Creating a system for your consignment hustle

This is a hobby/passion that I've spent many years to perfect a system that I'm going to share with you. I think when you develop a system rather than a one off thing, it can become more like a way of life or possibly a business.

My tips are listed in order of the least amount of work, but less profit to the most amount of work to more profit. When I was younger I loved going to thrift stores, Haha who am I kidding - I still do. I love seeing potential in something and finding bargains. I used to switch out my clothes all the time based on what my life was like and what I was into at the time.

I started by getting rid of half of my closet that I no longer wear (because COVID resulted in me gaining 15 pounds) and then putting all of the clothes into various piles of 1) Definite donations 2) Name brand/good condition but not as trendy 3) Trendy, good condition but was just too small and on season.

My tiered system is as follows:

1. All of the best things bring to Crossroads (or other consignment store)

2. Things that have great photos, designer brand or have high resell value sell on Poshmark simultaneously

3. Anything that doesn't sell quickly send to thredup

4. Donate the rest

5. Get more inventory by signing up for all major thrift stores coupons/newsletters and only buying things in bulk with a discount or at the Goodwill outlet

With this formula you have the highest chance for making the biggest profit with the clothes you wanted to get rid of. I'll go into detail about each selling venue next:

Crossroads Trading Company (Or other similar consignment stores)

I've been selling (but mostly buying) clothes from my local Crossroads for years. I ALWAYS head straight for the 50% off sale rack to find the best deals. Maybe because i'm older now, I can find some pretty good brands and that's where I buy most of my clothes. Recently, I brought in 6 bags of stuff that's been accumulating in my closet.

Tips:

1. The stuff you bring in to sell has to be new with tags or in great condition

2. The stuff needs to be in season or on trend (there's a list on their website, but if it's October they will be buying boots, jackets and sweaters rather than dresses, sandals and tank tops)

3. I always get the consignment rather than the cash. I think they give you 40% of what they will sell your piece for, but only like 15% in cash. Which if you're not really in dire need of the cash right then, is a crappy deal and you should either try to sell the item yourself or just get new clothes with the trade-in value.

Usually then can go through your stuff while you're there, and then call you in a few hours. Or during CO-VID they are backed up so limiting amount of pieces to look at to 50 and having you come back after a day or two.

I use it as a stepped process. I was able to bring in like 60 pieces of clothing and they bought back about a 1/4 of it, and got a gift card for trade-in of about $172 (because I had some good stuff to sell). The remaining stuff I sent in to Thredup. It's like interviewing for jobs, don't take rejection too highly. You just have to keep trying and find the right place to sell the right things.

Thredup

When signing up for an account, all you need to do is request a prepaid label and then print it out yourself. I had to find my own box laying around in the garage for the amount of clothes and shoes I wanted to send in to them. The great thing about this, (after knowing how much work the consignment process really entails) is that they do most of it for you.

They have a staff of people in a warehouse somewhere in San Leandro that will go through your shipment of clothes, prepare, photography, inventory and list the items for you saving you a lot of time. The only work you had to do was stick your clothes in the box, glue the label and bring it to the post office.

Pros: It takes me at least 30 minutes with a streamline process to do this on my own. I will outline what this entails in the Poshmark writeup below. Once you ship this out you can just focus on your family and check up on this when they get back to you. You'll probably forget about it, but at least your closet is a lot cleaner and you didn't have to go or do anything else.

Cons: It takes a few weeks to see a confirmation code that they received your box. Then even before CO-VID where they state they are backed up it takes 9-12 weeks for them to process your box and give you a credit. They say that usually accept 40% of your box but unless you pay them $12 or so, they will just donate the rest of your clothes so you don't have the ability to sell what's left. Also, they only give you a very small portion of the sales that you make. "ThredUp pay: 5 to 80 percent of the anticipated selling price. (The more valuable the item, the higher your percentage.) ThredUp commission: 20 to 95 percent of the selling price."

Notes: I would only resort to this, if you haven't been able to sell your clothes with the below methods.

Poshmark

There are many other sites like Poshmark, but it's just an example of one where I've bought Lulu Lemon or other good brands before. Here's my "closet" and page:

It took me about 20 minutes to prepare, list, photograph each of the items once I got the hang of it. I found a bright room in my home, and also bought the cheap mannequin so I could showcase things from Amazon below. I used my camera phone which is very good and watched a few Youtube videos on some basic pointers.

