Resale Site Comparison: Is Poshmark, Mercari, Ebay, or StockX the Best for Buyers and Sellers?

Resale sites are a popular way for people to make extra cash by selling items they already own. These platforms, such as eBay, Poshmark, Mercari, and StockX, let sellers get rid of things they don’t use and let buyers buy goods at “market price,” which often costs less than retail.

At FinanceBuzz, we love finding ways for people to both save and make money, so we wanted to find out which resale sites are best for buyers and sellers. To do this, we analyzed what buyers are paying for popular items like clothing, sneakers, and electronics on the most widely used resale platforms, as well as how much money resellers actually make when they sell items on sites.

Key findings

Best and worst sites for sellers:

• StockX has the highest payouts for clothes, high-end bags, and accessories of any platform we analyzed. Vestiaire Collective was best for selling sneakers and everyday handbags.
• TheRealReal offers the lowest payouts for sellers across almost all categories, followed by Mercari.

Best and worst sites for buyers:

• Mercari offers the lowest prices for buyers of all the resale sites we analyzed.
• Poshmark offers below-average prices for clothes, shoes, and accessories. But it has significantly higher prices for electronics.
• StockX had the highest prices for clothes, bags, and accessories. The platform offers average-priced sneakers — the category it's best known for.

How we did our experiment

For this analysis, our team collected price data on goods for sale across seven of the most popular resale sites. We focused on items listed as being in “new” condition and collected data on as many active listings, or recently completed sales, as possible — up to 10 per site. That data was then used to determine the average resale cost of items in six different categories on each website, including all applicable shipping and verification fees. The items we considered were:

Electronics:

• PlayStation 5: standard model
• Apple AirPods Pro: second generation

Shoes:

• Women’s Nike Dunk Low Retro: White Black “Panda”
• Men’s Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG: Chicago “Lost & Found”
• Men’s Air Jordan 11 Retro High: Varsity Red “Cherry”

Clothing:

• Men’s Nike Sportswear Tech Fleece Full-Zip Hoodie: Black
• The North Face 1996 Retro Nuptse Jacket: Black
• Women’s Lululemon Align High-Rise Leggings 25”: Black

High-end bags:

• Louis Vuitton Cluny BB: Monogram
• Gucci GG Marmont small shoulder bag: Black

Midrange bags:

• Kate Spade New York Cara Large Tote: Warm Taupe
• Michael Kors Jet Set Large Saffiano Leather Shoulder Bag: Black

Accessories:

• Louis Vuitton Multiple Wallet: Monogram
• Ray-Ban Wayfarer Sunglasses, Polarized: Polished Black, Green

Which resale sites are best for sellers?

Each of these platforms charges users a fee to sell items, including fees that vary based on how active a user is or the kinds of items they sell. These fees can have a big impact on a seller’s profits, and they may impact which platform a seller chooses to use in the first place.

Among the seven sites evaluated, Depop allows sellers to keep the largest chunk of sale prices, taking just a flat seller’s fee of 10%.

TheRealReal keeps the biggest chunk of sales — sellers earn between 45% and 72% of each sale price. While that percentage can increase based on a seller’s cumulative sales, the maximum amount a seller on TheRealReal can ever earn is capped at 85%.

For sellers who want the biggest cashout, StockX is a good place to start. Sellers on StockX earn the most money on clothing, luxury bags, and accessories, and StockX sellers are in the top three for profit on electronics and shoes.

Sellers take home the least amount of money on TheRealReal, which ranks last in all five applicable categories. Additionally, the gap between TheRealReal and the highest-paying platform in each category is significant, ranging from $93 for clothing up to $630 for high-end luxury bags.

Vestiaire Collective, formerly known as Tradesy, is the only site to offer above-average payouts across all categories compared to other sites. (Note that Vestiaire Collective doesn’t sell electronics.)

StockX came close to matching Vestiaire Collective, with clothing, high-end bags, and accessories all earning sellers payouts 13% or more above average. Only StockX’s electronics sales pay a lower rate at 3% below average.

Sellers might want to think twice before selling with TheRealReal. The platform specializes in luxury consignment and uses a unique format where TheRealReal’s in-house sales team handles sales on behalf of users.

While this is a convenient approach that makes reselling easier, it also means that TheRealReal keeps a much larger percentage of the money made from each sale. Sellers earn between 21% and 48% less than average.

Which resale sites are best for buyers?

Of course, sellers only represent one side of resale sites. While sellers want to find the site where they can make the most money, buyers are hoping to snag a deal when buying on these platforms.

Buyers often get a good deal on Mercari. The platform offers the lowest average sale price for electronics, clothing, and accessories. Mercari also has the second-lowest average price for shoes, high-end bags, and midrange bags.

Buyers can find good deals on almost all of these sites if they look hard enough, but some sites have better pricing than others. Compared to its competitors, buyers on Mercari can find below-average prices in every single category offered, including savings of over 20% on electronics.

Outside of the midrange bags category and electronics (which are not sold on the site), Depop also offers buyers lower prices on just about everything.

On the other hand, buyers might want to avoid StockX for everything except shoes. While the platform offers kicks at prices slightly below average, its electronics, clothing, luxury bags, and accessories categories all list above-average prices.

Accessories (19% above average) and clothing (22% above average) on StockX sell at higher prices than on any other resale site.

How to earn money as a reseller

Reselling can help you make some extra money on the side if you have some extra items lying around. If you’re looking to get into reselling, here are a few things to consider:

• Learn how to resell as your side hustle. Everyone could use some extra income, and learning how to resell could ultimately give you some financial wiggle room.
• Choose a site carefully. Reselling is one of the best side hustles if you can get decent payouts. To maximize your profits, choose sites with lower seller’s fees.
• Consider starting a business. Learn how to start a business and officially grow your reselling gig.

Methodology

FinanceBuzz collected data on active or recently completed sales for items in the following categories on each resale website: electronics, shoes, clothing, high-end bags, midrange bags, and accessories. These were the items included in each category:

Electronics:

• PlayStation 5: standard model
• Apple AirPods Pro: second generation

Shoes:

• Women’s Nike Dunk Low Retro: White Black “Panda”
• Men’s Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG: Chicago “Lost & Found”
• Men’s Air Jordan 11 Retro High: Varsity Red “Cherry”

Clothing:

• Nike Sportswear Tech Fleece Full-Zip Hoodie: Black
• The North Face 1996 Retro Nuptse Jacket: Black
• Lululemon Align High-Rise Leggings: Black

High-end bags:

• Louis Vuitton Cluny BB: Monogram
• Gucci GG Marmont small shoulder bag: Black

Midrange bags:

• Kate Spade New York Cara Large Tote: Warm Taupe
• Michael Kors Jet Set Large Saffiano Leather Shoulder Bag: Black

Accessories

• Louis Vuitton Multiple Wallet: Monogram
• Ray-Ban Wayfarer Sunglasses, Polarized: Polished Black, Green

Our team collected sale price data from each site for up to 10 active listings with “sell now” pricing or completed sales for each item, including sales tax and all applicable fees. We only collected data for items listed as being in “new” condition.

The size, color, and version of each item were kept consistent across sites whenever possible. In rare cases where fewer than 10 listings or sales were available on a site for a given version of an item, we collected data on items of the next-closest size to round out the sample, e.g., a size 9.5 shoe instead of a size 9. Data was collected in April 2023.