thredUP Online Thrifting Review

As part of my commitment to the planet (both the ecosystem and ethics), I’ve decided to start thrifting for all of my thrift-able clothing needs. There has been a lot of talk recently about how fast fashion is bad. The clothes are largely polyester (though, so are expensive brands these days). Those plastic fibers wash off of our clothes and into the ocean. They use a lot of water for production. And then there’s the bit where we have children working in the factories.

Thrifting doesn’t solve all of these problems. The clothes are still polyester a lot of the time. I’ve bought a Cora Ball to try to help mitigate that. And while I’m not personally doing a lot of damage to sweatshops by not buying their clothes directly, it does make me feel better.

And then there’s the bit where thrifting can be a lot cheaper. That certainly helps.

I visit a lot of thrift stores in person, but used a friend’s referral code for $10 off to try thredUP. Then I went down the thredUP rabbit hole for a bit. I’ve got a code that you can use here. I get $10 and you get $10 when you make your first order.

Buying From thredUP

Pros:
– Huge selection of items. You can sort by brand, size, color, and price, which is a nice advantage over in person thrifting.
– Nearly always have an additional percent off deal, and you can start with $10 off from a referral.
– Discounts are good. They aren’t what you’d get from my local thrift stores, but this will depend on your area and how good your thrift stores are. Shoe prices have been the same as eBay for me.

Cons:
– Listings are often inaccurate. I sold items that all fit me correctly but were listed with bust sizes that I can’t fit into.
– Returns aren’t worth it. Most items are subject to a $0.99 restocking fee, and then return shipping is inexplicably $8.99. Shipping TO you is like $5.

Here’s my favorite find so far: a pair of pointy, dark burgundy work shoes. New with tags and packaging intact.

Selling with thredUP

Guys, I was warned. I saw a lot of people talking about how low their payouts were. I thought that they must not be sending in the appropriate brands or were being picky. Of course the payout isn’t going to be the same as personally selling your items on eBay or Poshmark. I steeled myself. I was prepared.

I was not quite prepared.

I was in the midst of a hardcore spring clean while we were working on getting our house. I wasn’t about to move a bunch of clothes that I wasn’t going to wear. That’s a waste of my time. So I purged.

Then I waited a week, because that was exhausting. Then I spent another hour of my life sorting through these clothes and pulling out the thredUP approved brands.

I had twenty items that all fit their guidelines. I figured that the lowest I would hope for is $20. A dollar an item is super low, but they were all in good condition. I had a $200 pair of jeans in there that I was hoping would go for something decent. Don’t worry, I got the jeans for $6 at Goodwill and they were just a little bit too stretchy for me. This was a pretty safe experiment for me. The second bag went off to Savers. I got zero dollars for my Savers donation, for context. Anything above that was a gain.

They accepted four items. The jeans weren’t one of them. I was given a flat $5.51 total for three of the items. The fourth item was sold as consignment. I got an additional $2.47 for that one.

$7.98 for the whole bag. So, that’s the con there.

In the future, I think that I would add an additional step if I were trying to get any sort of return in value on my clothes. I’d try eBay or Poshmark before I sent to thredUP. And in the future, I might not take the time to separate my clothes out based on their brands. The payout is so low that it wasn’t worth the effort that I put in.

The difficulty & charge on returns means that thredUP isn’t going to be my default thrift option. I’ll continue relying primarily on in person stores. I do think thredUP is good for buying items that I already know will fit me well at a discount.

I also don’t recommend trying to make any sort of money by selling your clothes through them. If you have the time to make your own listings, that’s the way to go. If you don’t, maybe you’ll get $5.

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eShakti Review

Is the blogosphere still going nuts for eShakti? They were for a little while.

The company is a cool concept. They have pages and pages of fun dresses that you can have customized to your measurements. The prices are a little steep for not being able to try something on, but they give a lot of coupons and customize things. They also seem to have built their business on the good reviews of bloggers.

That’s suspicious. If the only good reviews you can find of a product are coming from people that have gotten it for free, it’s probably not a good product.

But they have so many options, I know. They got me with that. I checked that their return policy was good and bought this dress for the winter:

It looked cozy and heavy enough that I could wear three pairs of pants under it if we got another snowpocalypse. I was particularly taken with the thumb holes. My high school goth days still have a minor influence on my fashion, okay.

I placed the order November 12th. I received my dress on the 27th. A bit of a wait, but not so bad. Do you know what was bad? The dress. That happens with online shopping. It was a shapeless lump in the middle with form fitting arms. My thumbs wouldn’t fit in the thumb holes. I have child sized hands. They were freakishly small holes. This is why they want you to customize the dresses, I guess. Their preset sizes are bizarre.

So I sent it back the same day. So far a totally fine interaction. The dress didn’t fit, but I had no problems with the company.

My problem is that they confirmed the delivery of my return on December 20th and had no automatic process in place to refund my money. I got an email saying that I would receive my refund in 7 – 14 business days. I had to email them on January 11th to get them to manually process my refund. I buy and return a lot of things online. This is the first time I’ve had to remind someone to give me my money back, and makes me never want to try them again.

This was two months after I ordered the dress. How much money do you think they’re making off of people that don’t obsessively check their bank accounts?

Keep track of your money. Bother people. Get in all in writing. Return policies aren’t always enough.

Have you ordered anything that bloggers swear is amazing that fell short of your expectations?