Pointers:

A. Take about 6 shots (front, back, details, side, label, washing instructions/materials)

B. Video or filling up all the photo slots is optional but very helpful

C. Take the shots in daylight with a lot of natural light or get some simple lighting setups that you can also find on Amazon

D. Make sure the clothes are washed, in good condition, and usually have a brand name or something distinguishable that someone would search by

Here's what a typical listing looks like. I was able to buy this dress from Goodwill outlet for probably less than $.40 (you can buy a pound of good for $1.50 or so). I'm great at searching through mass quantities or unwanted goods and finding unique patterns and well known brands. I took it home and washed it/steamed it and put it on my mannequin for pictures. The listings interface is pretty straight forward and once you get the hang of it can fly through it. I sold this dress for $20, in which Poshmark took $4 for the service of listing it but they also pay for shipping.

Once I got the order, I wrapped it in white tissue and printed out a label/sticker with my website and thanking the customer to seal it up with. I got a few standard shipping boxes for free from UPS here for free. To start off with I got big envelopes, a shoe size box and slim boxes suitable for shipping a sweater. They shipped to me for free in sets of 10 within a few days, so recommend if you're going to do this to plan ahead. After getting the order I taped the label on, wrapped up the dress and took it to FedEx the next day along with a few other packages.....and that's it!

I'm still working out the pricing, because I'm not sure always of what the original pricing was. I think there's little risk is pricing a little high to see if something will sell and then lowering it as time passes.

Gratitude Brands Poshmark Closet

Here is the mannequin I invested in, because I like to do a lot of fashion shots and sew, it was much cheaper and shipped quickly than the vintage ones I was looking at buying.

Thrift Stores (Salvation Army, Savers etc.)

There's so much content out there about Thrifting but here are just some notes that I've gathered over the years:

1. Sign up for the newsletters, coupons that your local thrift stores send out. I only end up going now when I get the 50% off all clothing coupons!

2. Diversify, the same way you would your investments. Go to several different stores in different areas. ie: I'm sure you have your favorite, but stop by Salvation Army, Goodwill, Savers and local small stores. They may have different things. Go to the ones that are close to your house but also be sure to stop by high end areas. In Los Altos where the typical house price is 3.2 million dollars, people tend to get rid of some nice kids clothes and have higher name brands.

3. Talk to the employees, they might have some local tips on sales and shipment days etc.

4. Don't waste your money on time with things that need mending, heavy wear, or stains. It might just sit in your house providing more clutter if it didn't already have lots of potential to begin with. Be picky about what you buy and take home!

So many videos, blogs and content on Thrift store tips and hauls...oh my!

Goodwill Outlet

This is something new that I didn't know existed. When I mentioned it to people they said "how bad does something have to be to not sell at Goodwill?". I didn't knock it before I tried it and the experience was actually fun and I would totally go back. Where I live in the Bay Area there are two locations for Outlets which happen to be in industrial warehouse areas. One is in Burlingame and the other after asking is in S. San Francisco. I didn't take pictures here, but if you can imagine:

1. The hours are limited and sometimes the locations are hard to find

2. During CO-VID there are some locations that make you buy a whole crate of stuff

3. There was a person at each bin, and it's like speed dating. You have a few minutes at each bin to throw whatever you want in your cart

4. This place was only open from 8 to 12, so it was hard to get to and you had to be fast

5. We were lucky that we got there the last 20 minutes, there was no wait and they employees were super nice

6. There's a big scale which charges you differently for clothes, shoes, blankets and books but they just weigh everything. I got lots of different things for my house/for resale for about $10.

Pros: You can get a pound of whatever you want for like $1.50. You can find some cool stuff as long as you have a good eye and like sifting through some stuff. It's like a treasure hunt for me and very little risk if you have to donate or you make a mistake on certain items because it's so cheap. If you find a gem, you can make a pretty good profit on certain items.

Cons: There's a lot of crap you have to sort through, you need to be safe and wear a mask and gloves, some locations make you pay like $50 for a huge box of unknown stuff and another $35 to recycle anything you don't want. Wasn't sure if I wanted to make that investment up front.

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GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY THRIFTING! <3