Buying Clothes from ThredUP

In this post, I talked about how I want to reduce the number of clothes that I purchase. I’d even like to try out Project 333 when I return from my summer travel extravaganza. In the meantime, I’m trying to rehab my wardrobe a bit. I’m donating things that I’ve had in bins stored at my mom’s house for years (seriously, I’ve lived away from home for ten years and still have a ridiculous amount of clothing stored there). Also, prior to leaving my little Alaskan village, I made a list of a few clothing items I’d like to replace this summer and take back to the village with me. A lot of my village clothes are old, full of holes, and frankly don’t fit anymore. This led me to want to replace some of the clothing I do have with better quality stuff, so that in the long-term I don’t have to buy nearly as much. This point in my thought process is where ThredUP comes in.

For those who don’t know, ThredUP is an online consignment shop. I knew when I traveled this summer that I was going to need a few new warm weather outfits. My husbands family lives in the south where it is 100+ and humid ALL SUMMER, and here I am not even owning a pair of shorts or a tank top. So, I needed to get a few things fast. I had a friend recommend I check out ThredUP and thus I decided to do a little shopping.

The website has a ton of options. I narrowed it down to more high-quality, outdoor clothing brands (Patagonia, Toad&Co., etc) because those things tend to hold up better for me and can serve the dual purpose of being work clothes and outdoor adventure clothes. ThredUP had a relatively small amount of items from the brands I tend to like, but the things they did have were all listed as being in “excellent condition.”

The items I ordered only cost me about $35 and were from good brands. All were in great shape when they arrived and I was very happy with my order. I ended up with a romper that I could use to dress-up with heels for going out or dress down with a swimsuit and sandals, a big comfy cardigan that can work in all seasons, and a black skirt that I can wear with bare legs this summer or leggings this winter/fall.

I did have a few qualms with my order though. For starters, they sent these three items in two different packages, which seemed like a waste. All three things could have easily fit in one box. Then, when I opened each package, they were full of random papers. I understand the need to include the receipt (although couldn’t that be paperless too?), but both packages also had style guides, outfit cards, and note from the CEO. It was a little excessively wasteful. I wish there was a way to say, “please don’t send me garbage!” I did really like my items, and I appreciate that they are thrifted, but I would like to avoid the waste in the future.

Have any of you used ThredUP before? What were your thoughts?


9 Responses to Buying Clothes from ThredUP

  1. Ooh, I hate that kind of thing. Don’t even get me started on companies that auto-add you to their catalog list. I had this verbatim conversation with a company yesterday “I bought online, I have never once ordered from a catalog, I hate catalogs, please stop mailing me junk.”

  2. I am a ThredUp addict! I’ve bought most of my clothing from them over the past few years and love the flexibility of choosing items online from the comfort of my laptop and their very generous return policy. Also they used to give you free shipping for the whole month (or two?) if you bought more than $250 of items in one shipment. I did that two years ago and was able to get a number of great, high quality pieces from them. In the $250 I think I only kept about $75 worth of items and returned the rest because of fit issues (many were shoes, which I learned my lesson on-don’t buy shoes you are not certain of style and size/fit) but I still got the free shipping for the month so ended up purchasing a number of other items over the course of that time period. This allowed me to really re-vamp my wardrobe at a fraction of the price of going to the mall or otherwise.

    • I really liked all of the things I ordered from ThredUp! I didn’t end up returning anything from this batch, but I appreciate your insight on returning things in the future. I’m sure I’ll be ordering more because, as you said, you can really revamp our wardrobe for almost nothing.

  3. When I have ordered from Thred Up, all items were sent in one box. I did recycle the paper and actually returned the tags to Thred Up with the clothes I didn’t keep. I sold items to Thred Up as well, but they have now changed their policy and are charging a fee of $9.99 I think for bags sent in from sellers. Since I usually only made $30-40, I’m not willing to pay $9.99 in hopes they’ll buy my stuff. I also shop from Swap.com. They are very similar to Thred Up and offer free returns. On a regular basis, Swap.com offers sales, free shipping offers, and can earn you cash back if you go through ebates to their site. Their clothes are packaged in individual plastic bags and a paper receipt included so more unnecessary trash.

    • I used to use Swap.com all the time! There’s another one that I used to use a ton in college, but I can’t remember the name of it. Anyways, I definitely think I’ll still be ordering from ThredUP in the future, the garbage thing just annoyed me. We don’t have access to recycling in our teeny, bush Alaskan village, so anything with unnecessary waste tends to bother me a bit. Thanks for the tips!

  4. This isn’t on the topic of Thred Up, but I am curious about shipping. Is shipping the same out to your little village, or is there an additional charge? I’m especially curious about using services like Amazon to deal with expensive groceries.

    • Shipping is…complicated. Most items we are required to pay a freight charge on, which is about $3/lb. It can get pretty dang expensive to ship anything out to the village. Some places will ship for free to us, like Target and PetCo. Items that are on Amazon Prime we can get free shipping on, but we can’t use Amazon Pantry at all because they don’t provide service to the bush. Also, some items won’t ship even on Amazon Prime. This might be a good post for me to do some time!

  5. It’s really an online resale site, not consignment, b/c all of it comes directly from ThredUp. I first ordered TU when they had a deal for free shipping. I bought tons, liked some, sent some back and got account credit. Returning is a breeze. I’ve been using TU for about six months. What I’m looking for is hit or miss. I am lucky enough to find some excellent items at excellent prices. But I will only get the “new with tags” or “you could mistake it for new” items. You can also send in your items, and they will pay you (very, very little, imho).

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