Poshmark, the North American consumer-to-consumer (C2C) platform that Naver acquired in 2023 for about 2 trillion won, has recently begun recruiting global talent. Early this month, it brought in former eBay Vice President Heather Friedlander as chief product officer (CPO), and more recently appointed Deborah Liu, formerly of Facebook, to its board. With Chief Executive Kim Nam-sun, who previously served as Naver's chief financial officer (CFO) and head of Naver Ventures, leading Poshmark since August, the moves are seen as a reshuffle of the lineup.
◇ Bringing in big tech veterans to management… "Building a world-class team"
According to the industry on the 13th, Poshmark recently brought in Director Liu, formerly of Facebook, to its Board of Directors. Liu served as a Facebook vice president through 2021, where she planned and led the application (app) commerce business. She also most recently served as chief executive officer (CEO) of the gene data corporations Ancestry. She majored in civil and environmental engineering at Duke and received an MBA from Stanford.
Kim described Director Liu on his LinkedIn as "one of the most outstanding and respected technology leaders in Silicon Valley," adding that "she will add new momentum to our journey to build a world-class team that will drive innovation and growth." Liu responded, "I look forward to helping draw Poshmark's new beginning together."
Just before bringing in Director Liu, Poshmark appointed a chief product officer (CPO) from eBay. Poshmark CPO Heather Friedlander served as Ancestry CPO and eBay vice president, and has more than 10 years of experience at Microsoft (MS).
Poshmark is the largest secondhand transaction platform in North America, acquired by Naver with an investment of $1.31 billion (1.9149 trillion won) in 2023. Its users reportedly number 150 million. It drew attention as the largest merger and acquisition (M&A) since Naver's founding. After acquiring Poshmark, Naver has been expanding its global C2C transaction business, including exploring an acquisition of Wallapop, the "Karrot Market" of Spain, this year.
◇ Task of boosting profitability with AI agents
However, Poshmark has been viewed as growing somewhat slowly since Naver's acquisition. According to Meritz Securities, Poshmark's sales in the third quarter were 135 billion won, similar to the same period a year earlier (134 billion won).
Lee Chang-young, an analyst at Yuanta Securities Korea, noted of Poshmark and Wallapop, "The overseas consumer-to-consumer transaction platforms, into which about $2 billion has been invested, are in a situation where even their growth has yet to be verified."
On its third-quarter earnings conference call, Naver said, "As Poshmark and Naver's search engine combine, layout improvements are delivering more accurate search results," adding, "With the introduction of new ad formats and a ranking system, we are growing through efficient marketing execution."
Naver is expected to work to expand profitability by applying its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to Poshmark going forward. Naver has been seeking to improve performance in the commerce institutional sector through user-tailored AI agents. In particular, at the developer conference DAN 2025 early this month, Naver said it will equip all services with AI agent features by the end of next year, starting with a shopping agent to be introduced in Naver Plus Store in the first quarter of next year.
Naver Chief Operating Officer (COO) Kim Beom-jun said, "We plan to evolve the on-service AI experience we have secured in Korea into localized agents tailored to overseas services such as Naver Webtoon, Poshmark, and Wallapop."