If you’ve been on any social media site lately, chances are that you’ve seen an ad for ThredUP, an online consignment sale shop. I’ve never been shy about my love for a consignment sale for Turner, but I’ve never really shopped consignment for myself. I checked out the site a few months ago and ordered 5 name brand/designer dresses for an average of $27 each. (One of the dresses had an original retail value of $459!!) Let’s just insert a picture here so you can all see its silk beauty. 🙂

ANYWAY, I was very pleased with the items that I received. I found that the site is quite easy to navigate, and you can filter down pretty quickly based on size, brand, etc… I will definitely buy more items from this site in the future. It’s a great way to get quality pieces  at really fair prices.

I cleaned out my closet a while back, and since I had such success buying on the site, I figured I would order one of their clean-out bags and take a shot at selling my items through the site. I would have normally just donated these items to Goodwill, but I thought it would be nice to make a little money from them, especially since several of my items still had tags on them. So I loaded up the clean-out bag and shipped it off to ThredUP. It was a very easy process. Literally just put the clothes in the bag and put the bag on the front porch for USPS to pick up for free.

After the bag was shipped off, I waited and waited and waited. It felt like it took forever to get an email that my bag had been received. When I did get the email, I was quite shocked at the payout that I received. Not in a good way.

Yes, they gave me $3.50 for 8 items. Whhhhhaaaatttt???  To be fair, the website does have a payout calculator that will give you an estimate for what you’d receive for certain items. And these were my lower-value items to begin with. So I knew the payout would be low, but I didn’t think it would be THAT low. I had about 9 other higher quality items in the bag that ThredUP didn’t immediately pay me for. Those items were listed for consignment and I would be paid upon sale….if the items sell. Even still, my estimated payout for those items was still only about $30, and I had some really great pieces, if I do say so myself.

I’m still confused about their payout system. I think they deducted a $4.99 shipping and handling fee, so I’ve basically made less than $20 on the whole bag. Since we itemize our taxes, I honestly would have gotten a bigger bang for my buck by donating the items and taking the tax write off. (Side note – try using ItsDeductible to keep track of your donations. They’re probably worth more than you think!)

Moral of the story – I will definitely buy from ThredUP again and highly recommend shopping the site, but I absolutely would NOT recommend selling your items there. Save yourself the disappointment and just donate your old clothes to a good cause!