work.

1. Batch Processing

• Sort items by category before starting any task
• Have dedicated areas and set ups for each individual task
• Move items from one phase to the next in one go to keep up momentum

2. Reducing Unnecessary Steps or Movements

• Keep tools where you need them
• Set up your spaces to reduce extra movements or trips
• Template or using bulk functions where possible

3. Scheduling Maintenance and Buffers for the "Unexpected" (That Realistically, We Saw Coming)

• Tidy workspaces at the end of the day
• Schedule time for odd-jobs like laundering or repairing items, or purging old inventory
• Give yourself enough time to complete a job, and add time padding around time-sensitive tasks like packing orders before the post office closes.

In Conclusion:

Streamlining your day and work will forever be a work in progress, but that's part of the fun. Pay attention to the flow of your day; can you find bottlenecks? On the other hand, which seemingly minor details in your space or workflow create obvious rewards? Can you apply these to other parts of your process?

Opportunities to 80/20 your life are always hiding--make it game to find them!

That's it, that's the tweet. Did I miss anything? Do you have any sneaky time-saving tips to share? Do your fellow resellers a solid and drop them below. And now--back to work!

Love and magic,

Cathy@ClosetWitch