With the average American spending more than $1,500 a year in clothes, it’s a good idea to try and get some cash back on our old clothes.
But knowing where to sell used clothes can be a bit of a challenge, that is until we put together this handy expert guide for you.
Local Consignment Stores
Consignment stores work by taking your item(s) for sale and then placing it up for sale within their store.
They set the prices and it’s in their interest to charge as much as they can for the items because if it sells, they take a commission and give you the difference.
You can find local consignment stores by Googling for them and normally you have to make an appointment to sell things as they need to assign someone to value your items.
Mostly, they take high quality and designer items only and if you have something really valuable – it’s worth going to a posh area to use a consignment store there as they will get a better price for it.
Make sure to find out what happens if the item(s) is not sold or worse is damaged, lost or stolen in their care.
Local Buy, Sell and Trade Stores
These stores can also be found with a quick Google search and they work on a different basis to the consignment stores.
What they want is fashion that is currently trending and if that’s what you’ve got, they’ll pay you cash outright for it.
There’s no waiting to see if things sell or to get paid but they don’t tend to pay top dollar for anything and let’s be fair about this, the process they grade items with is a bit demoralizing too, these places are not sentimental at all.
Local Resale Stores
Resale stores work in a similar way to the buy/sell/trade places but tend to be much less choosy about the garments that they take in.
This is good if you need quick money as they pay upfront and you don’t need to worry about them selling your items or having them lost or stolen.
You don’t need to make an appointment for this kind of store but they will look for high quality items when agreeing to buy things from you, there’s no point in taking threadbare rags along.
Online Stores (Resellers)
Online stores like ThredUp and Poshmark act as resellers and they take your clothes, pick them up and then sell them online for you.
They don’t pay top prices for your secondhand clothes but they do make the process of selling them as painless as possible.
There are other resellers such as TheRealReal and Depop but you have to do more of the work when it comes to listing and trying to shift your items.
On the bright side, you tend to get paid more for doing so.
Online Stores (Thrift Stores)
You can also hit the online thrift stores (we have our favorite online thrift stores) and see whether they can sell your clothes for you too.
Some of the more specialist stores can help to really push up the value of any special items that you may have lingering in your wardrobe.
Clothing Swaps
Of course, if what you really want is more clothes for your old clothes, then you might want to consider holding a clothing swap.
This can be a great way to refresh your wardrobe and have fun with friends and family too.
Individual Resellers
There are also a select group of people out there who act as individual resellers for high value clothing and if you work with them, you’re likely to get the best return on your clothing as they work hard to sell your products at the highest possible price.
Ask around in your network to see if you can find someone with these skills.
How To Avoid Having To Sell Used Clothes
Of course, the best way to live is never to have any used clothes to sell and that’s not as hard as it might sound.
Instead of buying your clothes, you can rent them from one of our top clothing rental services, that way you always have a fresh wardrobe and look amazing and never have anything hanging around in your closet getting old.
Final Thoughts On Where To Sell Used Clothes
So, there you have it, there are plenty of options out there for you to sell your used clothes in and if you want to refresh your wardrobe, it’s the environmentally sound thing to do, rather than throwing old clothes away.