How to *actually* sell your clothes online
By Florenne Earle Ledger published 06/09/2021
We’ve all heard that ‘taking good photos’ and ‘using relevant hashtags’, will help us succeed on Depop, but there's a little more to it.
See our list of tips and tricks guaranteed to help you sell your clothes online, fast.
FYI, our tips are not for people who want to start a business selling clothes, they are more suited to those wanting to clear out their wardrobe.
Deciding what to sell
- Sift through your entire wardrobe with ease on the Whering app. When you can see all your clothes, it's easier to decide which pieces you're no longer loving.
- If you're a bit of a hoarder, use our most>least worn filters to find out which items you're not wearing enough. Maybe it's time to part ways.
Uploading your items
- It's long, but posting your items on multiple platforms increases your chances of selling fast. Once you've filled in the listing details it doesn’t take long to copy and paste it across platforms. In your separate listings you can experiment with different prices and photos to see which combo attracts the most interest.
- Post items directly to your Instagram story. Instead of sharing your Depop profile (you’d tap past it too), upload pictures of your old clothes onto your story captioned with reasonable prices.
- Posting often at regular intervals boosts your profile, causing your listings to rank higher in searches. If you have 15 items to sell, try uploading 3 a day over the course of 5 days, rather than all 15 at once. If Depop can see you are a regularly active user they are more likely to promote your listings. Who knew Depop had an algorithm too?
- Once you have listed your items repost them as often as you can. All you need to do is click edit and then re-upload it instantly. By doing this easy task you increase the chances of your listings appearing on your followers feeds and ranking higher in searches.
Pricing
- Price your items fairly. Slow fashion needs to be accessible to all. We're not here for over pricing things you could get for a fiver in a charity shop. Not cute.
- That being said, within reason, uploading items for a little more than you want to sell them for can help close a sale. When people show interest you can offer them a lower price, which will encourage them to buy so you can finally get rid of your old clothes.
- Don't be afraid to sell items for cheap. What's the point of holding onto something that you're never going to wear again? I'd rather take £5 than nothing at all. Also, you have a higher chance of people buying your items when the price is low.
Postage and packaging
- According to Depop, your item is twice as likely to sell if you have free postage. People love that there is no added cost at checkout.
- If you don't want to pay for postage yourself, sell items on Vinted. The seller pays for the postage so you don’t have to. And unlike Depop, they don't take a percentage of your sales which means you can make more money.
- Feel guilty for getting a carrier bag for your shopping? Turn it inside out and use it to post your orders. If you cut off the handles it functions the exact same as the bags you can buy from the post office, except it's a lot cheaper and allows you to reuse plastic bags.
- When you shop online, open the packages carefully and reuse the packaging to use as your own. It saves you money and gives the bag another life.
- Try and use plastic free packaging where possible. Don’t forget that sellotape is a form of single use plastic. You can buy plastic free tape here.
Those are all the secrets we have to share, let us know if you have any tips we need to know. Join the conversation on Twitter or Instagram @Whering_.
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