Someone to sell your outgrown baby clothes for you?

[Toddlings]

Hi all!

Firstly I just want to say - I'm not trying to sell you a service - I'm just looking for advice.

I'm looking for some advice about whether young parents would be interested in a service that essentially sells on their baby clothes for a portion of the profit? I'm 24 and haven't had kids yet, so I don't have any first-hand experience, but fast fashion is something that drives me insane. And with how quickly kids grow they must go through clothes so quickly... It's such a hassle to list all your clothes on Ebay etc, and you're not even guaranteed they will sell.

For anyone strapped for time, would a service whereby you send you clothes to me then I sell them on and we split the profit 50:50 sound like something you would be interested in? If the clothes don't sell then I could send them back to you and neither of us loose anything. Do you have any advice on what would make this a better offering?

Thanks for reading! I appreciate all advice :)

Ime second hand clothes sell for so little that it's barely worth the effort for 100% of the profit

I sell my own babies clothes on vinted and I think you would struggle to sell things at a high enough price where people would want to split the profit 50:50. I struggle to sell items for more than £2 or £3 max and that's even stuff that is brand new with the tags still on.

This kind of service does exist for some types of clothes - things like Scandi, organic, designer brands that are expensive to start with.

But otherwise for high street stuff I don't think you would make enough to make much profit. Also my kids absolutely destroy clothes so they're barely worth passing on, never mind selling!

Free bags of second hand baby cloths are listed on our local pass it on page most days. Also,once you have a baby, everyone you even vaguely know want to pass bits on to you. There's just not that much value.

With all the free baby cloths around, no one is going to pay much for them, so you'll be lucky if what you make selling them even covers the cost of me sending them to you, it certainly won't leave much to split 50:50.

Everyone I know just passes them on.

I spoke to a lady who runs lots of charity shops and she said they won’t take them any more. They just don’t sell.

Second hand baby clothes don’t sell for much, you can get them cheap enough first hand, and otherwise Vinted, Facebook, and eBay you can buy large bundles for not much. In terms of sellers, they don’t take a 50% cut so probably more attractive to them too.

Postage is also proportionally quite expensive, so your posting back items that don’t sell might end up eating your profits.

When my dc were little, we all used to swap black sacks of clothes around between ourselves every few months. There was rarely anything worth selling, and if you look at car boot sales, every other stall is selling baby/kids stuff.

I'm with everyone else, I just don't think there is any money in selling baby clothes.

However, I'd use a (local) service like this to sell stuff on E-bay, or even car boots, or take to auction houses or whatever would work best for other stuff I'd like to declutter from my house. Not if I've got to pack it safe enough to travel and post to you though. It is the whole packing up and posting that puts me off selling on-line.

Prices are so low that you'd be sharing £2 with the original owner.

I found a tabletop sale at the local village fete was the best way to sell my ds' baby clothes.

After 3yo, the only things fit to sell were coats, wellies and snow boots. He wrecked everything else.

I'm 24 and haven't had kids yet, so I don't have any first-hand experience,

OP, you need to find a business idea that you do have first-hand experience with. For instance, you hate fast fashion, but baby clothes are possibly the most used items of clothes ever. They get passed on, gifted on, given to charity. That is, the ones that aren't permanently stained!

Find a niche that you, personally, do know about.

I agree with this.

If you’re interested in fashion OP what about a second hand styling service? Someone pays x amount for y amount of items, you source them second hand items in their style and size.

I actually think you're on to something, just not for the baby age group. I find it far harder to find /sell second hand stuff for my kids who are 5 and over. There's less passing between friends as they get older. No idea why!

It does seem really wasteful how quickly babies and children grow out of clothes but I’ve seen a few variations on this kind of idea. And generally they don’t seem to really work as the second hand value of the clothes is almost nothing apart from a few niche brands, and even then it’s not a lot of money. Maybe obtain some baby clothes and have a test run? To see the time taken and money made? I think you’d see how viable it is then.

No. The bits that are not so nice I give to charity, the nicer bits I sell on Vinted. Check the prices there, baby bits sell £1-5£ maybe £14 for a super nice Jojo snowsuit. Not worth it for a business and definitely wouldn’t pay someone commission for it.

Do you use vinted? I never struggle to find things there for my older children.

It can work but for higher end designers and brands like Boden, Jojo Maman and Frugi. I have sold a lot through a shop called EcoBee in Cambridge but the owner is very picky about what she takes to sell. It does save hassle and at the end of the season anything unsold is given to Little Bundles and Sals Shoes so nothing goes to waste.

There was a service that did this called Dotte and they went out of business last year so I suspect that perhaps PP are right in that it’s not profitable enough.

Dotte was basically Vinted but for higher end kidswear (Scandi brands etc) and they folded last year. I don’t think it’s possible to compete with the reach that Vinted has.

I don’t think this has legs unfortunately op. I have a business selling secondhand clothes on eBay and I’ve found kids stuff just doesn’t sell. You also shouldn’t underestimate just how long this kind of thing takes to do effectively. There’s no way I’d want to split my profits with someone, the washing, taking proper pictures, writing a good, detailed description with measurements, packing and posting takes a lot of time. EBay fees are also fairly hefty, though their customer service is good ime. Presumably you’d have no control over what was sent to you either, you could end up with bags of awful things, that you’d then have to return to your client at your cost. I admire your wanting to set up in business, it took me a long time to have the self belief to start myself, but I’d see if something else might be more profitable for your time.

Great minds @MotherWol !

There's a business called second snuggle doing this.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply to me, I really appreciate it! 😄

After doing some research into other companies that have tried it, I agree the idea isn't very profitable... It's just a shame because I'm super interested in the idea of creating circular economies but this seems redundant when it comes to baby clothes because as you guys have said, they become spoilt too quickly. People passing down and sharing clothes is amazing though, maybe there's potential to help aid this somehow. Or someone could find a way to repurpose the used materials? I have no idea about these industries but hopefully someone in the future finds a more sustainable solution.

We get most of our child’s clothes from a place that people donate their children’s old clothes to and then you can go in and get whatever you need from birth to 12 years old!!

There's a couple of places that do something similar - Growkids is like a baby bank where people can swap used clothes, toys and equipment. It's run by a church and I think there's a couple in different parts of the country. There are lots of baby banks now and many of them have an eye on the sustainability side so function like a swapshop rather than purely on the basis of economic need and don't necessarily need users to be referred because they can't afford to buy things. Some schools run uniform swap shops for outgrown uniform/equipment and kit.

There's not really any margin in selling secondhand clothes, but there's a great deal of sustainability purpose in it, so if you're in the right area a swap shop can thrive, but it takes a lot of work to get it up and running, and the right volunteers to keep it active. I'd really love to see more of a move towards reuse as the norm, and I think kids stuff is a great area for this because it's often used for such a short time, but it relies on a lot of the right factors lining up. Good luck OP!