Selling 2nd hand clothes - your opinion is needed!

[lilysmum29]

I want to compliment my existing online clothing business by selling 2nd hand clothes but I need to do some research about this before I start. Tell me your thoughts on a service that would involve a person coming to your house and making you a cash offer for the goods/clothes you wanted to sell - would that be of interest to you? If you sell your 2nd hand stuff already, how do you do it? Are you able to sell your goods quickly and for the price you want?

It would be great to hear from you if you have any thoughts on this matter. Thank you!

I give away most of mine, but if they're a nice brand like Monsoon/Gap or barely worn, then I put them on Ebay. Don't usually get much - sometimes just the start price of 99p, but if I list ten things then it's better than nothing! And the odd item will go for £3-£4. Barely worn Clarks shoes do really well, and things like ballet uniform etc. Not sure how i feel about someone coming to buy at my house - it would mean I'd have to get it all sorted in one big bag, rather than just putting the odd thing on Ebay as and when I find it in the loft or one of my DCs outgrow it.

I currently ebay anything I think I could get a fiver for, and charity shop the rest. Yes I would be interested in a service whereby someone comes to the house and makes me an offer...ebaying can be a faff if you do it regularly (all the packing-up and trips to the post office etc).

There is a business locally that buys clothes and pays according to the weight. However that would mean you could end up with a lot of old tut only fit for the charity shop.

I would imagine that there is a market for it. Perhaps you could encourage people to hold a small get together with their friends at home, everyone brings clothes they want to sell and you can have a look and offer what you feel is fair. Would be a good way of seeing a few people in one go and everyone could have your contact details if they wanted to selling anything in the future.

Not exactly the same but I have a lady who does car boots and once a year I gather up everything I want rid of and she takes the lot and gives me a fair price for it all. She does take everything though and not just the stuff that is worth it to her.

From a customer point of view I think it could possibly work BUT you would have to be willing to take all the unsaleable clothes too. I would want someone just taking great odd items and leaving me with all the rubbish stuff to take to charity or the tip.

I am sure you have thought about that but you may have to think about how you would ethically dispose of all the clothes that you personally couldn't sell on from your business. I wouldn't want to use a company that just dumped anything they couldn't use.

From a business view I am not sure how viable a concept it would be.

1. You couldn't be too selective about going to pick up clothes and you might find it extremely hard to find a gem amongst the piles of egg stained faded tatt!

1. You might find it unprofitable once you factor in your time of collecting and disposal costs of non saleable items. You'd have to factor in your costs of petrol and parking

1. From a tax point of view I suppose your 'customers' would in fact be your suppliers and possible tax implications would have to be considered and explained fully to people.

1. If you were only to take 'good' stuff or one off items people are more likely to sell themselves on ebay rather than take a hit on your percentage profit.

Just some thoughts.

I'm often surprised by how much folk will pay on e-bay. I have sold lots of DD s things and, lately, tons of stuff that no longer fits me :) It can seem a faff to list, say, ten tops but when I get £100 it is worth it! I would sell to someone who picked the stuff up if they gave me a similar price- less a bit for the time taken to do listings, postage etc. However, I think it unlikely that someone would look at same pile of tops and offer me £80!

For kids stuff anything from Next/Gap/H&M goes on Ebay. I usually put a starting bid of 99p but also a "buy it now" option of £2.99 - 3.99 and the gap stuff is almost always snapped up this way. Most of my clothes never make it to Ebay as I wear them to death.

If I was going to have someone come around and pay me for second hand clothes I would want them to take the lot and not just cherry pick the named brand stuff.

I wouldn't have thought that getting rid of the tat would be a problem - there's loads of supply chains that will buy stuff that's not saleable in the UK, for export or recycling - at the very least most charity shops will happily take it off your hands.

I'd be tempted certainly, though maybe the coming to your house option would be a bit of a faff - perhaps you could do "coffee mornings" for friends of friends (though you'd need to treat your bids with discretion - I certainly wouldn't want to haggle in from of my mates, and there's a risk that they'd just see what the others had bought and decide to swap). Or run a regular drop-in service - rent a church hall for an hour, and leaflet drop the local houses and other local contacts in advance to tell them you'd be there. If I saw something like that on offer I'd certainly be tempted to drop by with a bag of gear and see what you'd offer me.