Closet clean up time!
Let’s face it, we’ve all been there, standing in front of your closet thinking, “I haven’t worn this ages” or “when will I ever wear this again”, “why did I even spend money on this”.
Luckily you can now make some extra cash by selling those items you swore you’d wear again (or even once).
Hope over to the socials for some inspiration: “thrifting” has become increasingly popular through the years. Even me I have one on YAGA, it’s called “experienced items”.
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Why you should thrift (according to thrifters)
Here are some reasons (and benefits) why you should rummage through the clothes bins at thrift markets, or get into selling your clothes online:
- Keeps clothes out of landfills, this is bad for the environment
- Reduce chemical and carbon pollution
- Many thrifting shops partner with goodwill/charity organisations
- Can lower our overall water consumption
- ALL THE BARGAINS!
Get started thrifting your clothes
Pick-up or delivery
When you start selling clothes you need to establish a delivery method, especially if your venture starts picking-up. Courier costs vary between R50 and R120 depending on the weight and travel time.
You can always promote your “pick up” option, if you are comfortable meeting people at your house or a nearby central point.
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Find your thrift turf
Identify your platform. I would steer clear from Facebook Marketplace. Mainly due to the bad publicity around many scammers that steal items or money.
YAGA is very popular and I am very impressed with their business model. Buyers pay the money to YAGA and then, funds will only be released to the seller once the buyer has indicated that they received the item in the advertised condition. The interface is very user friendly with many convenient ways of shopping to protect the buyer and seller. Once you’ve created your shop, loaded you pictures, prices and courier options you are ready to start selling.
For a direct approach, try the WhatsApp business application (it will replace your current WA app but your number remains the same. You can load a whole catalogue with pictures, prices and descriptions.
Promote and Market
Make it look nice.Find yourself a well lit corner or wall, a tripod and a good quality camera. Where possible, wear the items in the pictures. Potential customers will want to see how the outfit sits on a human body.
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The Price is Right
Get your pricing right. My main tip is not to try and make the money back you’ve spent on the item, that is not the point of thrifting. It should first and foremost be about avoiding unwanted trash items that will just end up polluting our environment.
Adding items to cart
Building a cart is also very handy. Sometimes the price of an item, will be significantly less than the price to deliver it. To solve this problem, new-age thrifters allow buyers to fill a cart over time. Think, reserving items, until your cart is full, and then paying for the delivery of all those items at the end of three or so months. For example, you want a scarf that’s worth R40 but the delivery fee is R100. Instead of paying R140 in one go. You buy the scarf in January and the seller reserves it in your cart. You then buy a shirt (R50) the next month and then buy a pair of tights (R20) and some sandals (R20) the following month. Now you have a cart valuing R130. A sale worth paying the R100 deliver fee for.
HAPPY SELLING!
