Meet the Mobile First Startup That's Angling To Rival EBay's Fashion Resale Business (forbes.com)

Manish Chandra took a big bet on mobile when he launched Poshmark in 2011. The Silicon Valley-based fashion re-commerce shop opened its virtual doors exclusively on an iOS app. So far, Poshmark’s enabled the sale of 1.5 million products solely on mobile, and the company says its users upload $1 million worth of new merchandise daily and raised over $16 million in funding from Uber investor Shervin Pishevar, celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe and Ashton Kutcher’s A-Grade investments.

Though Kutcher’s involvement doesn’t necessarily spell success even lack of a Midas Touch can’t stem the tide of people using the device in their pockets to shop at a rapid clip. This year, mobile commerce—which includes products and services ordered on mobile devices, including tablets—is expected to reach $57.79 billion, up over 37% from 2013 or about one-fifth of all e-commerce sales and 1.2% of total retail sales, according to eMarketer. That number is expected to keep growing as smartphones and tablets continue to sell.

For Chandra, those numbers aren’t enough. “When you’re a marketplace, eBay is the gorilla in the space and the obvious competitor,” he tells FORBES. And while resale sites such as Hipswap, Threadflip, andthredUp, Poshmark’s stayed true to its mobile roots, adding an Android app after the iOS version took off. To make the playing field more level, Chandra says, “The trick with mobile shopping is designing an experience that is simple and easy to use, one that can be digested in both snack-size moments -while in line for coffee or in between classes – and hour long stretches on the couch in the evening.”

As loyal readers may remember, the tiny screen coupled with a hit-or-miss browsing experience can put ashopper off a mobile e-commerce site in seconds.

Chandra believes the three keys to converting browsers to buyers on a phone are:

•             Make the transaction very simple and avoid the need to enter information repetitively. For example, at Poshmark we store core customer information so that after the first purchase is made, all subsequent purchases can be accomplished with just a couple of clicks.

•             Build a deeper relationship with the user and provide a constantly changing inventory so users can repeatedly engage with the mobile app and ultimately find something that they want to purchase.

•             Make it easy to do everything around the purchase, including order management and customer service, all from the app so the browsers don’t have to step outside the app to do anything.

Chandra contends that Poshmark’s app allows users to set up and merchandise their virtual closets by quickly snapping a picture of the item they want to sell, writing a short description and setting the price –in 60 seconds. The speed he says is thanks to Poshmark’s backend, from managing transactions and payments, to providing shipping labels and customer service.

That’s fine for a one shot, but Chandra notes that Poshmark recreates the social experience of real-world shopping in the app and built the marketplace so it could scale.

“We also host in-app themed “Posh Parties” three times a day where our community comes together in real-time to list, share, like, comment on and buy merchandise,” Chandra says, “We’ve seen astounding engagement by hosting these real-time in app shopping events because women know exactly when there will be a captive audience ready to buy within a certain theme or designer — some parties have seen over 50,000 attendees at one time.”

Thanks to the engagement, Chandra says Poshmark’s predictive analytics offer a very targeted experience to the user. “Think of it as having a personal shopper in your pocket 24/7 that is constantly scanning over five million unique fashion items to help you discover exactly what you want in real-time,” he asserts.

The result, he says is that women in the Poshmark community spend an average of 20-25 minutes in the app daily browsing, buying, selling, and connecting with each other, opening it 7-10 times in a day. Though he won’t reveal conversion rates or sales revenue, “We have millions of members and over 350,000 women’s closet are currently open for sale on Poshmark,” says Chandra, “that’s more than the number of fashion boutiques in the U.S.”