I’ve gone through several huge clear-outs this year, and while it’s really helped me refine my style (and clear out my closet!), it has left me with the issue of what to do with the unwanted clothes, many of which are still in pristine condition.
Of course, some of those clothes get donated: let’s just say the local charity stores have done very well out of my closet this year! In the case of clothing which cost a lot of money, however, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d like to be able to recoup at least some of that expenditure, by selling them on. A few years ago, I used to sell a lot on eBay, but a few (OK, make that a LOT) of bad experiences, plus the increasingly high fees, promoted me to start looking elsewhere. I actually did a post a while back on places to sell old clothes, but it’s looking a little out of date now, so here are a few more places to sell your old clothes online…
TWICELY
Twicely is a UK-based site which functions as an online consignment site. I first saw this advertised on Facebook a few months ago, and the thing that most appealed to me was the fact that they basically do all the work for you: you’re sent a large, pre-paid shipping bag which you fill with clothes, shoes and accessories, before sending it back to them for assessment. Once Twicely receive your package, they’ll sort through it, and decide which items they’ll accept: rejected items can either be returned to you for a small fee, or recycled “responsibly” – whatever that means!
The items they keep, meanwhile, will be valued, and they’ll then make you an offer for them. You can either choose to accept an up-front fee for the clothing, or choose to let them sell them first, with you getting a percentage cut of the selling price. The second method will earn you more money IF everything sells, but you’ll obviously have to wait until it does, so if you’d prefer a guaranteed payment, right away, the upfront payment might be a better option.
As I said, this really appealed to me, because it totally eliminated the hassle of selling online. When you do it yourself, you have to photograph each item, list it, respond to questions about it, and then wrap it up and ship it. If you have a lot of items to sell, it can be hugely time-consuming, so having someone else to do all of that for you seems like a good deal to me!
INSTAGRAM
This one will only really be an option for you if you have a fairly large Instagram following, and an audience interested in fashion, but although I’ve never tried it myself, I’ve seen a lot of fashion bloggers set up Instagram accounts purely to sell off their old clothes, and they seem to have a lot of success with it. This generally seems to work simply by the blogger/Instagrammer posting a photo of the item for sale, with a caption stating how much they’re looking for: the first person to comment with their email address then receives a Paypal invoice, and the blogger ships the item.
The one thing that concerns me slightly about this method is the lack of security for both buyer and seller. At least with eBay, if either party runs into problems with the transaction, there’s some way they can report it, but private sales are different, and I’m guessing any disputes would have to be resolved between yourselves. Still, if you have a big enough Insta following, it could be worth a shot!
DEPOP
Depod is an iPhone app which actually functions in a similar way to the Instagram method described above, excpet payments go through the Depop app, which takes a cut of the profit. I’ve personally had no luck whatsoever from selling on Depop, although there could be lots of reasons for that which have nothing to do with the app itself (Wrong clothes, wrong price, etc). I have, however, bought a couple of things, and have been pleased with the service: this is basically a cross between Instagram and eBay, with the advantage that people don’t have to be following you to see what you’re selling – they can use the search function on the app itself to find what they’re looking for.
POSHMARK
Poshmark is a US site which has a very similar interface to Depop, and which is popular with fashion bloggers etc looking to sell on unwanted clothing. Again, payment goes through the site itself, so you’re not entering into a private transaction. As the site is US-based, I haven’t tried it personally, but I do like the sound of it, and particularly of the way they handle shipping: while you do still have to package up your items yourself, they send you a pre-paid postage bag to send it in, and you can even arrange to have it picked up from your home. Running to the post office (and never REALLY knowing how much it was going to cost me!) was one of my biggest bugbears when I used to sell on eBay, so this sounds like an awesome solution to me!
Anyone sell clothing online? How do you do it?
