Do you have a pile of clothes in your closet that you don’t even touch anymore? Are you ready to do a closet clean out?
Well here’s a possible answer to those questions: Resell your pre-owned clothes!
Why You Should Consider Reselling Your Clothes
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Sustainability.
A cool way to recycle your clothes instead of just tossing them in the trash, which contributes to pollution.
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Make Money.
Make money to fund your new wardrobe! Or just make money just because you can 🙂
If the opportunity cost of you spending time and energy to resell your clothes is not worth it to you, that’s ok! I would recommend donating your clothes to your local goodwill and/or savers! But if you’re looking to make some money from your pre-owned clothes, this article is for you.
What You Will Need
A Printer (Optional)
You need a printer to print out shipping labels if you plan to utilize the clothes reselling apps shipping services. If you plan on purchasing shipping at the local post office then you do not need this.
A Smart Phone (Optional)
You need to be able to download the apps Mercari, Poshmark, Depop. You don’t need a smart phone if you plan on selling on internet platforms like Ebay or Craigslist.
Packaging
For Meet Ups: It’s nice to have old shopping bags or even giant zip block bags to put the clothes in so you’re not just handing the buyer articles of loose clothing when you meet up with them.
For Shipping: Order bubble mailers off of Aliexpress and/or Amazon for cheap. You can also purchase some at your local store! The point is you want to spend as least as possible so your profit margin is the highest.
Breaking Down Reselling Platforms
Facebook Marketplace
This is such an underrated clothes reselling platform! And it’s completely free – all you need is a Facebook account. A big pro is that all the profit you get to keep and there is no cut taken from a third party.
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- International Platform
- If you choose to provide shipping services you must do it yourself.
- Tip: Join clothes reselling Facebook groups in your area and out of your area. This is the best way to reach not only more people, but people who are specifically looking to buy clothes, basically your target customer base. Facebook puts a limit to posting to 10 groups at a time, so I would just post to 10 groups first, and then go back to post to the remaining groups afterwards.
- Some Facebook Groups I’ve Joined:
- Some Facebook Groups I’ve Joined:
Mercari
This is a clothes reselling app you would need a smart phone for. Mercari takes a 10% cut from each item you sell. The one con about this app is that if you were to pull your money you made out of the app, $2 will be taken out if you pull out less than $10. So you must make more than $10 for it to be worth it.
Depop
This is another clothes reselling app on a smart phone. Depop also takes a 10% cut from each item you sell, but there is no additional charges. From my personal experience, Depop itself targets the demographic of “hipster” and “young” fashionable people.
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- International Application
- Provides Shipping Services
- Tip: The best way to sell on this app is to get one of your items on their featured “explore” page. This gives you the most coverage in regards to people seeing what you are selling. To get featured, follow the instructions and tips Depop have set in order to get your item featured.
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Poshmark
This app is pretty famous for clothes re-selling (with the highest number of users compared to Depop and Mercari), but their re-selling fees are high compared to other apps. Poshmark takes $2.95 for each sale under $15. For sales over $15, Poshmark takes a cut of 20%.
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- US & Canada Only Application
- Provides Shipping Services
- Tip: Poshmark hosts “selling parties” where users share each others listings in order to receive more coverage. Here is a guide on how to join a selling party.
Instead of using Instagram as a social media platform, you can use it as a clothes reselling platform! Again, there are no profit cuts from a third party. You just need to make an Instagram account and post your clothes on it with descriptions and pricing. You can communicate with buyers through direct messaging on Instagram.
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- International Platform
- You have to provide your own shipping services.
- Tip: Follow a lot of other Instagram reselling clothes accounts to get more exposure. Other reselling accounts will sometimes also post about what they are in search for, and your item may be on that list! So be on the look out for other peoples’ posts.
- Here is an example of my Instagram:
(I’ve now re-branded it to chasing-clothes, check it out here)
DISCLAIMER: These are my honest opinions of applications I’ve used. I haven’t tried other platforms such as Ebay or Craigslist hence why they aren’t on this list.
How to Resell
1. Find the platform or platforms most fit for you.
This requires experimenting with a couple different platforms and seeing which platform(s) have the demographics that would be in most need of what you are selling. In a simple example, if you have a lot of vintage clothing to sell, Depop would be great app for you. If you have a lot of women’s clothes, Poshmark may be most fit for you.
2. Take QUALITY photos of your clothing items.
Depop does a great job at explaining how to take good photos of your clothes here.
3. Upload your photos along with as in-detailed descriptions.
I recommend a minimum of at least including the size, pricing, and whether you ship/do meet ups. You can add more or less up to you.
- Example of a description on Depop:
- Example of my own personal listing on FB:
4. Shipping and/or Meet Ups to sell your clothes!
Shipping: Shipping is easy if you choose to work with platforms that provide shipping services. If you choose to utilize platforms without their own shipping services, you can purchase a shipping label (like you would purchase a stamp) at your local post office.
Another alternative is to use online payment systems like Paypal that offers shipping services. Here are instructions on how to use Paypal’s shipping services here.
Meet Ups: Meet ups should be done with multiple people in a public place. Please never go alone to a meet up! Keep your safety as a number one priority during meet ups.
Keep into account the amount of money spent on traveling to the meet up and how it would cut into your profit margin. You have the option of charging customers a meet up fee depending on how far the meet up location is from you. This fee can be $1-$5 depending on how much you need to cover your transportation costs.
And that’s a wrap on how to sell your clothes online.
I have been selling my clothes online for 5+ years and at times it’s been a passive income where I’ve brought in $400 a month! I hope this article gives anyone interested in reselling clothes a good start. If you aren’t interested in reselling your clothes, I hope it was a good read for you!
Relavent Reads:
How to Save & Invest Your Money
Thanks for reading,
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