Sell Your Clothes

So you have minimized your closet. You have removed everything that doesn’t fit perfectly. You have eliminated those clothes that are simply lovely, but not really your color. You have even pulled out the items that are your color and fit well — the ones you SHOULD love, but never seem to wear. You have a huge pile of new, barely worn and beautiful clothes.

Now What?

Well you could donate them. If you do, be sure to research the charities so you know your donations are going for a good cause. I prefer to donate to the Salvation Army in my local area, rather than choosing to support Goodwill with my donations. (I just think they do more meaningful work.)

But, if you want a little cash, there are quite a few other options to consider. My favorite three are listed below:

Sell Your Clothes on ThredUp

ThredUp.com – A quick, easy way to clean out your closet. Order a “clean out kit” from their website and put a laundry-basket size load of clothes in it and ship it off to them. They will review the clothes and you can either pay to have them ship back the ones they don’t want to buy from you or put on consignment, or you can ask them to donate the no-go items for you.

• Pros: It’s fast, it’s easy and it gets the job done immediately. You don’t have to handle each item separately. No prepping and shipping to the individual buyer.
• Cons: They don’t pay much, they take shipping fees out of your earnings (about $10) to send them the clothes.

Sell Your Clothes on eBay

Ebay.com – This great standby allows you to put up anything you no longer need (not just clothing) and get it sold. You are much more “hands on” with this approach and it will take more of your time to prepare each item and it will take time to sell each item.

• Pros: You will get more money per item. You can do more than just sell clothes (you could get rid of all the stuff you are minimizing right out of your life!
• Cons: You have to take photos (and bad photos mean no sales). You have to deal with answering questions from potential buyers. You have a fee per item sold that goes to eBay. You have to package and ship the item and send it out to the buyer, which is a real hassle. You have to determine how much to set the shipping cost at before the purchase, so you don’t lose money on the transaction.

(NOTE: Ebay Valet Services take a much larger cut of your profit, but allow you to box up everything and have someone else sell it for you.)

Sell Your Clothes on Poshmark

Poshmark.com – This is a clothes-specific selling platform. Like ebay, you get to sell the items at the price you want and pocket the profit. But the cons are similar to eBay:

• Pros: You are in control of the sales. You can list as much or as little as you like.
• Cons: You will need to keep an eye on your account to quickly answer questions from potential buyers. You will deal with the boxing and shipping of each item (they do encourage “bundling” items though, which encourages a single buyer to purchase more of your things to save shipping). They also utilize a standard shipping rate that makes it easy to determine how to figure shipping, and will usually cover your shipping costs.

These are just three services that I have personally used and like. (They work for purses, shoes and accessories as well.) There are a number of other options. What methods do YOU use to dispose of unnecessary clothing once you streamline your wardrobe?