To think it’s too much hassle to sell clothes and I should just bring them to the charity shop

[CreamLampshade]

I’ve got a lot of lovely unworn clothes I’d like to sell online but it seems like I’ll get about fiver for a dress that cost me £40 and is still in perfect condition, or £30 for a brand new All Saints biker jacket that cost me £350! Or £3 for a perfect condition item from a brand like H&M.

It seems a lot of hassle taking the pics, doing the descriptions, then posting them. But at the same time it feels like such a waste of money to not get something for them…

wwyd?

yABU - sell them online
yanbu - just give it to charity

I think if I could post more easily it would be less of a headache. For me it is a 40 min out of my way round trip by car to any drop off/collection point as we are rural. And when you factor in my time and the costs of that journey (my car is electric but even so, it costs) it doesn’t add up.

Have you factored in the income tax you have to pay on that?

Oh, and another thing- stay ahead of the season. People were buying spring stuff in march. They are buying high summer holiday clothes now. Don't wait until the weather changes to list it. And use key words if you can

@AlltheFs there is no income tax. I'm not selling for profit, the stuff has been bought for more than sold for and worn. Particularly for kids clothes, I have an inbox full of receipts from the past 4 years of what I have paid for it.
The rule is that if you are buying to sell and make a profit, you are liable for tax on it over £1000. That is not the case on selling your used goods.

Guidance is here if needed.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/selling-online-and-paying-taxes/selling-online-and-paying-taxes-information-sheet

I've recently reverted back to ebay and made about £250 in the last month. I rarely buy new so I'm actually getting back a fair bit of what I pay for things. I got really fed up with Vinted and find ebay easier to use. I post Royal Mail and get them to collect the parcel so just book the collection for a morning I'm going to be in anyway.

I used to send better stuff to Thrift + as I liked that I could donate to a pet charity (one that didn't have shops) but I had a lot of problems with them - eg good quality designer items not making the listing so I think that there may be issues with their warehouse staff.

Charity shops do worry me though as a PP said some send good items to rags which doesn't seem very green. If I donate clothes now I usually give them to Traid as they are very responsible about how they dispose of items they don't sell. They are London based but you can send them donations for free as they send you a Collect+label https://traid.org.uk/clothes-donations/

I mean, there's no right or wrong answer here, is there? It totally depends on whether you need/want the money you'd get from selling them. If you're in a position where you can buy a £350 jacket and then not wear it, my guess is that the money isn't really a big deal to you.

(Although I'd be surprised if you only got £30 for that brand new £350 All Saints jacket, by the way! I've just sold a Doc Marten leather bag for £50. It wasn't new and the current in-store price is £120.)

I personally wouldn't bother trying to sell things from places like H&M, New Look, Primark, Asos/Boohoo etc, because they're so cheap to buy new. Remember that if you price a top on Vinted at £5, the buyer also has to pay a couple of quid postage and the buyer protection fee, so they're more likely going to be shelling about £8-9 altogether and they could probably buy a top new from Asos with next day delivery for that. So you end up having to reduce things to £2 or whatever and for me, £2 wouldn't be worth the effort and I'd rather just take the item to the charity shop instead.

Generally, my own rule of thumb is that if I'll make more than £5 for it, I'll sell it, and anything else goes to the charity shop or gets recycled. The sorts of prices I've got for things in the last couple of weeks have been £45 for nearly new Doc Marten sandals, £50 for the bag I mentioned, £25 for some barely worn Birks, £25 for a new with tags Roka backpack, £25 for barely worn Converse, £12 each for two pairs of leather ankle boots worn a few times, and £6 for some Levi shorts. Obviously these prices are nowhere near what I paid for them new - but I'd rather get something back than nothing and while I'm not on the breadline by any means, I could do with a little extra cash at the moment so it's been well worth my while.

Obviously season helps as well - you'll make a lot less selling (eg) coats and jumpers now than you'd make if you were selling them in September.

There's no 'income' from selling your own used goods second-hand. You're not making a profit on them. You're just getting back some of the money you originally spent. If you're buying stuff in bulk for £2 per item and then re-selling them individually at £10 per item to make a profit, that's 'income', not selling something second hand for £5 that you paid £10 for when it was new.

If it's not sellable, it doesn't get binned. It gets bagged up and sold as rags for recycling. The charity still makes money from it even if it's not sold in the shop.

