Thrifting Yarn on Poshmark: What You Should Know

I recently listed some gently worn clothing from my closet on Poshmark and was surprised to find that their offerings now include quite a bit of craft supplies, including yarn! However, in poking around the listings I realized there are some quirks to the Poshmark marketplace that make looking for secondhand yarn on Poshmark a little different than shopping someone’s Ravelry destash or even Ebay.

If you aren’t familiar with Poshmark, it’s a reseller marketplace (both a website and an app) where individual users list items they have for sale. Most items are secondhand, although some items are new with tags; like most online reseller marketplaces you have a mix of casual users just trying to clean out their closets and people who spend serious time reselling as a side gig or full-time gig. Poshmark started as a clothes-only reseller but has since expanded to all kinds of categories including electronics, housewares, books, and yes, craft supplies.

With that in mind, here’s what you need to know if you’re new to Poshmark and are thinking about thrifting yarn:

Finding yarn you want can take patience.

Poshmark’s system is optimized for clothing sales; when it comes to yarn you can filter by brand/color/price, but not any of the filters you’d see on a normal yarn retailer website (fiber type, weight, etc.).  Because Poshmark also puts a heavy emphasis on images/video above text in their listings, many yarn resellers just take photos of the yarn labels and don’t write any of the relevant details about the yarn in the text. This means a lack of keywords, so if you try to search “worsted weight” or “100% wool” you might miss a lot of listings.

Searching “hand dyed yarn” did get a nice selection of indie dyed brands, although it also pulled any Lion Brand and Knit Picks lines that were marketed as hand-dyed and was dependent on the seller noting that it was hand dyed yarn in the listing. (And of course if you’re not looking for hand-dyed yarn, this won’t be useful.)

However, since Poshmark does put an emphasis on brand names, you can look up specific brands. I found this the best way to find the yarn I was actually interested in without having to sort through listings I didn’t care about.

Most of the yarn is being resold in sets of multiple skeins, so you may also need to do a little research and math to see how good the deal actually is compared to standard retail. Sweater quantities are not in abundance here; I did sometimes see larger quantities, but most offerings were between 1 and 3 skeins. However, I did see quite a lot of discontinued yarns, so if you’re trying to hunt down a yarn that is no longer available through retail, there’s a chance you may find it here.

 Understanding how Poshmark works can get you a better deal.

Poshmark’s primary difference from other online marketplaces is a big emphasis on networking/social media-like behavior. Sellers are encouraged to follow each other and share both their own and other’s listings with their followers. You can also join live shows where sellers will auction off pieces (similar to TikTok streams) — although it doesn’t seem like there are many of these for craft supplies right now. As a buyer, you don’t really have to engage in any of this, you can just find a listing you like and buy it. That said, because Poshmark is very social-media structured, there are some specific things you should be aware of when you’re browsing that can help you make the best purchase.

If you have a question about a listing, you can comment on it asking for more information – although try to be really clear what information you’re looking for (just asking “is this worsted weight?” might not be something the seller will know how to answer, but “what are the yards and grams listed on the label?” should work better).  You can also create a “bundle” of items from the same seller so you can combine them for lower shipping costs – some sellers will offer additional discounts if you do this.

Liking a listing (clicking on the heart) will often get you an additional discount and/or discounted shipping. If you decide to purchase the item, you can accept this offer or make a counter offer – although be aware that if the seller accepts your counter offer, Poshmark will process the order immediately, so make sure you’re truly ready to purchase!

Lastly, it’s generally considered rude to lowball an offer (for example, offering $10 for something listed at $50) – and might result in sellers blocking you. If you feel a listing is way overpriced (at one point I saw a single skein of Patons sock yarn listed at $30 when standard retail is $5-7), just skip it. The seller will likely lower the price themselves if it doesn’t sell.

Look out for scammers!

Poshmark does have pretty good buyer protections if you purchase through their website or app – when you purchase something, Poshmark actually won’t release your money to the seller until you receive the item and confirm it is what you were expecting. Because of this, a common scam is to pose as the seller for an item you’ve liked and ask you to pay them outside Poshmark for a “better deal.” Don’t engage with anyone who asks for this!

Another common scam is to pose as Poshmark Support and send you messages about “mandatory verification” for your account. This may be comments on your account or an email  with a “verification link” that will allow them to steal your log in and potentially your credit card info.  Poshmark actually does send you an email asking you to verify your own email when you first set up an account, but you just click on the link and do not have to enter any additional information. This scam targets new accounts, so if you’ve just set yours up you’ll probably see a few such messages (you can block and report any users who do this).

As with any online marketplace, exercise caution, particularly if someone asks you to communicate outside Poshmark and/or requests log in or credit card details.

My First Poshmark Yarn Purchases

In my first foray into Poshmark’s yarn marketplace, I purchased one set of 3 Lion Brand Heartland skeins and a 3 skein set of Blacker Yarns. (You’ll notice there are only 2 Heartland skeins in the photo — that’s because I’m already making something with one of them.)

The Blacker Yarns is an example of the best-case scenario yarn find on Poshmark. It’s from their Cornish Tin II line – a limited edition line put out in celebration of their birthday in 2016. It’s a high-quality wool/mohair/alpaca blend that can no longer be bought retail, and I was able to get enough to make a nice shawl or a hat and mitts set. After liking the listing at $60 and getting offered a discount to $54, I countered down to $50, which was roughly 35% off standard retail.

There is a third skein, I’m just already crafting with it, lol.

The Lion Brand Heartland is an example of the standard type of yarn you’ll find on Poshmark – mass market acrylic or acrylic blend brands, albeit at a significant discount. I liked this particular listing at $15 for 3 skeins and took the special offer of $11 as is because it was an extremely fair price, even cheaper per skein than the current sale price at Michael’s.

Would I recommend Poshmark as a secondhand market for yarn? Probably not if you’re *only* going there to buy yarn – at least right now, Ebay offers a bigger selection and it’s easier to search yarn-specific keywords on Ebay listings. The learning curve for negotiating Ebay’s marketplace is also much lower than Poshmark. But if you’re already on Poshmark for other reasons (as I was), or you are hoping to track down a specific yarn that’s been discontinued and didn’t find it on Ebay, you can certainly give it a shot.

What are your favorite ways to shop for secondhand yarn? Let me know in the comments!