Poshmark Bots in 2022: A Beginner's Guide

You might have heard the terms Poshmark Bot, Poshmark Virtual Assistant, Poshmark Automation. But what are they? In this post, we're going to cover:

• What is a Poshmark Bot? What is the difference between a Poshmark Bot and a Poshmark Virtual Assistant (Poshmark VA)?
• Are Poshmark Bots allowed?
• Will I get banned for using a Poshmark Bot? What is Share Jail?
• How do I get out of Share Jail? How long is Share Jail?
• How do I avoid getting banned or put in Poshmark Share Jail for using a Poshmark Bot?
• Why are Poshmark Bots against the community guidelines?
• Is it bad to use a Poshmark Bot? What are the benefits of using a Poshmark Bot?
• What should I be looking for in a Poshmark Bot?

What is a Poshmark Bot?

A Poshmark Bot is an app that automates tasks for you on Poshmark. The term "bot" is an abbreviation for robot. Because certain tasks on Poshmark like sharing can take a long time if you have a medium to large closet, lots of Poshmark sellers have resorted to automated means in order to save time. Imagine you are a mom and have a closet with hundreds of active listings. Imagine you also have kids who need to get picked up from school and when they get home, they need help with homework. Not everyone has the time to share to their followers and parties multiple times per day and have a life outside of their Poshmark side hustle. So in a sense, having a Poshmark Bot is like having someone else virtually sharing your closet for you. This is where Poshmark Virtual Assistants come in (also known as Poshmark VAs).

What is the difference between a Poshmark Bot and a Poshmark Virtual Assistant (Poshmark VA)?

Before the advent of Poshmark Bots you had Poshmark Virtual Assistants. These were people who you would pay a minimum of a couple of hundred dollars a month for them to share for you. It was a pretty straightforward deal. You would give them the username and password to your Poshmark account and they would login and share items for you. Clearly, this created obvious security concerns because if they have your password, they can lock you out of your account and blackmail you if they were nefarious actors. Over time after the launch of early Poshmark Bots like Simple Posher, these virtual assistants were no longer humans. Humans would set up Poshmark Bots to share closets while still charging egregious fees.

Are Poshmark Bots allowed?

Poshmark bots are not allowed according to Poshmark's community guidelines. Poshmark specifically says under the Automated Participation section,

"Do not use programs or other forms of automation to participate on Poshmark. This includes, but is not limited to liking, sharing, following, and unfollowing."

So what are the consequences if Poshmark finds out you've been using a Poshmark Bot and wishes to take action against your closet? Well, a couple lines down Poshmark states,

"Should we find your account to be in violation of any of the above, we may send you an email or take permanent or temporary action on your account privileges."

So it should be settled then. Don't use a Poshmark Bot right because if I use one Poshmark's going to instantly ban me? There's more to the story.

Will I get banned for using a Poshmark Bot?

The short answer is no you will not be permanently banned as long as you use it responsibly. Now, there are different types of bans Poshmark can place on your account. So let's define the term "banned." You have two types of bans: shadow bans and permanent bans. A shadow ban is simply a ban where Poshmark will temporarily prevent you from performing certain tasks after determining you've been using a Poshmark Bot. A shadow ban is commonly known in the Poshmark community as Poshmark Jail or Share Jail.

How do I get out of Poshmark Share Jail? How long is Poshmark Share Jail? Is Poshmark Share Jail permanent?

You get out of Poshmark Jail by just waiting. Poshmark uses Machine Learning technology to detect if a real person is performing tasks. If they don't think a real person is performing these tasks and a Poshmark Bot is, they will implement a shadow ban on your account. Poshmark Jail typically lasts 24-36 hours and after that window has closed, you may share, relist, and send offers normally again. Then there's a different type of ban: a permanent ban. Poshmark users rarely get permanently banned from Poshmark. Permanent bans are typically reserved for people selling counterfeit luxury items or engaging in scams. Poshmark cannot permanently ban everyone using a bot from Poshmark. If they did, there would be no sellers. If there are no sellers, there are no listings for people to buy. Poshmark is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Therefore, Poshmark's revenue depends on sellers as much as it does on buyers. This is the purpose of shadow bans. To scare Poshmark sellers into being brought back into compliance. But why does Poshmark not want us to use Poshmark Bots? This will be answered in a later section. Before we get into that, let's talk about how to avoid getting put in Poshmark Share Jail.

How do I avoid getting banned or put in Poshmark Share Jail for using a Poshmark Bot?

