One of the perks of being acontent creator is that companies send you a bunch of stuff for free. It is exciting but can also be a bit overwhelming. One of the things I frequently get is clothing, and I have so much fun wearing it a few times and taking pictures of/in it, but then I'm over it and to the back of my closet it goes. I can also be a big-time clothing hoarder and have things I bought for work in the past that I only wore once or twice. Especially now that my job is remote, I don't ever really wear that type of clothing anymore. So I had a closet that was bursting at the seams, and my life was feeling super cluttered. I knew I had to just start getting rid of stuff!
First I went through my closet item by item and simply asked my self " Am I in love with this, or would I rather have the money?" The majority of the time, my answer was to get that green! Now I have a pile of clothes that are ready to go, about 90% of them I had gotten for free over the last year. The rest were super old from my days working in sales, and other impulse buys.
In the past, I had some minor success with Poshmark, so I decided to give that a go again. I redownloaded the app and set up a new profile. I was just trying to get rid of the items fast, so I listed everything for under $20. The majority of the items I sold were between $5-15, so I would earn $2-9 with the fee that Poshmark takes from the total of your sale. There really was no rhyme or reason that I could tell from the items that did or did not sell. I made sure to mention that the clothing item had only been worn once or twice for photos. I also described the look, fit, and feel of each item, as well as providing my size specifications. All of my photos were well lit and I just used the filters provided in the Poshmark app. I would also upload the picture from the shoot that I wore the clothing item in. From August 24, 2019 - May 22, 2020 I made exactly $217.55 on Poshmark. At first, you might that's pretty good, especially considering it was 100% profit, as the only things that sold I had gotten for free, but $200 for a year of work wasn't that amazing. Plus I just wanted this stuff gone ASAP. I had so many items that just weren’t moving no matter what I tried (Sharing listings every day, attending ”parties,” etc).
Next, I took everything over to a local resale shop. I really wasn't expecting to get much for the items that I had left, but still wanted to give it a go before I just donated everything. The shop I went to is called Plato's closet, and from what I can tell they are only located in the Columbus, Ohio area. I went to the Sawmill Road location in Dublin. I didn't have much time to look around but they seemed to have a great selection of men's and woman's clothing. The store was clean and bright, and the associates were friendly. All I had to do was show my driver's license and leave my bin of nicely folded clothes with them. I took a lovely walk around the historic downtown Dublin area, and in about an hour they had texted me that my clothing was ready! When they told me the total they would pay me was $75 I was thrilled. Honestly, I would have taken just about anything within reason for it at this point. These clothes had been sitting on my Poshmark FOR EVER and were not moving. I'm not sure why exactly because I seemed to make about the same amount per item at both places, although I think there is more trust on the customers' end when they can actually see and try on the clothing item. Also the receipt I got from Plato’s Closet unfortunately did not have the price per item on it, so I am unable to share that with you.
Some of the brands they took were: Shein, Missguided, Express, Amazon brands, H&M, Target brands, Romwe, Sperry, Fabletics, Fila, some items that had no label/ brand
Brands that they did not take, and I also could never sell on Poshmark: American Eagle (although they did buy one pair of American Eagle skinny jeans), Hollister, Kohl's brands, Loft.
I could also never sell shoes on Poshmark, but the resale store took almost all of the shoes I took in.
Seriously I could not tell why they bought what they did. When I asked about it, why they bought what they did and didn't, she gave me a vague answer and that's ok! I think it is probably just the luck of the draw.
Here are some examples of good pictures for Poshmark. These are also some of the clothes I was able to sell both at Plato's and on Poshmark.
Items pictured sold to resale shop: NWT flared leggings, skinny jeans, explorer hat, orange floral dress, pleather pants/ leggings, cropped sweater, shoes
itens pictured sold on Poshmark: Tie dye dress, black lounge dress, bell bottom jeans, athletic tops, floral tops.
These are some of the gifted clothes I decided to keep, for now :)
Another app that I have used to sell clothing, but would NOT recommend is ThredUp. I used this app in 2019 I believe, and In my opinion, it is a complete waste of time. If you are looking to buy second-hand clothing, it seems like it is probably great. However, for the same amount of clothing/ quality of clothing, I got $1.67 verses the $200 I made on Poshmark and $75 at the resale shop. They sent my earnings to me on a Visa gift card (Poshmark pays via Paypal btw) that no store I have tried to use it in will accept for some reason. If you want clothing back that they don't buy, you have to pay the return shipping on it! So I opted to "donate" what they didn't want. Then a few weeks later I saw one of my donated items, that they claimed they did not want to buy, for sale! Overall I was just not impressed and there are much better options, like supporting your local resale shop.
Now my closet is much less cluttered, and I am ready to add some new items! In the future, I think I will mostly use local resale shops for selling my clothes. I still have a few things listed on my Poshmark, if you want to check it out click here. I am also hosting my first-ever garage sale next month! So we will see how that goes. It has also been great to be able to donate so much clothing and furniture recently. As long as I can delay it from ending up in a landfill, I'm happy!
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Happy Thrifting and Selling!
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