First year. Second hand.

January 1st was the final day of my personal challenge to only shop second hand for the 365 days of 2016.

To be completely honest, I had some rule breaking moments.
Twice this year I bought bridesmaids dresses. The second dress I did try to find on eBay , with no success. If you happen to be in a wedding with a common style from Davids Bridal, the odds of finding it on eBay can be surprisingly high. Worth a shot.
In connection with those dresses, I also bought the shoes for those weddings. Again, first attempt was to buy them second hand, but with specification on color and style, I had no success.


My primary shopping spots for 2016 were ThredUp (13 referral credits earned in 2016 equaling $240!!!THANK YOU!), Poshmark, and Goodwill. If we happened to be out of town and had some time, we always looked up the nearest Goodwill. I've learned a lot about the pricing structure of various Goodwills over the year. They're not all the same. And sometimes a name brand item (Express,Ann Taylor, etc..)will be tagged as "boutique" which will roughly double the price. At our local Goodwill this typically means $9 for a shirt, $12-19 for a dress.If the name brand is not caught during pricing, you can get a steal of a deal.

ThredUp continues to be the most successful second hand shopping platform for me. The consistency is unbeatable and the quality is always exactly as promised. They are really starting to explode and I'm currently on a waiting list for a bag to send in clothes!!! Never expected that to happen.
It seems like shipping is taking slightly longer, but that could have just been because my last order was over the holidays. Whatever the case, it my #1 recommendation for online shopping. (Link in side bar)
This what my typical ThredUp savings are per order:

Poshmark is a community of sellers and because of that your experience can vary. The only negative I've seen was when I bought shoes and the seller never sent them. There is not a way to direct message them at that point in the sale, but you can comment on the item. About a week into things, the seller assured me the item would ship the following day. It never did. I gave them 2 weeks before I canceled my order. Getting a refund wasn't an issue, because payment is not released until the item is marked at received by the buyer. I haven't had this happen again, and most of the sellers are extremely nice. Most of the time a hand written note is included even.

 I decided not to stick as strictly to the second hand challenge this year, but I do think I will have a hard time going back to "regular shopping".
 

Updates on ThredUp, Yerdle and Poshmark

What can I say? I am in love with the sites in the title.



Shall we start with the favorite?

Our poor mailman must be convinced that I'm addicted to shopping on ThredUp. In case you didn't know, every package from ThredUp comes in a branded bag or box. No doubt who it’s from.

Thanks to you, lovely readers, using my referral link in the side bar, I have ordered a few...ahem... ok ALOT from ThredUp. Sadly they are no longer offer $20 both ways for referral credits but $10. Still, fantastic. I think I signed up when you could also use the credits towards shipping costs. I have heard that recently they've discontinued that. If you signed up back when it was still $20 but haven't used it yet, they're not reducing it to $10, so good news there!!! The accuracy of the measurements and dress/skirt lengths is EXTREAMLY helpful. And the packaging when you receive the items is always PERFECTLY wrapped. Never ceases to amaze me.  



Yerdle has been super successful for me in selling clothes. (I did send a bag to ThredUp this week but I won't know what they accept or how much credit I get for several weeks. Blog post on that in the future.) I signed up a few friends and accumulated a fair amount of "Yerdle dollars" (No value in the real world). Yerdle provides you with the postage via email to print and attach to your box or envelope when you sell an item. If you don't ship it out in a week, the transaction is canceled and the item is not relisted automatically. This happened to me on the buying end, and there was no way to contact the seller. A beautiful vintage dress I never got. Of course my Yerdle dollars were returned to my account. If you don't check your Yerdle emails or app notifications, you might not realize when you sell something and could end up losing a sale. So far, everything I've bought from Yerdle was a success. One seller in particular I've bought from on multiple occasions. Adding a seller to your favorites is a great way to see what new items they post and a real win win situation if you know clothes you've bought from them fit perfectly.  I don't know how often or how randomized it is, but I have received free shipping credits on my account a few times. They do expire and don't count for the up charge in bundling so watch out for that.



Ahhh Poshmark.

I’ve had only one minor experience with Poshmark, when I bought a shirt with my initial $5 sign up credit. I like that you can submit an offer on an item. Makes it a little different than similar sites. I only have one thing posted in my Poshmark store for sale, and it is because I wasn’t happy with the amount ThredUp would give me and it didn’t sell on eBay. I’ve lowered the price and it still has not sold. But hey, I don’t know why I ordered a J Crew skirt that small…..who is that tiny?!! Not these hips. Just saying.

 This week I’ve made two purchases via referral credit and I’m extremely excited about both. Honestly, I can’t give a real review until I receive the items. But I’ll post an update when that happens. The pricing on both items was fantastic and over all the experience of shopping on Poshmark is easy.



I like to think of it like this:



Yerdle= Goodwill

ThredUp= Regulated consignment with occasional sales.

Poshmark= Online shopping trying to look consignment but with prices set by the people who owned the items and might possibly accept less. Or might just over price them.



I’ve included referral links for your convenience in the side bar. Tee Hee Hee.





This is the referral for https://poshmark.com/   

Use the following code when you sign up VIA THE APP  JPHVZ