Social commerce business Poshmark files for IPO

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 28, 2020

Resale e-tailer Poshmark has unveiled its plan to file for an initial public offering, although few details are available at present. That means the number of shares being sold by the US-based company and the offer price are as yet unknown. So far it has filed a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

We may not know the full details but the plan certainly underlines the growing importance of resale both before the pandemic and after it. In recent years, resale has helped meet consumer demand for designer labels on a budget, and fast fashion and basics at even cheaper prices, as well as feeding into the growing interest in recycling and reducing fashion’s carbon footprint.

Up to February, Poshmark, which operates a peer-to-peer model in the US and, since last year, in Canada too, had processed 100 million resale transactions and it had 60 million members. It had also raised $160 million in funding with investors including Rachel Zoe and Ashton Kutcher. Serena Williams was also added to its board last year.  

Pre-pandemic, founder and CEO Manish Chandra spoke of 2020 being a year in which consumers would seek greater connections with each other with social commerce set to grow, and would increasingly be looking for new ways for goods to be bought and sold.

The pandemic is likely to have accelerated that thinking and it’s already become clear that online platforms have largely been the winners during the pandemic as lockdowns and store closures have driven even online-averse consumers to webstores.