It seems like our house continually has a box of clothing that either no longer fits someone in the home or the individual just got tired of wearing them. Whenever I bring up this situation with other moms, they say their house contains a similar box. If you are tight on cash, this box can be a great source of income. To help you get started, here is a list of 9 places to sell used clothing.
How To Get Top Dollar For The Clothing You Want To Sell
Before I jump into where you can resell your clothing, I want to cover how to prepare the clothing you want to sell so that you get the most money for your efforts.
Make Sure The Clothing You Want To Sell Is In Good Shape
I highly recommend that before you try and sell any clothing, you first place it under bright light and look over each piece of clothing you want to sell for small tears, snags, or stains. If an item of clothing has any of the issues I mentioned, I would suggest making them into rags or using them for other projects instead of selling them.
Consignments shops won’t accept items with such blemishes. Online buyers who discover such signs of wear in clothing after purchase will be upset and leave negative reviews that will harm your selling reputation on websites like eBay.
The only exception I would make to this rule is if you are selling clothing at a yard sale. In that case, I would place those items with tiny holes, snags, or stains in a “25 cents an item” box and allow buyers to decided if they are okay with the minimal damage or not.
Stain removal tip: I have gotten out numerous set-in stains in clothing by soaking them overnight in this environmentally friendly product.
Make Sure The Clothing You Want To Sell Is Looking Its Best
Do not show up at a consignment store with a trash bag of wrinkled clothing and expect them to throw cash at you. Make sure that all the clothing is freshly washed, unwrinkled, and depending on the situation, either hung well on a hanger or folded neatly.
Research Where Your Clothing Will Sell The Best
Even though I share a list of 9 places to sell your clothing, not all nine places will work for the type of clothing your family wears. In fact, you will probably make the most money if you sell your clothing in a few different places.
If your family doesn’t buy designer brands, then Poshmark won’t work for you, but selling your clothing at a yard sale probably will. You could also try making several groups of clothing in the same size and season and sell them as a lot on Facebook Marketplace.
If you wear designer brands, but don’t have a lot of time to sell clothing, then upscale consignment stores or online ones like thredUP will probably be your best bet. However, if you do have time to sell them, then try Poshmark or eBay.
9 Places To Sell Your Family’s Used Clothing
(Links in this post are affiliate links. I will be compensated when you make a purchase by clicking those links. See my disclosure page for more information)
1. Yard Sales
The key to selling as much clothing as possible at yard sales is to present the clothing well. Hang up as much clothing as possible (if you are just in the beginning stages of family life and have years of yard sales ahead of you, then purchasing a clothing rack like this one could pay for itself over time). Sort the clothing by size and type (all the jeans together, tops together, etc.). If you don’t have room to hang all your clothing, fold them into neat stacks on a table, once again sorting them by size and type.
Be realistic about what your clothing is worth. That shirt you bought on clearance for $10 and wore twice is worth perhaps a $1 at most, no matter how new it looks.
Upsell whenever you can. If a customer walks up to you with a pair of pants you know look amazing with a shirt they didn’t grab, point it out to them.
Spend your day tidying up the racks and piles whenever you can–a neat display of clothing sells faster.
One last tip: put the best items on top of the piles and at the end of the racks to draw people into the clothing.
2. Facebook Buy & Sell Groups
Often Facebook Buy & Sell Groups will have a ‘no clothing policy,’ so make sure you know the policies of your Facebook Buy & Sell Group before you start posting pictures of your clothing.
I can’t stress enough the importance of taking great pictures of your items. Good photos are taken in good light with no background distractions. If you are selling clothing in the same size as a set, it is okay not to take a picture of every item. But do make sure to list them all in the description.
Keep in mind that Facebook Buy & Sell Groups require you spending time and gas money to meet with buyers. I wouldn’t list a single pair of girls size 14 jeans for $1, but instead, I would list six pairs of girls size 14 jeans at $12 buys all.
3. Consignment Stores
When my children were little, I loved dropping off their clothing at a consignment store in a neighboring town. It wasn’t the type that paid upfront, but instead a true consignment store that gave you a percentage of the sale when items sold.
