While some resale platforms handle photographing and listing your items for you, you’ll usually have to do this yourself. And since the photo is your chance to sell the garment, it’s worth taking the time to get it just right.
Photos that you take yourself will typically be better than stock photography pulled from online, as it shows you actually own the garment and are not just selling new garments directly from a brand (a growing concern in the secondhand space, called “drop shipping”).
Aim to take your pictures in natural lighting in front of a neutral background, suggests Poshmark seller and ambassador Coco Kapfer. “Most buyers shop on their phones, where the image is small, so the photo needs to be clear and pop out,” Kapfer explains.
“People like to see what it will look like on,” adds Tyler Chanel, the ethical blogger behind Thrifts and Tangles, so she recommends photographing the piece on a person or mannequin/half-mannequin.
Sustainable fashion advocate of Acteevism Megan McSherry has also found success photographing her pieces on actual humans. “I’ve had countless items that I’d taken pictures of hanging up or flat-laid on the ground that were not selling; there was no interest,” she tells mbg. “Then when I just retook photos of me wearing them, they immediately sold.”
Once you have a clear cover photo that captures what the item looks like on, Chloe Baffert, a merchandising and curation expert at Poshmark, recommends snapping a few shots that speak to the details of the piece.
Poshmark allows sellers to post up to eight of these extra photos, and Baffert says that listings with at least four pictures are 70% more likely to be sold on the platform. Another Poshmark ambassador, Suzanne Butler, says she always includes shots of her garment’s front, back, label, and care tags, for example.
