Part 2: The 80/20 Rule [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!

Your new year so far may have involved a lot more: resolutions can have us rushing around squeezing in new morning routines, workouts, obligations, goals, and a heck of a lot more pressure.

But, if women's magazines have taught us anything, it's less IS more (especially when it comes to foundation that matches your skin tone, but that's not relevant here). In reselling, doing the right things and cutting out the not-so-necessary things can help you run a successful business in way less time. So what to focus on?

The 80/20 Principle

All "less" is not created equal, and that's where the 80/20 principle comes in.

The 80/20 principle, also known as the Pareto Principle, generally speaking, refers to the phenomenon of roughly 80% of consequences coming from 20% of causes (ie. (the "vital few").

Translating that to your Poshmark closet, that might mean:

• 20% of your inventory is driving 80% of your profits
• 20% of your brands drive 80% of your sales
• 20% of your efforts (like taking photos and bare minimum listing) create 80% of your results

As someone who loves mucking around steaming, sweater shaving, and putting stickers on things (generally the 80% of your time, 20% of your results, useless activities), this is devastating news. But as someone who is also a bit strapped for time, it's important information to have for the year ahead.

To start applying this principle to your own business, you'll need to gather some intel. Here's what to consider:

• brands and categories that perform the best, that you have access too, and can turn a profit on
• activities that matter, and those that don't make as much of a difference
• time and energy sinks that clutter up your day, bottleneck your work, and tank your productivity

That's a lot to bite off, so let's focus on that first bit for the time being:

Which Brands, Categories, and Styles Drive 80% of Your Business?

To answer this question, let's analyze your Poshmark closet for what's selling quickly, and for a profit, and what's not.

If you have an inventory spreadsheet, grab it now. And if you don't, start one! Information to include for each item is its listing date, cost, category, brand, and eventual sale price (less fees and promotions).

Meanwhile, I'll note how to get a bird's eye view of where your best sales are coming from by eyeballing your Poshmark Closet and your Closet Insights.

Analyzing Your Poshmark Closet for High and Low Performers

Open your Poshmark closet and your Closet Insights in a new tab and let's dig in.

1. Check for Old Timer Listings

A quick way to identify the best selling brands in your closet is through Closet Insights (via the "Brand Insights" table>"Sales"). But once you have this info, it's worth drilling a little deeper. Why? Because of THIS view (Available Listings):

As you can see, while I've solds lots of Lulu, I also still HAVE a lot of it, chilling in my closet, taking up precious storage space in my inventory. So let's see what's going on.

If you don't relist constantly like me, whoops) sort your closet by "just in," filter by brand and/or category and "available," then scroll to the bottom of your closet to get a sense of what's been sitting around a long time. As you do this, take note of what those items have in common.

For example, when doing this exercise for Lululemon as a brand, I can see that a lot of my stragglers have crazy patterns (particularly space dye), are men's pieces, are shorts and tank tops (seasonal), or are cropped leggings. Yeah, that makes sense.

2. Check Rough Profit Margins

[Psst: Profit Margin= [(Sales Price-Cost of Goods)/(Sales Price)] x 100]

If you don't have exact numbers from a spreadsheet, you'll be able to get a sense of this through your Closet Insights dashboard in Poshmark by scrolling down to the Brand Insights table and clicking the "Average Sales Price" view.

Here you'll see average price point of items you've sold for a given brand, and you'll be able to compare them with your memory of your cost of goods. (Super scientific!). This will give you different, more actionable sense of your numbers. Take this dashboard from my closet insights:

While it looks like Rag and Bone is a close second to Loro Piana in profits, the numbers are actually much further apart than they seem. For example, the Loro Piana sweaters I was ***blessed*** to find at the thrift store for $7 had an incredible rate of return. But my decent sales prices for Rag & Bone pieces have a much lower profit in reality, because I mostly sourced for myself through consignment for $$ then resold very meager profits because they didn't fit/I didn't love them.

To further drill down, you might also compare style notes within a brand or category in your actual closet. Here I can see that my Loro Piana cashmere pieces did better sales-price-wise than wool ones, and my wide-leg styles did way better in Rag & Bone jeans than joggers. Good info to have!

3. Top Performers

Once you get a list of top brands and categories from Closet Insights, hop back into your closet to really look at the items sold in these parameters and what they sold for. Don't just use your memory of sales--scroll through your sold listings and take note of these aspects of your fastest-selling, high-profit sold items:

• Brands that sold consistently well in a given category
• Categories with highest margins within a brand (ie. jeans for Spanx, or coats for Patagonia)
• Most profitable size ranges (but let's be for real, it's almost always the bigger sizes that do the best and we know this)
• Style attributes of great sales, ie. materials (cashmere/linen), fit details (relaxed fit), or features like "pull-on" waistbands for denim.

