Brands and retailers are investing more in cultivating community — not just online, but through immersive IRL experiences. While experts agree taking this more experience-driven approach helps cultivate community, it also can have a financial impact, especially for businesses like Poshmark, which rely heavily on its communities of sellers to drive business growth.
In fact, Poshmark’s executive team considers its seller community to be so critical it has a rolling calendar of events and learning experiences specifically for this cohort. After being recognized for this work by Retail TouchPoints’ 2024 Brand Experience Awards, CMO Steven Tristan Young offered deeper insights into the company’s community-building mission, and how these investments ultimately support the broader goal: to drive mass adoption of livestreaming.
“We host online and in-person events to help our community get over the hump of, ‘How do I start [with livestreaming]?’” Young said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “We also do webinars to train people to show how easy it is to get started. We’re in that stage now where we’re trying to figure out how to arm our sellers with information on what’s selling well — more trend-based information — so they know what to sell.”
Poshmark now has a team that has reached double-digits, which hosts and runs events around the U.S. to help foster this connection in a more consistent and realistic way. “Now, it’s not just about the tech; it’s about real engagement,” said Young. “And I think that’s rare, because every brand wants to have a community following of loyal advocates who work on their behalf, but this is not just word-of-mouth. We actually honor, celebrate and meet our sellers.”
And these in-person events have a ripple effect on Poshmark’s livestreaming business: comparing the 30 days before to the 30 days after all events hosted in 2023, the company found attendees hosted 30% more Posh Shows (livestreaming events) on average, ultimately driving an increase in seller earnings and orders completed.
Empowering Sellers Year-Round
Poshmark’s biggest event of the year is PoshFest, an offsite multi-day event that brings hundreds of sellers together for interactive workshops and sessions that give them the tools and best practices they need to scale their resale businesses. PoshFest also creates opportunities for resellers to network with each other and capture compelling Instagram and TikTok-worthy content for their marketing channels. The company sold out its most recent iteration in Nashville, hosting more than 600 attendees, and adding another successful gathering to its roster of more than 4,800 in-person events since its founding in 2011.
Young and the Poshmark team consider the brand’s in-person events strategy a “defining differentiator,” helping the resale platform stand out in a growing sea of peer-to-peer platforms. “Community marketing is basically the new loyalty marketing,” Young said. “It’s about engaging people in a way that gets people to love you more versus the old way, which is simply offering points and free goods. Now, we’re getting people who love the brand.”
PoshFest was formally launched in 2013 to create good faith among its growing reseller community through education, networking and some plain old fun. The content agenda features in-depth panels and sessions led by key partners like Meta, offering insights on topics from sourcing to marketing, SEO, data-driven decision making and trend forecasting. Mentorship roundtables and interactive activities like speed networking and yoga, however, give attendees the chance to build their professional networks and even long-term friendships.
While general business education is the foundation of the PoshFest experience, Poshmark also uses the event to give dedicated sellers a first look at new tools and solutions within the platform. For example, sellers who attended PoshFest in 2022 and 2023 were able to bypass the wait list for Poshmark’s live selling feature, Posh Shows. Additionally, attendees in 2023 could join the limited beta program for Poshmark’s Promoted Closets feature and get credits to drive additional traffic to their listings on the platform. Hackathon sessions hosted by Poshmark’s product team also gave attendees a behind-the-scenes look at products in development.
“The ability for us, as leaders, to meet our customers on a regular basis and hear their stories impacts us as leaders,” Young said. “And for [our customers and sellers], they feel they’re being heard. If they complain, it means they care.
Micro-Events Cultivate Local, Tight-Knit Communities
Beyond PoshFest, Poshmark has expanded its event portfolio to span everything from mass educational conferences to smaller, tight-knit gatherings. The brand’s keystone event brands and formats include:
- Posh Party, an educational event series where the company gathers its seller community in cities across the country to network, exchange ideas and shop each other’s closets. Programming includes one-on-one closet consultations, live tech demos, a product listing studio, and fun giveaways and photo ops;
- Posh + Connect, which are more casual meetups hosted by individual sellers. Formerly known as “Posh N Sip” and “Posh N Coffee,” these small gatherings allow sellers to meet in venues that align with their interests and goals. In 2023, the Poshmark community hosted 450+ of their own events; and
- Posh + Learn, a virtual program launched in 2024, led by experienced sellers. These “hosts” are focused on helping their peers (other sellers) learn and grow by providing educational insights on the end-to-end Poshmark journey — from learning how to host a Posh Show to sourcing inventory.
“Our Posh Parties and other events take the idea of getting people who love the brand and listening to them and engaging with them,” Young said. “Instead of just being [in] a community, we’re allowing them to meet other people like them.”
Advertisement
