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According to research, a third of Brits admit to hoarding unworn clothes, with the average person sitting on £439 worth of old clothes in their wardrobe. Rather than letting it sit there unworn for another year, why not have a sort out and get cash for your clothes by selling them?
The market for good-quality second-hand clothing is big. In fact, almost two thirds of people in a 2024 survey stated that they intended to buy second hand clothes at some point in the next 12 months, while 10% planned to acquire the majority of their clothing second hand in the year to come.
Even if you’ve already raided your wardrobe, you can still sell clothes for cash online. It’s possible to find fantastic deals in charity shops, or to buy second hand clothing in bulk before listing items individually online.
In this article, the OddsMonkey team will take you through how to make the most of a cash for clothes side hustle.
There are a couple of obvious reasons why people sell second hand clothes online:
People want to get rid of clothes they no longer wear but they don’t want to just throw them in the bin. Research published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation found that 73% of the materials used to produce clothing are sent to landfill or incinerated.
In the UK, 350,000 tonnes of used but still-wearable clothing goes to landfill in the UK every year – worth around £140 million. Passing that clothing on to others who could make use of it both reduces the volume of rubbish going to landfill and gets you cash in exchange, which brings us to…
The primary reason people sell old clothes is to make money. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, people around the world “miss out on $460 billion of value each year by throwing away clothes that they could continue to wear.” Your old summer dress isn’t going to bring in a fortune, but you can make selling second hand clothes into a nice side hustle to bring in a little extra cash each month.
First things first, you’ll need to decide on which clothes you want to sell. A good rule of thumb is to sort through your wardrobe and get rid of anything you haven’t worn in over a year (or perhaps two years, if you want to start a bit more gently). You’ll then need to do the following checks on your ‘sell’ pile:
Once you’ve worked out what you’re going to sell, it’s time to put together a great listing. The quality of your listing will go a long way towards determining how much you can charge for your items, so don’t rush this step.
Here are some top tips for listing second hand clothes online:
Describe the garments in as much detail as you can, and be completely honest. Buying clothes online isn’t the same as in person; you can’t pick up or try on the clothes. Your listing needs to tell potential buyers exactly what the garment is like.
As well as the size on the label, include measurements, or your personal experience of how the item fits. For example, if the label says it’s a size 12 but you think it could fit a 14, say so. The more detail you provide, the more confidence a potential customer will have, and the better your chances of making a sale.
The condition of the clothes is another important point to include – it’s wise to include pictures of any faults so that your customers know exactly what they’re buying. It’s far better to sell an item for slightly less money than to deal with a disappointed customer, who might well leave you a bad review. Be accurate, honest, and descriptive.
Few people are willing to buy an item online if they can’t even get a good idea of what it looks like.
If you happen to be a photographer already, you’ll probably already know how to make something look its best in pictures but, for the less experienced, here are a few tips to help you take good quality photos to sell your clothes:
Window shopping tends to be something that happens more on the high street than on the internet – people don’t often browse second hand platforms for the sake of it online.
When people shop for secondhand clothes online, it’s usually for a purpose. Maybe they’ve got an event coming up, or they need to update their wardrobe as the weather turns.
With that in mind, it makes sense to think about when you list things, in order to give them the best chance of selling. For example, think seasonally and save selling your old coat until Autumn or Winter, or time selling strappy tops and shorts for Spring.
This isn’t as important as some of the points above but the look of your ‘online shop’ can be a powerful selling tool. Whatever platform you choose to sell second hand clothes on, bring your own style.
If you have a particular style, you can add a theme to your page or shop. This can help to attract an audience of potential buyers who are interested in your style or niche.
Also, if you post a lot of vintage clothing, target interested parties by adding tags and categories to your listings, thus making it easier for buyers to find you and your old clothes.
Whatever you’re selling online, be it a self-published book or a t-shirt, you need to find the sweet spot for price. Where do you start when it comes to asking for cash for clothes?
One place is to check out the competition. Look for similar items in the second-hand market and use them to work out sensible prices for your own clothes.
The most important thing is to be realistic. You almost certainly won’t get what you paid for the clothing when it was new, even if it’s in immaculate condition. Unless they’re rare and sought after, even BNWT (brand new with tag) items are typically advertised for less than their RRP, even though they’ve never been worn.