4. Slow Movers

Next, analyze items that aren't performing well by checking on categories and brands that have been in your closet forever, sell for little, and/or have meager profit margins. Within those brands and categories, sort your Poshmark closet by "just in," filter by "available," scroll to the bottom to take note of the following:

• Styles, colors, sizes, keywords, and seasonality of your oldest items
• Engagement (ie. fewest likes even if they're not the oldest items, or old items with lots of likes)
• Specialty items: check up on items that may be tying up capital you could use for other things (ie. formalwear you paid up for that will eventually make a profit of $100, but is taking a year + to do it).

While this exercise may be most helpful for avoiding purchasing items like these again in the future, you can also apply what you've learned about your best-selling items here to improve these listings. Are there keywords you can add, style notes you're missing, or category details you've forgotten? Noting that a merino wool top is great for travel and camping might help target your perfect audience and make a sale.

For the ~Future~ Learn to Comp!

Now that you have a better idea of what great performing items look like for you, get comfortable with comping the next time you're at the store to acquire more of that 20% inventory.

Here's how to do it:

1. Use Poshmark's Sold Items Filter

One of the most effective research methods for coming is analyzing already sold items on Poshmark. Here's how:

• Search for the item on Poshmark using brand name, category, style notes, and size (ie. Flax 100% linen button down relaxed fit shirt size medium)
• Filter by "Sold Items." Note: if your results don't pull much up, drop a search term to cast a wider net
• Note sales prices and compare with your cost of goods--would this be a profitable pick-up after fees?
• Filter by "Available Items" to roughly check sell-through: is there a ton of this item on the market available for a low price? Avoid!
• Check condition variations and price differences--if items only sell at a profitable rate when they're NWT and yours is Fair Used Condition or has a flaw, you might need to put it back
• Look for patterns in successful listings for later reference

Note: if you're on a desktop, you can also comp using our free Comp Crystal Ball tool. This can be helpful because it will show you the date an item sold on, so you can quickly identify how much an item is selling for ~now~, not 6 years ago.

Here's a quick demo:

Know When to Comp

You'll likely know by now what your best brands and categories are, but when is a wild card worth researching?

• Designer handbags and accessories: not all $$$ retailing items are worth much on the resale market (*cough* Tahari *cough* Joie *cough cough* Worth New York *cough*), but shoes and bags are often worth a check. Just be very wary of oft-copied designers like Prada and Gucci, and do your research (especially if they're marked up at the thrift)
• Vintage pieces from good brands: maybe you wouldn't look twice at Nike, but a Space Jam collab from 1996 Nike? That's a definite maybe
• Special occasion pieces: these can be hit or miss, and sit forever, or be worth bank. Check or be sorry!
• Limited edition items: again, sometimes worth $$$, sometimes worthless, ya never know

Short Cuts, ie. High-Value Brand Indicators

Comping is generally a good idea, but sometimes, a piece has multiple positive attributes that make it a clear slam dunk. Look for these characteristics as you source--the more boxes an item ticks, the better!

• Strong brand recognition (ie. you've seen yoga girlies carrying the shopping bags)
• Quality materials and construction (sturdy-feeling athletic wear, merino wool tops, goose down fill, lambskin leather, 2-ply cashmere)
• High retail prices (above $100)
• Limited availability in regular retail channels (ie. brands like Sundance and Zyia are available through catalog purchase only, so may be in higher demand)
• Loyal customer base (Flax, Peruvian Connection, Eileen Fisher)
• Substantiality of the piece (a coat or jacket, shoes or a bag, a heavy duty sweater)

Tools for Keeping Your Style Sense Up to Date

As resellers, we can easily lose track of what's actually selling new, in like, actual stores. Utilize these tools for research to keep your pick-ups on trend:

• Check Poshmark's trending items page (this can also give you great ideas for keywords for your listings)
• Social media (follow a few influencers and note the brands and styles they're wearing)
• Fashion blogs and magazines (I love a good "2025 trend forecast" post to remind me to call pastel yellow "butter" colored and keep an eye out for rugby tops at the thrift)
• Reseller community content: what's selling for other people right now? You may discover brand new labels this way

Avoid Tunnel Vision at the Thrift

Don't fall into these traps when sourcing:

• Focusing only on current retail prices and not actual resale value
• Focusing on available item pricing and not sold prices while comping (other resellers can be a tad ambitious--sold items will give you a reality check)
• Ignoring item condition and its impact on value (this is a great way to wind up spending way too much time to make way too little money)
• Not considering storage costs for slow-moving items
• Overlooking promotional discounts and fees when making profit calculations

What have we learned?

While you can apply the 80/20 principle to so many aspects of your business, narrowing your sourcing focus to the best possible brands, categories, and styles can hugely reduce waste of your precious time, effort, and resources.

To nudge more of your inventory into that high-performing zone:

• analyze your closet for what's worked in the past and what's no longer working now
• comp before buying new inventory
• keep your trend knowledge up to date
• know your value markers
• and perhaps the most important for the future growth of your business, track your numbers

Next time: we'll dive into your reselling work practices and where to cut corners, plus important tasks never to skip. But meanwhile: questions, comments, or lessons learned to share with other Poshers? Drop 'em below!

Love and magic,

Cathy@ClosetWitch