Reselling thrift store items: Fur and faux fur coats
One thing that a lot of people tend to stay away from are seasonal items. Surprisingly I’ve had a lot of luck with one seasonal item that is pretty easy to fine and that is fur and faux fur coats. Today we’re gonna talk a little bit about reselling thrift store items and fur coats, jackets, boleros and vests.
Price
I have never paid over $10 for a fur coat that it was my intent to resell. All of my finds have been from the bins or the rack during dollar days or a front display. If the coat was a higher price than that I will keep an eye on it. You can always go back when your local thrift store is having a half or 75% off of apparel day and snatch it up then.
Condition
Smells, rips, stains, and dry rot are some things that I am aware of with reselling clothes. There are a lot of the times some of the stuff has a old musty smoky or body odor type of smell. Same thing goes with stains found on the coat. I would advise against attempting to spot remove any stains on furs. With regular clothing it is very simple to come home and run it through the washing machine before you process, photograph and list those items. When you are dealing with something such as a fur coat it is not cost-effective to take it to a fur coat cleaner. Unless you know you are going to be making hundreds if not thousands off that coat. If you find a coat that requires some sort of dry cleaning I would advise that you not get it because most of the time you will say that you will find someone who will clean the coat for you, it will come home and it will sit in your death pile. Remember that you are not in the business of storing inventory, you’re in the business of selling inventory.
Things to look for when reselling thrift store items
Make sure you check for rips around the collar, wrist area, bottom hem especially if it is a floor length. Make sure you stick your hands into the pockets. Finally, make sure that there are not holes in the pockets as well.
After I pick up a coat I open the inside to make sure that I do not spot any dry rot. Next, I run my hands across the entire inside to make sure that I do not feel any crinkling we are dry rotting may be occurring.
The weight of the coat can come into play at this point. Be prepared to pay a substantial amount for shipping. Now as a general rule and reselling you should be calculating shipping in your head before you make the purchase. After you have been handling clothes for a while you can pick something up and kind of make a pretty good guesstimate of how much something weighs. You also need to take into account a shipping bag or an extra box if you add that personal touch to your more expensive items. If you sell and ship through POSHMARK shipping can be upgraded once you sell your item if it’s over 5 pounds.
FAIR WARNING….
Other considerations to consider. There are people who get really up in arms about the sale of animal fur and pelts. If you’re going to list these online please be prepared to deal with pushback from that community of individuals. You can totally build this business model around fair in vegan products instead. Obviously if that if this something that you are concerned about or if you yourself are against selling real fur. As always I would love to hear if you have had luck with this business model. Talk soon!
xoxo,
MHS
