thinking of dropping a few grand on inventory for pre-owned clothes...am I nuts?

[thesuitking]

Several years ago I did well in this catagorie and now I am back. I knew it would be bad and take time to build up again but geesh this is horrid. Perhaps I don't have enough inventory to get a good sampling of buyers? Or am I just nuts dropping more money into this?

[nowthatsjustducky]

Clothing is a saturated category, and you will be lucky to break even, let alone turn a profit.

[thesuitking]

I have been looking at completed autions and there is about a %5 sell through rate...

[coolections]

Right now you are loosing the game 79 to 0. Unless your team starts scoring in the next three days, I would drop the price $10 each and try to get rid of the stuff you have now.

[fashunu4eeuh]

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@thesuitking wrote:

Several years ago I did well in this catagorie and now I am back. I knew it would be bad and take time to build up again but geesh this is horrid. Perhaps I don't have enough inventory to get a good sampling of buyers? Or am I just nuts dropping more money into this?

---

Without knowing the particulars of your business, it's harder to advise. In general, I would say find another category to sell in. The pre-owned clothing category is saturated. What worked a few years back for a number of sellers has changed. Strong designer brands still sell, but for not as much as they once did, and taking longer to sell than once did.

[m60driver]

If you are asking here for such business advice I fear the answer to your question is yes.

[castlemagicmemories]

I would never say you are nuts, but I see that the squirrels seem to be gathering.

[annasunicorns]

What clothes? Because generally, as a buyer, i am paying $1 a piece for 90% of my used clothing purchases. I buy in a lot, by size, and if whoever is selling paid a quarter each then yes they made a little money. This usually includes shipping. There are exceptions, like specific now brand and style and color and fabric content and in excellent like new condition and seasonally appropriate. Ill resell MY used clothing, but even at $1 an item I would be leery of investing in other peoples.

[findingfinds888]

Honestly, you know what may be killing the used clothing market? Facebook. They run Classifieds and they are free. So its CL on speed. List a blouse, size, pic, someone says "want"... you meet them uptown, exchange money & item, and done. No waiting. Garage sales have crashed because of the classifieds, people are getting more $ by listing in the Classifieds than at .50cents at their garage sale. I watch my classifieds all the time, and have bought many items that way. Had a lady sell some yarn... she drove it to my house, I meet her car as she pulled over, we exchanged,. smiled, said goodbye. 

soooooo easy. Sooooo fast... 

the world is a a changing.. 

[18704d]

" Facebook. They run Classifieds and they are free. So its CL on speed. List a blouse, size, pic, someone says "want"... you meet them uptown, exchange money & item, and done. No waiting. "

---------

Nope.  It's even faster than that.

No meeting at all.

We've bought this way....

Seller agrees to our price.  They give us their address.

They put the items in a Closed Plastic Tote (with a lid) on their porch steps... or wherever.

We place the money in an envelope.  Many sellers have made a seperate locked mailbox for such sales.  We put envelope in the mailbox, and take our clothes out of the tote.

If anything else is in the tote, we leave it, because it's obviously something that someone else is purchasing from them.

We get 'kudos' on FB.  If we stole from them and didn't pay, that would be posted.

fwiw,

Lynn

[smileytown18]

The used clothing category is overrun. Years ago you could resell anything. Today only serious high end brand names go well, and for a fraction of what they once went for. With high fees, average clothing brands are not worth the hassle usually. (unless you have a following and know what they tend to buy)
I pass on to friends or donate most of my own used clothing

[papermoneyforme]

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@thesuitking wrote:

Several years ago I did well in this catagorie and now I am back. I knew it would be bad and take time to build up again but geesh this is horrid. Perhaps I don't have enough inventory to get a good sampling of buyers? Or am I just nuts dropping more money into this?

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YES

[keziak]

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@findingfinds888 wrote:

Honestly, you know what may be killing the used clothing market? Facebook. They run Classifieds and they are free. So its CL on speed. List a blouse, size, pic, someone says "want"... you meet them uptown, exchange money & item, and done. No waiting. Garage sales have crashed because of the classifieds, people are getting more $ by listing in the Classifieds than at .50cents at their garage sale. I watch my classifieds all the time, and have bought many items that way. Had a lady sell some yarn... she drove it to my house, I meet her car as she pulled over, we exchanged,. smiled, said goodbye. 

soooooo easy. Sooooo fast... 

the world is a a changing.. 

---

I asked about this on another thread, and also asked my college student daughter who is all over social media, but doesn't use FB so she can't help me. Anyway I understand that you can find specialized groups to advertise in, but what is the area for general stuff? A page for a community? 

We used to have a service called Freecycle in which you signed up to get emails. I did a ton of giving and taking on there (of course it was all free).  Usually it was porch pickup, it wasn't cool to ring doorbells for the most part. 

[thesuitking]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

[bigdeals.etc]

Depends... whose clothes were they? Abraham Lincoln? Kurt Cobain? If the answer is yes, then no... you are not nuts.