Case Study: From Thrift-Store Finds to Multi-Channel Success

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How Katie grew her sales by 160% with Crosslist

Katie, a vintage clothing enthusiast, had always loved the thrill of hunting for great finds in her local thrift stores. She would spend much of her free time scouring through thrift stores, keeping her eyes peeled for outfits that would brighten up her closet space, make her feel confident, or make for the perfect gift. 

Her eye for unique vintage pieces had her loved ones constantly asking, “Where did you get that?”But, it wasn’t until a friend made an offhand remark about how good she was at this thing and how she should start charging people for it that Katie truly realized her potential. 

‘Why not make a business out of it for real?’ she thought. After all, she had a knack for mixing and matching totally different parts of an outfit and making them go so well together. This was a gift, she realized. So why not try making some money out of it?

But which platform should she use to begin her reselling journey with? After going through a couple of options, she settled on Poshmark. She had bought items off the platform before, so she was familiar with it and knew it attracted a highly engaged fashion-forward community.

Sales began trickling in shortly after she launched her store, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In just a few months, she had also managed to create a small but loyal community of her own — people who had fallen in love with her unique style and waited for every drop.

The thrill of every sale kept Katie going, inspiring her to cast her net further. She began to dream bigger and started researching ways of increasing her sales. But, she ran into a problem.

The challenge:

While the sales were consistent on Poshmark, Katie knew the untapped potential in expanding to other platforms. Multi-channel selling, she had heard, was the best way to diversify her customer base, get more visibility, and spike her sales.

She had heard of Mercari and Depop, both boasting communities with a soft corner for vintage finds. However, the logistical nightmare of managing inventory on multiple platforms held her back from expanding her business for a long time.

The manual process of listing on one platform alone was time-consuming, let alone three. Katie was still working a full-time job for some stable income, which meant she could only allot a couple of hours per day for her business. She didn’t know how she’d find the time to sit for hours manually uploading her now sizable inventory to three platforms.

She also recognized the need to cater to different audiences as each platform had its distinct user base with varying preferences. This required tailoring her marketing approach to resonate with each demographic.

She knew if she wanted to expand and turn her thriving side hustle into her full-time job, she simply HAD to branch out to more than one online platform.

The solution:

Katie signed up on Mercari and Depop but wasn’t getting the most out of these additional platforms.

Due to time constraints, not all her listings were uploaded to each platform, and many had inconsistent information compared to her original Poshmark listings.

She was about to give up on a multi-channel sales strategy when a late-night deep dive on Google led her to Crosslist.

She confessed to us that, at first, it felt too good to be true. A tool that would let her cross list her listings to multiple platforms at one go? All for the price of a couple of meals per month? That would solve all of her worries!

So, she did a bit of homework by going through Crosslist’s knowledge base to see how it all worked and reading our reviews. The platform’s promise of simplifying multi-channel listing management was too enticing to pass up. She decided to give it a try. What did she have to lose?

There was also the option of cancelling her subscription through the 3-day money-back guarantee if she wasn’t satisfied with the tool, she thought. So, she signed up for a subscription. And the rest, as they say, is history! 😉

As soon as she saw how easy the listing process was, she knew she could never go back to the old ways. Having to fill out only a single dynamic form and getting her listings posted on Poshmark, Mercari, and Depop with the click of a few buttons changed her life. She tracked her time and found that she had saved nearly 10 hours within the first week of using Crosslist!

With Crosslist, she realized that she could also easily import her existing inventory from Poshmark and bulk upload them to Mercari and Depop — something that she had been putting off for months because she knew she would need to dedicate quite a bit of time to it. But with our tool, she could get it done in minutes.

Some other features that she really loved she could do:

• Upload listings in bulk in the background: No more spending hours on individual uploads. Crosslist allowed her to upload listings in bulk and in the background, without using a form-filling approach!
• AI listing generator: Another huge time-saver for Katie as she did not have to sit and think about descriptions or tags after a long day at her day job. She just had to upload her product photos and Crosslist’s AI tool would generate a great description for her — tags and all.
• Manage her inventory across multiple marketplaces: Using the Crosslist dashboard, she was able to easily delist sold inventory from multiple marketplaces from one convenient location.
• Maintain consistency: Crosslist’s template feature and image editing software ensured her brand messaging remained consistent, regardless of the platform.

The results:

1. Increased sales

Within two months of expanding to Mercari and Depop via Crosslist, Katie saw a 160% increase in sales.

On Poshmark, she was bringing in around $600 in monthly sales.

This shot up to over $1,500 every month. 6 months in, she expanded to eBay, too, seeing monthly revenue in excess of $2,000.

Below, you will see the average seller sees an increase of 120% when adding two sales channels to their funnel.

2. Saved time

What would have taken her hours, if not days, Katie managed to achieve in a fraction of the time using Crosslist’s bulk importing and listing capabilities. Once she found that Crosslist had introduced a new (and free) Poshmark automation tool, her life got even easier. She could now continue to maintain an active presence on Poshmark without having to stay online during every spare minute.

3. Greater visibility

By branching out, she accessed new markets and customers she hadn’t reached before. This resulted in a 160% increase in sales.

4. Consistent branding

Using Crosslist’s template feature, Katie ensured her brand voice was consistent across all platforms. By using Crosslist’s image editing feature, she was able to standardize her pictures as well.

What Katie has to say:

The takeaway:

Katie’s story is a testament to the power of multi-platform selling and the efficiency that tools like Crosslist can bring.

For passionate sellers like her, expanding horizons can bring substantial rewards, both in terms of sales and brand reach.

It’s also a game changer for sellers juggling many other responsibilities and simply does not have the bandwidth to manually upload 100s of listings every week.

Instead of putting your dreams on the back burner, Crosslist makes it possible to pursue your expansion goals.