hi.
i've been totally amused by the online consignment store,
thredup, lately so i thought i would gather up all my thoughts on it into a giant post. i have both bought and sold on thredup and i keep getting sucked back into mindless scrolling through images whenever i get an email about getting a new credit. and while i am talking about it, i want to issue an official big THANK YOU to everybody who has joined and ordered through
my affiliate link. it has resulted in polka dot packages greeting me when i get home from work.
(j.crew wool cardigan via thredup)
tips for buysies
know yo sizes. if you already have a rough guess of your sizing in certain brands (even if you've just tried on some pieces) it makes it a lot easier to figure out what if something will fit. for example, i know exactly what size i wear in theory suiting, j.crew dresses, and vince sweaters because i've tried a bajillion of them on in person and they are really consistent. brands like h&m, gap, and old navy seem to have larger size ranges in my experience, so it's harder to predict how something will fit.
shop yo favorites. rather than try out a new-to-you brand, stick with ones that you know what to expect in quality and fit. when you search for a brand on the left sidebar, it adds it to your favorites so you can easily search for multiple brands at once. there's a ridiculous amount of j.crew stuff listed (3,268 items when i'm writing this) so if all your most worn cardigans are j.crew, it's easy to find their cousins.
shop up/treat yo self. since (almost) everything is pre-loved, it doesn't really make sense to buy anything that was cheaph-ish to begin with. with target cartwheel coupons (or seriously, go to your local goodwill and hunt down the new target stock) you probably wouldn't be paying
that much more for something like a merona sweater brand spankin' new. and then you are getting all of it's washes! anyway, my point is that you can find fancy pieces, that are normally out of your price range, down to reasonable numbers. i recently bought a marc by marc jacobs robe with its tags for $28.99 that retails for $178. i would never pay three digits for a robe, but for two digits i am totally game. and it's really soft.
check the percentages. acrylic blends are not your friend. wool, silk, and cotton are usually good bets. (this is a good strategy for thrifting too.) since you can't necessarily tell very much detail from the single photo thredup provides, fabric content is a good indicator of what you'll be getting. for example, i hate angora. it looks like a soft baby bunny, but then everything else within a fifty yard radius looks like that baby bunny shed its winter coat on it. so i steer clear of angora.
go pantsless. maybe it's just me, but i have to try on a whole lot of pants to find an amazing pair. therefore buying them used online is probably not such a good idea. also, there's a decent chance that the previous owner got them hemmed. and that person might be six inches taller or shorter than you. that's just not going to work out well.
(j.crew ruffle shell via thredup)
tips for sellsies
okay, now for the flip side: the sellsies. i really just straight up like having new clothes to wear. and since i admit that, i also need to own up to needing to clear out older pieces to make room for new stuff in my closet. i have consigned clothes in person before at plato's closet and buffalo exchange, and well, i just don't like it. i've had mixed results and the waiting process is just bothersome to me. the idea of mailing a (pre-paid shipping) bag of clothes and then magically getting paid for them sounded just grand. i loaded up my first bag with an unfortunate fuzzy coat purchase and a bunch of other old clothes that were on their brand list. the wait time was pretty long (five weeks), but i was warned about this when i requested the bag and when they recieved it.
you can see exactly what i got paid for
here on thredup. they accepted about half of what i sent in. it did seem suspect to me that they accepted things like an old navy sweater that they valued at $5.49, but rejected a tags-attached zara dress and a pair of cole haan heels that were worn once. there aren't very many zara items listed on the site, so maybe the brand is not on their clothes-sorter's radar. i did not opt to pay to have my rejectables sent back (since i just wanted to clean out my closet and be done with it) but maybe that was a mistake since they are in no way accountable for what happens to them. overall, i think i got about the same deal as selling to a consignment store, but probably less than i would have on ebay. yet both of those options involve a whole lot more of a time and effort. anyway, i would definitely recommend reading all their rules and understanding what you are getting yourself into. you'll get more money than you would if you just donated or swapped the clothes, but not as much as if you took the time to sell them individually.
alrighty, since i am usually pretty minimal with the words, that was like three months worth of them. has anybody else had good or bad experience with thredup or other online consignment operations?
p.s. i was in no way, shape, or form compensated for this post. i just wanted to put my two cents out there.