Whenever I drove through that town, I checked to see if we had clothing we could drop off, and even if we didn’t, I still dropped in to see if I had made any money on the clothing I dropped off last time. Sometimes I didn’t have any money in my account, and other times, I had as much as $50.
My biggest tip for consignment stores is to find out if the ones near you have a website that lists all their rules before you take your items in. Many only accept certain brands, or winter clothing only from July to December and summer clothing only from January to June. Knowing the rules upfront will save you a lot of time and effort.
4. Consignment Sales
Consignment sales differ from consignment stores in that they are not a store, but a sale that generally lasts for just a few days and is held in a community center of some sort.
What I like about consignment sales is that, in general, you get to keep a more significant percentage of the sale of your items than you do at consignment stores. You also get to decide on the selling price.
What I don’t like about consignment sales is that they can be a lot of work. You have to price and hang each item yourself and quite often the sale will require that you help out for a few hours, either setting up the sale, selling at the sale, or taking down the sale.
5. eBay
I know several moms who sell their children’s clothing as a lot every time they outgrow one size and grow into another. They tell me the key is to buy quality, name brand clothing like Gap and Gymboree on deep clearance new for your kids. They state that when they sell it, they often make 50% to 100% of their investment back. If you are into name brands, this might be a great option to earn some cash back on your investment.
6. thredUP
thredUP is an online consignment store that will take infants, toddlers, youth, teens, maternity, and women’s clothing. They also take shoes, purses, and some accessories like hats and belts. They don’t take men’s clothing.
To sell clothes through thredUP, create an account, and fill out the form to have them send you a clean out kit. You can send in your clothing free of charge with this clean out kit.
There is a list of brands they accept available on their site found by clicking on the “clean out” tab and then clicking on the “payout” tab. This area of their website will also help you figure out roughly how much money you might be able to get for your clothing when it sells.
Psst…order your clean out bag through my referral link and get a $10 store credit to ThredUP (new accounts only).
7. Poshmark
Poshmark sells children’s, men’s, and women’s clothing. I haven’t used Poshmark to sell clothing yet, but I have used it to buy a pair of Birkenstock shoes like these for half the price of retail, so I know that the app does work. If you enter Poshmark into the search bar on Pinterest, you will find all sorts of tutorials filled with tips for becoming a successful Poshmark seller.
Use my referral code SNAILPACER when you sign up and you will get $10 off your first purchase–should you decided to spend some of the money you make on some new clothes. This offer could change at any time.
8. Swap
Swap is a consignment website where you can send in your family’s clothing and they will do the rest of the work for you; once the sales are made, you get to keep 70% of it and Swap keeps 30%. You can learn more about what types of clothing Swap accepts and about their selling fees and what they do for their consigners by visiting the Swap website and scrolling to the bottom of the page.
9. Mercari
I haven’t yet used Mercari to buy or sell. You pay a 10% flat-rate sale fee when you sell an item. So if your item sells for $10, then Mercari will take $1. Use my referral link here to sign up for a Mercari account and get $10 off your first purchase should you want to buy clothing to replace the clothing you sell (the offer could change at any time).
I hope this list helps you make some money from your family’s clothing. If you find out that you really like selling secondhand clothing you might want to consider using some of the money you make from selling your family’s outgrown clothing and use it to buy inexpensive secondhand clothing from popular designers that you can resell through a few of these companies above for more money than you paid for it.
Need tips to buy clothing inexpensively to replace the items you just sold? Check out the following articles!
- 20 Websites Thrifty People Use To Save Money On Clothing
- 20 Ways Thrifty People Save Money On Clothing
- 10 Ways Thrifty People Save Money On Workout Gear
- 15 Ways To Save Money On A Swimsuit: Save 50% Or More With These Tips
Available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon–get your copy here!
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I’ve found that I have success selling in local Facebook For Sale Groups. I had a garage sale a few weeks ago and sold a few pieces of kids clothing and 3 nursing tanks 🙁 I put the vast majority of the clothes for sale in the FB group and sold about $125 in clothing!