How to Start Reselling Used Clothing for Profit: A Beginner’s Guide to Thrift Flipping

“The secondhand clothing market is booming, with a market value of $197 billion in 2023 and projected growth of nearly $100 billion by 2026. This rapid growth isn’t just a trend; it’s a movement towards sustainable fashion and financial opportunity. If you’ve ever thought about turning thrift finds into profits, now is the perfect time to dive in.”

Reselling used clothing is not only a sustainable option for second-hand shoppers, but it is also economical. Shoppers can save upwards of 70% off retail by purchasing lightly used clothing from sites like eBay, Poshmark, and Depop. This blog will teach you how to find items and flip them for a profit.

What is Reselling Used Clothing?

At its core, reselling is finding an item and selling it for more than you paid for it. Most commonly, clothing can be found at thrift stores, estate sales, and yard sales. As you progress in your reselling career other avenues may arise such as wholesale connections.

Why Start a Clothing Reselling Business?

Have you been looking for a way to make an extra $1,000 a month? Are you a college student looking to make some extra cash to get you through the semester? How about someone who is burnt out from their traditional 9-5? Reselling used clothing may be the solution you’re looking for.

Compared to starting a traditional business, reselling clothing has minimal start-up costs and you can make money selling used clothes today.

Selling thrifted or second-hand clothes has a monetary upside as well as sustainability benefits. Not only are you keeping clothes out of landfills and reducing textile waste, but you are also helping give used clothing a second life.

How to Start Selling Used Clothing Online

1. Find Your Niche
   • When first starting it is best to find a niche and source and sell within it. It will streamline your sourcing and listing as well as set your store apart from others. For example, I mainly sell in the Menswear category as I know the most about brands, trends, and the intricacies within the category.
2. Sourcing Inventory
   • Finding a steady stream of quality inventory is essential for the success of your clothing reselling business. Lucky for you, secondhand clothing is abundant on the market. Whether that be at thrift stores, estate sales, yard sales, flea markets, online retailers, or even your parent’s closet.
3. Pricing Strategy
   • Pricing can be a little tricky at first, but once you get some skin in the game, it becomes easier. When researching how to price an item for resale, reselling platforms like eBay, Depop, and Poshmark are going to be your best friend. eBay specifically has a filter that shows sales history for the past 3 months. It is also beneficial to compare items you source to active listings on these platforms. Take size, condition, and overall demand into account when coming up with a price for your inventory.
4. Choosing a Platform – eBay, Depop, or Poshmark
   • eBay is the king of reselling platforms as it holds the majority of the market share in the reselling space. By using eBay, you will get the most amount of eyes on your inventory. With that being said, these platforms all have different customer bases. Depop is good for selling vintage clothing and garments that cater to the younger generation. Vintage t-shirts, sweatshirts, outerwear, and current trending styles will perform best on this Depop. eBay has a much broader customer base with more of a focus on name brands and its customers looking for good deals on those items. Poshmark is similar to eBay in this regard but also has a larger female customer base, so womenswear may perform better there.
5. Optimize Your Listings
   • Good pictures, accurate descriptions, and well-written titles are the best way to convert your inventory into sales. A simple backdrop or wall with natural light will be enough to get your items sold just be sure to accurately depict the color and condition of your items. It is also very important to use relevant keywords in your item’s title.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Reselling Clothes

A few common mistakes made when reselling used clothing include over/under-pricing items, ignoring market trends, and inadequate listing photos/descriptions.

It is important to properly price your items according to the active market. You don’t want to sell yourself short, but you also don’t want to price your items so high that they won’t sell.

A beginner’s mistake when selling used clothing is not accurately depicting your items or not taking clear pictures. Often times, when selling used clothing you are dealing with items that have been used and have small imperfections. Buyers want to see these flaws as they impact their buying decisions. By focusing on taking good pictures and writing accurate descriptions you will limit the amount of returns you receive.

How to Scale Your Clothing Resale Business

Once you get the hang of reselling used clothing, you may look to scale your business. There are a few ways to grow your flipping business. A few ways include managing your inventory, streamlining your sourcing efforts, and expanding to multiple platforms.

1. Inventory Management
   • It is crucial to have an inventory management system in place to scale a clothing reselling business. As the amount of your listings and inventory grow, the harder it will become to know where things are when they sell. Finding a solution to best organize your inventory will help minimize the amount of defects on your accounts for items being out of stock, or lost.
2. Expand to Multiple Platforms
   • Growing a clothing flipping business can be difficult at times, but another way to aid you in this is expanding to multiple platforms. Branching out to multiple platforms will increase the exposure of your listings, reach different categories of shoppers, and diversify the platforms you use to sell items online. There is software that helps automate this process called Autoposher.

Conclusion

Reselling used clothing is a sustainable, fun way to make some money. In this article, we covered the basics of selling clothes online. We also briefly covered mistakes to avoid and a few ways to expand and scale your reselling operation.

Ready to dive deeper into the world of clothing reselling? Check out our latest posts for sourcing tips, brand guides, and marketing strategies to scale your resale business. Don’t forget to check out Autoposher to help automate and grow your resale business. Use the code “SOURCEDANDSOLD” at Autoposher to get your first week free and 15% off of your future subscription.