I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with my clothes. I either really love something, or I don’t. If I don’t, it’s gone out of my closet. I don’t have any sentimental attachment to clothes (or really any tangible items truth be told). I’m also very fickle about my clothes; easily tiring of something that months ago I absolutely had to own. Years ago I would just bag everything up and basically give stuff away. Now, however, there are so many options to get money for your castoffs. There are basically three avenues where I sell items from my closet:
Clothes Mentor. This brick and mortar store is chock full of clothes for sale. As a seller, you bring in your gently worn items. Within hours, if not days, your items are processed and you’re offered a cash price for the items. It’s not a consignment shop where you have to wait days or weeks to see if something sells. It’s either an item that sells good at Clothes Mentor, or it’s not. They are quite picky about what they take for sale. Also, I’ve had varying success rates at different store locations. Some stores take a wider variety of items than others. Some items just don’t sell fast and they won’t take them, regardless if they are in excellent condition or not, so you have to be prepared for the whims of their current buying market. The items they don’t take you have to pick up and take with you; there is no option to donate or leave unwanted items at their store.
Thredup. This is an online consignment store. They make it very easy to send in your items to sell. You create an account online and you can either print a label and send in your items using your own packaging that way, or request a Thredup bag and when it arrives you pile your items in it and ship it back. The bag by the way is HUGE and you can easily fit 2 down coats in it, or an assortment of at least 25 tops and dresses. Downsides: (a) you don’t have the ability to edit or describe your items, so you’re at the mercy of their subjective descriptions; (b) the wait for them to go through your bag and post the items to sell is extremely long. At the present time it’s at least 10 weeks; and (c) if the item doesn’t sell in the prescribed period that Thredup establishes for an item, you can either donate it and let Thredup sell/donate on their own as they see fit, or you can have them return it to you for a nominal fee. If you’re fine with letting items languish on their site for weeks/months, Thredup is a great option. Their site is well run and I believe their pricing is fair.
Poshmark. I’m currently selling primarily on this site. What I like about Poshmark is as a seller, you control all aspects of your items. You take the pictures, describe the item and set the price. You can delete items if you decide you don’t want to sell them anymore, and negotiate pricing directly with buyers. Despite having initial misgivings about the app, it’s incredibly intuitive and user friendly. The downsides are it’s very time consuming. If you want to be ranked as a 5-star seller, you need to take the time to present your items well, be honest about the quality of the items, ship your items fast and put thought and care into perfecting your shipping packaging. I send out everything in pink bags with thank you cards and a sheet of stickers as part of my “brand”. What I like about Poshmark is you are creating your brand and curating your own closet. It’s almost like owning your own storefront so how you tailor it is how you invite people in to shop. If you have the time, I highly recommend looking into Poshmark. Also, the more items you sell, the more you move up the ranks in the Poshmark selling hierarchy which gives your closet and items more visibility and traffic.
There’s so much more to say about reselling items. What I learned is that people do not want to spend a lot of money on items even if they are “new with tags”. You will NOT get the price you originally paid. Most buyers are younger and looking for great deals. You are basically competing with sites that are already selling discounted clothing so you have to make it worth someone’s while to pay the shipping to buy an item from you vs. buying something similar somewhere else. So as we transition seasons and if you’re in the mood to purge your closet, check out one of these options! It’s a great way to make some extra money while getting rid of stuff that’s just taking up room in your house and closet.
XO, Char