Jessica Bierman, founder and CEO of JBIER Inc., continues to expand her fashion, lifestyle, and beauty brand through Poshmark, the platform that started it all. Bierman first started her journey on Poshmark as @jbier in March of 2015. In the first few months of her business, she earned a leadership role within the community as a Poshmark Ambassador. She has proven to be a successful entrepreneur, female business owner, and rising leader in the fashion industry. It feels like it was yesterday when Bierman started her Poshmark business. Today, JBIER has accumulated 300+ five-star reviews with a 70K following. She is passionate about creating the best shopping experience possible for all of our angels. In celebration of these achievements, we sat down with Bierman to discuss tips on how to become a Poshmark ambassador and help your business excel.
#JBIERGirlBoss Guide to Poshmark
Top Posh Tips:
Become a Poshmark Ambassador!
Send love notes to customers and try your best to receive some back.
Show off your styling skills by offering to be a personal shopper for your customers!
Promote your closet across a variety of social media platforms.
Join and host Posh parties!
Engage in different Poshmark campaigns.
Provide offers and discounted shipping to likers.
Provide offers on bundles.
Make your item covers and feed as appealing and branded as possible!
Provide highly-detailed, eloquent product descriptions with style tips.
Take pictures of literally everything.
Create a unique product pricing strategy.
Why Poshmark?
I’ve always had a love and passion for beauty and fashion. After working in the industries for over ten years, I knew I wanted to start my own business. Possessing such focus and determination at a very young stage in my professional career exposed me to invaluable managerial and entrepreneurial experience.
I was looking for a community of people who shared the same goals and interests as me, while I built my brand, @jbier. Poshmark gave me the opportunity to connect with a diverse group of shoppers nationwide and turn a one-woman operation into a global startup.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most businesses had to alter their structure in order to operate in a virtual setting, causing a major shift in shopping behavior. Many people were uncomfortable leaving their houses and preferred shopping online. It was important to provide the same level of customer service online as you would in a brick-and-mortar store in order to build strong, loyal relationships without face-to-face contact.
Why did you want to become a Poshmark Ambassador?
The Posh Ambassador Program creates a community of people who share a passion for fashion and selling, while also having a unique sense of style. In this role, I welcome, support, and educate new buyers and sellers as they join the platform. As a female business owner, mentor, and someone who genuinely loves meeting people, I knew this was the right place for me.
Looking back at becoming a Posh Ambassador, I realized that setting goals has contributed to my success. It doesn't matter how small the goal or achievement may seem, in the grand scheme of things, it's about pushing yourself and celebrating every accomplishment that you make.
How did you become an Ambassador?
To qualify as Ambassador, you have to achieve 5K community shares, 5K personal shares, 50 shares on new posher's listings, 15 sold listings, one love note, at least 50 listings available for sale, with an average purchase rating above 4.5 stars with less than 3 day ship time. As an Ambassador, I also became a suggested seller to new users and was able to host posh parties.
It is important to note that consistency is key. Both hitting your numbers and maintaining your statistics has to be a priority. Providing top-of-the-line customer service includes maintaining a high overall rating and short ship times. That said, I am so proud of JBIER's 4.9-star rating with 1 day shipping time.
What advice would you give for those starting on Poshmark?
When I decided to start selling on Poshmark in 2015, my strategy for success was simple: invest in our people, ensure we offer the highest quality products, provide top-of-the-line customer service, and stay on top of industry trends. I completely immersed myself in the world of Poshmark over the past 7 years. Every day, I ensure that all merchandise is in pristine condition and customer service is top tier. The little things here and there really do matter. With every purchase, I include free gifts and samples, handwritten thank you cards, customized packaging, and more. It's important that my customers truly feel valued and appreciated.
One of my first priorities was to establish goals for myself. Gathering data on specific requirements involved in becoming a Poshmark Ambassador allowed me to make informed decisions as I rapidly expanded my business. Setting realistic goals and planning accordingly has a direct correlation with achieving success.
What is the importance of maintaining and updating your closet?
The foundation of your Poshmark account is your closet, of course! Similar to an Instagram feed, organizing listings in an aesthetically pleasing way is essential when it comes to making great first impressions and capturing the attention of buyers. Creating and sharing non-salable feed posts, such as "follow us on Instagram" or "learn more about the founder," will help drive buyers to your other platforms. Ensuring the product photographs are all in the JBIER template and edited with high attention to detail is crucial to maintaining a consistent, branded closet.
Sellers can utilize one of my favorite new platform features, "re-listing". If product posts are not getting any likes and/or comments, sellers have the option to "re-list," which essentially means making a duplicate listing and deleting the original listing, so buyers are notified that a new listing was published.
One way that sellers are able to rearrange listings is according to color or style, with trending products and colors on the top. While JBIER always tries to diversify the cover photos of products and supporting images, making sure that the closet is branded at all times is just as crucial to the brand identity and familiarity. Whether re-engaging loyal customers who are already familiar with your feed, or drawing in new customers who want to see more of it, your listings should look the part at all times.
How do you best engage with customers?
No matter where I am or what I am doing, I always love working with people. I strive every day to ensure that all of my customers have the best shopping experience possible.
One of the main drivers for myself and my team is the realm that it fosters between customers and sellers, which has enabled us to grow as a company. Customer relationships are the foundation of any business. We always make sure to build these connections by offering great deals and maintaining an open line of communication. We reach out to customers on a daily basis by commenting on items that they previously bought and asking for feedback on their shopping experience with JBIER.
Acting as a personal shopper to your customers is a great way to demonstrate how much you truly care about them, while also promoting the items in your closet in a fun way! We have styled customers for holidays, dates, and various special occasions. Furthermore, engaging with customers on social media through messages, like requests, or even simply sharing information about your Poshmark on social media are effective methods of increasing awareness on your closet and connecting with customers on several platforms. This is something that we love doing together as a team and we highly suggest that you try it out as well!
How did you get involved with campaigns and events?
Hosting campaigns and events is a huge part of being a Poshmark ambassador. One priority as an ambassador is to participate in campaigns and events to build a larger network. I knew that it was an extremely unique opportunity to host Posh parties, join Posh parties, and be able to meet new entrepreneurs like myself. Posh parties are real-time virtual shopping events where users and sellers come together to share and shop different items. Each party has its own theme focused on a brand, category, fashion department, or trend, and a showroom with a curated selection of items for that theme.
Participating in different Poshmark campaigns and events allowed my team and I to interact with customers and sellers. Through Posh parties, Posh-to-Facebook campaigns, and sharing our commitment to sustainability, there are so many ways that we have been able to collaborate with those who are trying to grow their business just like us, or those who love to hear a great success story. We have had the opportunity to run our own Posh party, which was a great reminder of how far we have come from a simple side-hustle and how much more we have left to do.
Throughout the development of JBIER, my team and I collaborated to further expand the @jbier Poshmark platform by setting new goals, engaging with customers to give them the best experience, updating listings, and expanding my network. Since January 2021, our Poshmark following has exceeded our expectations. With community engagement and customer service at the center of decision making, our following increased from 50K to almost 70K community members. Based on analytics, the JBIER Poshmark marketplace is slated to reach a 100k following by the end of the year. I am very thankful to the Poshmark community for all the support throughout the last few years.