There are other halfway options - there are companies like Thrift plus that you send a big bag of clothes to (for free) and if they can sell them then you get a proportion back. I haven't used them, but they are out there.
That is the online option.
In other countries there are physical consignment shops - second-hand clothing shops where you take all your stuff and they sell it for you and you get a proportion of the sale price etc.

I agree, I can't be bothered with the faff of trying to sell things that are worth nothing to me. It gives me an excuse to go to the lovely, big Salvation Army collection shop for a browse as well - any 5 books for £1!

Who's got time to deal with HMRC and collect receipts? You are automatically reported, even if you are selling your own stuff after meeting the threshold by eBay and Vinted and then it's up to HMRC to decide if they want to pursue you. I've dealt with them and they are awful and unreasonable.

I have an account at the Cancer Research charity shop near me and they send a letter every year saying how much money they have made from my donations. I'm always pleasantly surprised at how much it has added up to. It's nice to think I'm supporting the charity and the clothes aren't going to waste. They'll always take a bag of rags as well.

Frankly, selling them is too much faff for too little return.

i’ve just sold done stuff and made around fifty pounds. It is hassle and has involved three trips to despatch them, and I have a few more items unsold. I’ll give it another week or so and they’ll go to charity.

However, I do feel that’s fifty pounds I wouldn’t have had if I had taken them straight to the charity shop.

Yes quite.
We were hounded on two counts by HMRC. Once when we sold a few cars over a fairly short timescale - apparently that constituted a business even though it was nothing of the sort (we just needed stop gap cars after leases ended and new cars were delayed by the chip shortage in Covid).

The other was volume of sale of household stuff reported through ebay, it was over £6k and they took some convincing that it shouldn’t be taxable (house downsize).

I’m not going through that again.

@dontcryformeargentina as I say, I have a majority of the receipts anyway, as I bought a lot for DD via Facebook/ online shops. I don't bother deleting the receipts or PayPal transactions.
I am the type of person who will absolutely fight back with HMRC anyway. If they want to take my purchases and sales as potential profit, then they will absolutely have to take the losses of stuff sold for less of. And I can guarantee that I've bought stuff and sold for less than I've paid than I have sold for more than I paid. They can take difference off my tax return as a loss if they want to go down that route. Be quite nice if my shopping habits help me reduce my tax bill.

I never sell all unwanted things go in the bin or sometimes i sit them outside with a free sign.
If they are still there in the morning i put them in the bin.

It always boggles my mind that people would rather give things away for free rather than sell them for less than they think they are worth...
I mean it's the cost of living crisis... just sell things fir what they will sell for and be happy someone else got a bargain awnd your item will be lived and used rather than in landfill or withering away in the back of a charity shop
I sell loads of stuff on vinted for cheap that I paid alot for new.
I'm glad someone's taken it off my hands and will use it.. amd I've got a bit of money back for something else

It depends how much time you have and how much stuff. I'm selling all my son's old clothes and it is time consuming to manage. I've made over £300 in the past three weeks though so it's been worth it.

I can only do it because I'm a stay at home parent who lives round the corner from the EVRI ParcelShop. Even then it's a pain in the arse trying to print the labels and put them on the right parcel when I'm doing five of them in store.

I suppose it depends how you value your time. I work 42 hours a week, multiple dc need ferrying to multiple activities, dog to walk, single parent blah de blah. I’m happy enough to let go of a couple of quid to buy myself some time. I buy most of my clothes on Vinted anyway. Kids clothes are Vinted/ bit of supermarket. None of it would fetch £££s.

Update: I’ve filled a thrift bag, sent two bags to charity and sold 6 items so far of 22 I’ve put up. It hasn’t been too painful so far on Vinted - I’m planning on sending in batches so we will see how that goes. It is definitely satisfying getting money for things that have been sitting in my wardrobe making me feel guilty so I hope I can make it work. Have to be careful I don’t fill it all again tho from Vinted. There’s so much good stuff on there!

@CreamLampshade excellent news!

I sell anything worth £20 or above.
The rest goes to the charity shop.
I feel guilty, but its not worth my time to iron, hang, photo, describe, list, have people ask endless question, have someone haggle, eventually accept, pack it away, send it off, then wait for the buyer to tell me it doesn't fit them, it's not what they expected, etc, can they return? All for £5.

YANBU.

A few years ago I logged a load of expensive stuff on eBay. Got offered buttons for them, it was more hassle to package and post.

I have a minimum selling limit, will only sell things if I can get £20 otherwise not worth going to the post office tbh. Just sell the good things and rest to charity. Definitely list jacket for more - I find depop vets higher prices than vinted.