And remember to take postage and packaging costs into consideration. These will often be added on separately by the platform, but you don’t want to risk losing money on the postage.
Double check postage prices on your platform of choice before listing and, if the buyer doesn’t pay separately for shipping, include the cost of postage and packaging into the price you list the item at.
There are a few good platforms available to sell old clothes online. Some of the most popular are as follows:
Depop is an app which makes selling your old clothes online as simple as possible. Once you’ve opened an account, you can start listing your items. Post up to four photos per listing, write a detailed caption with all the details, and set your price.
With 20 million users across 147 countries, you have an international audience ready and waiting to give you money!
Fees: no selling fee, but a payment processing fee of 2.9% + £0.30 if you’re based in the UK.
You get: set your own prices.
Similar to Depop, Vinted is a huge online marketplace for selling clothes. Again, you are responsible for listing, selling, and shipping your items.
According to their site, the platform boasts 45 million members and thousands of brands. After making a sale, you can withdraw funds from your Vinted balance and your money will appear in your bank account within 5 working days.
Fees: zero selling fees.
You get: set your own prices.
Unlike Depop and Vinted, eBay is a marketplace for anything and everything. This means that there’s no guarantee people will log on specifically to buy clothes. However, if you create listings that target key search terms, you’ll be more likely to find the right buyer.
You can either set items to sell in an auction or via “Buy it Now”. With an auction, you can set a starting bid to ensure the item won’t sell for less than that. Of course, it might not sell at all – but it could also sell for much, much more. The Buy It Now option is more traditional in that you attach a set price to an item.
Fees: no fees for private sellers, if you sell up to 300 items per month. After that, eBay charges 35p per extra listing that month. However, they do also offer paid ‘upgrades’ to their listing, which give your items a better chance of selling, or of selling for more money.
You get: set your own ‘Buy It Now’ prices, or get the lot if you choose to sell at auction.
Thrift+ is a little different to the apps we’ve just looked at, and has its roots in charity shops. According to the site, its aim is “to make the charity shopping experience as good as the best online clothes retailers”. They have a dedicated area for designer clothes: Thrift+Boutique.
Rather than being responsible for sorting, photographing and selling your items yourself, you send your old clothing to Thrift+, who sell it on your behalf, with a percentage of the sale price being paid back to you.
Fees: rather than paying a fee to Thrift+, they pay you a certain percentage of the sale price when they sell your old clothes. Their structure is as follows:
You get: Thrift+ credits when your items sell. You can either donate the credits to a charity of your choice or spend them on the Thrift+ site.
Other places to to flog your old clothes include online marketplaces like Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, Shpock, or sites like Quick Cash for Clothes. The marketplaces are useful for selling to people in your local area which means that you can avoid postage fees.
Sustainability in fashion has become more than a buzzword over the last few years. In an effort to combat ‘fast fashion’ culture, awareness is being raised of the benefits of sustainable and circular fashion.
‘Sustainable fashion’ refers to clothing that is produced and/or recycled in a way that is environmentally, ecologically, and socially responsible. Sustainability is about so much more than ‘just’ saving the planet; although that’s a huge part of it.
As well as working to reduce pollution, waste, and CO2 emissions, sustainable fashion also aims to provide fair wages and safer working conditions.
At the root of this issue sit the designers and fashion houses. If fashion is manufactured to last, then it has more chance of being reworn, recycled, or resold.
However, if clothes are made to last only a few wears, they’ll quickly find their way into the landfill. This highlights the importance of circularity in fashion.
If we look at the levels of overproduction and waste in throwaway or fast fashion, we can see how important selling second hand clothes can be. By giving your old clothes a second chance at life, you’re contributing to sustainability in fashion, as well as saving your customers money.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation found that 95% of the clothing sent to landfill or incinerated could be reused or recycled. That’s a staggering statistic.
By diverting your own old clothes from the rubbish bin to someone else’s wardrobe, you help to reduce the impact of fast fashion on the planet and earn yourself some extra money into the bargain.
If you aren’t much of a clothes hoarder, there are plenty of other ways to make some extra cash – visit our side hustle ideas page for more great ways to make money online.
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