You avoid getting put in Poshmark Share Jail by not sharing too much and spacing the time in between your shares. Most Poshmark Bots offer a looping option that lets you share your closet multiple times. If you have a large closet, it is unwise to use a looping option. Once you start sharing over 1000 listings at a time, you begin running the risk of Poshmark thinking you're using a Poshmark Bot. So for instance, suppose your closet has 500 active listings. If you're using a Poshmark Bot, you should only loop at most 2 times (since 500 * 2 = 1000). Similarly, if your closet has 300 active listings, you should only loop 3-4 times (since 300*3 = 900 and 300*4 = 1200). If you share your closet multiple times per day, make sure there's at least an hour in between shares. Remember: never share more than 4000 listings a day. This means if you have a large closet of over 4000 listings, you should probably be sharing your closet in groups. Our Poshmark Bot, SwiftSeller, allows you select multiple departments or categories for sharing. For each Department and Category, we'll also show you how many of those listings you have in your closet, how much sales that Department/Category generated, and the sell through rate percentage of that Department/Category.

Even if you don't have a large closet, this tool can prove to be useful for you if you want to share listings that you notice aren't selling. Simply sort by Total Sales (Descending) and your worst selling Departments/Categories will show at the top.

Let's now talk about another factor that affects your risk of being put in Poshmark Share Jail: speed. Poshmark Bots typically include a speed option that lets you determine how long of a delay there should be in between shares. The faster you share, the higher the risk of being detected as a bot. So when sharing, select a random time between 1 and 3 seconds (an average of 2 seconds) in between shares.

So summing up, you can reduce the risk of being put into Poshmark Share Jail by:

1. Limiting the amount of listings shared per batch to under 1000
2. Keep at least an hour in between sharing batches
3. Avoid sharing over 3000 listings per day or at the max 4000 listings per day.
4. Slower sharing is better, keep 2 seconds in between shares.

Why are Poshmark Bots against the community guidelines?

Poshmark Bots are against the community guidelines because it congests their servers. Servers are just computers that exist in the cloud that serve content to consumers. So whenever you go on Poshmark and share your listings, you are making requests to these remote computers saying, "Hey please share all of the listings in my closet." If you use a Poshmark Bot, these messages are being sent to the servers really quickly. Now, imagine if everyone else was using a bot too. Poshmark may not have powerful enough servers to handle all of these requests. Imagine a crowd of 100 hungry customers yelling their orders at one cashier at a restaurant. This is the same problem. But the reality is, this would never happen in practice. Poshmark is a large company and they can scale their infrastructure accordingly with no problem. Additionally, not everyone uses a Poshmark Bot. Most Poshmark sellers do not know about them or are oblivious to their benefits. A lot of Poshmark sellers are also misinformed when it comes to Poshmark Bots because they've heard the infamous "Share Jail" term thrown around a lot.

Is it bad to use a Poshmark Bot? What are the benefits of using a Poshmark Bot?

No, it's not bad to use a Poshmark Bot. In fact, by not using a Poshmark Bot, you are putting yourself at a material disadvantage. Why? Because sharing your listings takes too long. When a task takes too long, you dread doing it. When you dread doing it, you don't do it as often as you should. Since sharing your listings increases their exposure in search results, you are asking for lower sales when you don't share. Therefore, it pays to use a Poshmark Bot so long as it is used in a responsible manner. An example of a case where Poshmark Bots are used irresponsibly is commenting on other people's listings letting them know you have a sale going on. Many people use Poshmark Bots to send spam like this, and this is one of the things Poshmark doesn't like because it's rude and annoying. Another benefit of using a Poshmark Bot is the fact that not only does it make performing mundane tasks faster, but also the fact that the time it saves you can be spent doing other things like sourcing, taking and editing pictures, and organizing your inventory. Keep in mind, the time you spend doing one thing, is taking away time from other things.

What should I be looking for in a Poshmark Bot?

A Poshmark Bot should, at the bare minimum, be capable of:

• Instant Share to Followers: You should be able to share to followers with a single tap. You shouldn't have to select multiple listings you want to share.
• Instant Share to Parties: Your Poshmark Bot should intelligently figure out which listings are compatible with an ongoing party and share those listings to that party instantly. You shouldn't have to manually find the listings in your closet that match the party's theme.
• Offer to Recent Likers: Sending offers to those who recently liked your listings is the easiest thing you can do other than sharing that'll boost your sales. Your Poshmark Bot should at minimum have an Offer to Recent Likers feature that lets you select a discount for the listing's price and a shipping discount. The Poshmark Bot should then send the offer you selected to the recent likers in a single tap.

Luckily, SwiftSeller has all of these tools plus many more. You can try SwiftSeller for free here.