Poshmark Gets Into the Stories Game With Posh Stories

Social commerce platform Poshmark has some Stories to tell. Posh Stories, a new feature enabling users to create and share short, shoppable videos and photos and bring their listings to life, will begin rolling out Wednesday with the aim of reaching all members in the U.S. and Canada over the next few weeks. [kickout id="1"] CEO Manish Chandra said Poshmark “started with a very clear focus: Empowering anybody to sell—boutique sellers, wholesale sellers, brand sellers, people who are selling from their closet. We created a platform where people can have conversations. Our platform has always been more than shopping and selling—it’s been connections.” Poshmark currently has 8 million “seller stylists” who offer recommendations, and they are located in 80% of ZIP codes in the U.S. They share 38 million listings per day to the 60 million registered users on the service. The company said $175 million worth of inventory is uploaded to its platform each week, with over 100 million items for sale at any given time and a transaction being concluded nearly every second. Poshmark added that 88% of its daily shoppers are repeat buyers, and users spend an average of 23 minutes to 27 minutes per day on its application, opening it seven to eight times. Sellers earned over $2 billion via Poshmark in 2019 after topping $1 billion in 2018, and the company said video has been one of their most requested tools to boost their businesses on the platform. Chandra said the feature was originally a quarter or so away from debuting, but the company accelerated the process and began its phased rollout Wednesday, adding, “We figured that our community could use it at a time like this,” in a reference to the coronavirus pandemic. When users get access to the new feature, Posh Stories will appear at the top of the feed, enabling them to discover brands, shop closets and engage with fellow users via a few easy taps and swipes. [kickout id="5"] [kickout id="2"] [kickout id="3"] [kickout id="4"] Content will be displayed in a vertical slideshow format, and it will disappear after 48 hours. To create a Posh Story, members can tap the profile photo at the top of their feed and record a live 15-second video, take a photo or upload existing content from their phone. [kickout id="6"] [kickout id="7"] They can then add custom text, captions and tags, linking to other users, listings and brands to curate shoppable content or showcase their styling tips. [kickout id="8"] [kickout id="9"] [kickout id="10"] [kickout id="11"] Posh Stories can be liked and shared just as listings on the platform can. [kickout id="12"] [kickout id="13"] Chandra said, “Having inventory online is one thing, but relationships and communications are critical. There are a wide variety of ways to use video—telling a story about a specific item, putting whole outfits together, styling something, a backstory. Shoppers participate, share who they bought from, back those sellers and share their love.” The company said it will add new capabilities in the next few months to fuel discovery and inspire new ways to shop and connect. “We tested it out in community in the fall, and they loved the product and the feature,” Chandra said. “People are not able to connect as much physically (due to Covid-19). This really allows them to connect at a deeper and more intimate level, bringing the listings to life.”