Poshmark CEO Keynote Highlights From PoshFest 2021

Today marked the start of the annual Poshmark event Poshfest for 2021, as to be expected due to the continued state of the world it is a virtual event held over two days, the 8th and 9th of October. The virtual event features many different speakers from a wide range of businesses as well as Poshmark ambassadors and seasoned sellers.

The highlights we are bringing to you here however are from the morning keynote from the Founder and CEO of Poshmark Manish Chandra. In what was dubbed his “State of the Posh Union” talk let’s take a look at the key points that were raised.

Poshmarks’ “State of The Posh Union” with Manish Chandra

To start things off Manish thanks everyone around the world for attending and of course comments on what an unpredictable 18 months it has been for everyone. Throughout the uncertainty and unpredictability of the past year and a half, he comments how the Poshmark family has risen to the various challenges and tackled the unprecedented demands from the Pandemic and as a whole has continued to grow.

He goes on to mention the incredible impact that the Poshmark Heart and Hustle community fund has had already and how it is intended to continue providing a boost to the reseller community for years to come. Thanks to the Poshmark community, together they keep motivating Poshmark to continue innovation and the drive to provide greater opportunities for the community in the years ahead.

The Best Is Yet To Come

Manish moves on to inform the audience that this year Poshmark will be 10 years old and as of today has a global community of over 80 million people. The dream from the beginning of connecting closets around the world has become a reality and now Poshmark truly sees itself as “The world’s closet”.

At the core of the business operations over the last 10 years have been 3 core principles that Poshmark has strived for:

1. To make it simple and easy for users to sell on their marketplace
2. To give sellers choices and support their ability to scale
3. To bring buyers to your listings

These 3 core principles have driven Poshmark for the past 10 years and will remain at the heart of what they continue to do in the future.

Manish then moved on to the topic of shipping costs and confirmed to everyone that there would be zero increases in the PoshPay shipping label. Meaning that there will be no surcharges added for the holiday season allowing sellers to focus on what they do best and that is selling their products.

“Poshmark only makes money when our sellers make money and that is what we intend to continue to do for the next decade.”

Manish Chandra, Founder & CEO, Poshmark

Upcoming Seller Tools

Moving on Manish turned to ways in which Poshmark would be building out their suite of products and tools to help sellers to continue to grow and scale on the platform. By continuing to invest in robust seller tools they want to enable more sellers to transform into thriving business owners.

The first announcement was that fellow Poshmark Co-Founder Tracy Sun has now taken on the role of SVP of Seller Experience and is dedicated to helping sellers grow their business and expand the Poshmark community.

The goal is to be the number 1 place to sell for their target market and they believe to do that well they need to simulate what happens in a brick and mortar store in a virtual way. This is why they will be launching an online clientelling service through My Shoppers. This will allow sellers to have a one on one experience with their prospective customers and also re-market to previous customers. Essentially one-on-one selling at scale. No other marketplace currently enables sellers this ability with their sellers in a way that Poshmark envisages.

Manish also announced that soon they will also be launching ‘MyCloset Insights’ which is exactly as it sounds and will give sellers valuable and real-time insights into their inventory and data analytics.

On top of that, they would also be launching a direct messaging system built into the Poshmark platform that will allow sellers to message buyers directly to navigate the buying journey.

More details of these new tools will be covered throughout the Poshfest event in their own dedicated panels with the teams involved with the development.

Final Thoughts

Unsurprisingly Manish ended his keynote on the subject of a Sustainable Future. Poshmark is perhaps one of the leaders in the space of sustainable and re-usable fashion and Manish shared with us that Poshmark sellers are keeping millions of items of clothing out of landfills globally and as of June 2021 they have sold over 180 Million items that could have otherwise made their way into landfill.

“Poshmark will continue to evolve to meet the demands of the future. We have weathered the storms of the past 10 years and we will continue to innovate and lead the change the world needs for sustainable eCommerce.”

Manish Chandra, Founder & CEO, Poshmark

After watching the keynote I was impressed with the passion that Manish continues to have for not only the platform he has built but more importantly the community that has grown with it. Even seeing the comments in the live chat it was clear that they were all incredibly grateful for the company and the opportunities it has given many sellers.

Whilst Poshmark might not be considered an eCommerce giant like perhaps eBay or Amazon, I truly get the impression that the CEO genuinely cares for his sellers and I also get the feeling that the sellers genuinely care back. I think if they continue on the lines that they are on, they will continue to scale on to bigger and bigger things.

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