How to sell second hand clothes online
how i sell clothes online 💸 photos, listings, shipping + more
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so last week I did a gigantic closet
scene out and I decided to get rid of
like literally half of the clothes that
I own so I thought this would be the
perfect opportunity to show you guys the
behind-the-scenes of how I take photos
how I make listings how I ship and
fulfill those orders whether you guys
are just getting rid of a couple wood
used pieces of clothing in your wardrobe
or you want to start a business selling
vintage or handmade clothing I hope that
this helps you guys out so in order to
make my modeling more efficient I always
start by sorting my clothing that I'm
going to shoot into categories so like
here I have jackets then I have a bunch
of shirts so that way I can just try on
top after top after top and I don't have
to change out my pants or if they're
jackets I know that I could keep like a
neutral shirt and a neutral pair of
pants on and just swap out the jacket so
it minimizes our total amount of
changing over here I have my dresses and
skirts which I also sort by length so
first I have my mini dresses then I have
mini skirts and mini dresses and then I
have maxi dresses and this is because in
order to photograph those different
lengths of clothing I'm gonna have to
move the camera so I want to minimize
the amount of times I have to move the
camera as well and reframe everything so
first I just have one set shot that goes
up to like my thigh for all of my mini
dresses then I move the camera back and
I can shoot my mini dresses so the
camera will ply cut off around my ankle
and then I'll have to move it all the
way back and get a full body shot for my
maxi dresses honestly trying on your
clothing and modeling it does turn into
a lot of work so I really like the
system to streamline everything when
possible so here is how I set up
everything to take photos obviously over
here I have my rack of all the clothing
I'm going to shoot then next to it I
have my camera on a tripod I always like
to shoot my photos near a big window so
that I get a lot of natural light
bouncing off and my photos look nice and
glowy to get the highest quality photo
as possible I do like shooting them on
my DSLR I know this is fancy so not
everybody has it you could totally also
take these on self timer on your iPhone
let me actually show you real quick okay
what I used to do with my phone was to
grab a stool or a chair or a table talk
whatever you have that's kind of waist
height then you put a box or a basket on
top of it then you can place your phone
on your little pseudo tripod and you can
kind of just adjust the angle of your
phone against this basket to get a
flattering angle on yourself then you
can obviously do self-timer take that
photo take a step back
strike a pose and there you go an
extremely flattering self-timer photo of
yourself okay anyways back to my DSLR
what I do is I put it on self timer mode
and I have it take ten photos one every
two seconds I find that that gives me
just enough time to strike a couple
different poses have a couple
unflattering photos but I'll still end
up with around three or four good ones
that I can use for the listing I also
set my camera aspect ratio to be a
square since all the photos on my
website or squares and if you're selling
on something like D pop or Poshmark
you're also always going to want your
photos to be cropped two squares anyway
so as you can see here everything is pre
cropped to be a square which is really
nice because I can figure out my
composition I can figure out what's in
frame and I also then later don't have
to edit every photo individually on my
computer and try it from it in manually
alrighty let's take some photos so for
every piece of clothing I try to get
four basic angles at least a front shot
a side shot a back shot wise the steps
of sexual and a cliff stuff where my
head is cropped out and you can kind of
see the item of clothing in more detail
and then occasionally I'll also throw in
like a fun pose to change things up if I
have a couple extra photos left on the
self-timer before it runs out for some
of these tops you just have to like
shimmy your bra straps to make it work
because it takes way too much time to
change into the proper bra for every
single top so you know what you can't
see it in the photos it works as you
might begin to notice here I tend to
strike very similar poses for each piece
of clothing since the more you do this
the more you figure out what your best
angles are and it becomes almost like an
automatic motion if it's a top like this
that I would style a certain way I like
to take one photo with just the top
plans if also people know what it looks
like normally then I'll like tie it up
tuck it in tie it in a knot all of that
styling stuff so people have an idea of
like how to make it look cute and how I
would prefer to wear it no matter what I
always tilt my shoulders and hips to add
a more dynamic feel to the photo rather
than just standing straight up and down
which can look a little bit
I also usually try to figure out a way
to occupy my hands whether that's
holding them gracefully at my crotch
like so putting one in my pocket playing
with my hair or just kind of flailing
them about it's always a or trying to
put a turtleneck on and not smoosh off
your makeup I have emerged relatively
unscathed if it's a black top like this
one I always want to make sure that I
shoot it with some colorful pants not a
black or dark grey pair because the
color of the top is gonna blend in with
the pants and it'll be like really hard
for the customer to see where exactly
the top ends and the pants begin and it
just won't pop as much so it's nice to
have this contrast after about half an
hour all of my tops are done and now it
is time to tackle the dresses this is
cool this is how short my bangs are now
by the way I like I really overdid it it
was bad just gonna adjust the tripod so
it fits the bottom part of my body more
so it's a very similar process with
dresses I do a lot of poses like with my
hand on my waist or playing with the
skirt of my dress so it kind of gives
some movement to the shot and
exaggerates the hourglass figure that I
don't really have but let's pretend it's
like I do sorry I need to stop making
self-critical jokes about my body like
that is such a base form of humor and I
should encourage people to think about
their own bodies positively as well
working on that one anyways I'm finally
done it's 8 o'clock right now oh I feel
like a potato
so right now I am just importing all of
my photos onto my computer now it used
to go through each photo individually
and edit it in Lightroom but honestly it
just got to be too much work and often
times if you try to put too strong of a
filter on your photo people just get
confused what color the clothing is and
accuracy is really the most important
thing when you're selling something
online so I'm just gonna import them and
put up the raw files on the internet so
I list everything on my Squarespace
website which this is what the backend
looks like but essentially the listing
process is exactly the same as if you
use depop or Poshmark or any of those
apps I just choose three to five of the
best photos of the item I include in the
description the size the brand the
condition definitely noting any flaws
and then any other kind of like quirks
about the item like maybe the sizing
runs big or it runs small or it's a
sweater that's a little bit itchy just
so people know upfront what they're
buying sometimes if I feel a little bit
extra all we add a little styling tip or
what type of event something would be
good at like a picnic outfit or a
lounging around your house having an
existential crisis outfit I don't know
those are really the only two activities
that I do so and you're terrifying a
cage
[Music]
all right it is around 8 p.m. the next
day and I woke up at like 9 a.m. today
and I have been packing orders all day
you guys ordered so much stuff which I
am so grateful for I sold out of
everything in like a couple hours it was
crazy
I just realized my sweater is button
wrong I think you guys know this about
me but I don't have like an assistant
and editor basically anybody to do my
[ __ ] work for me
because I am my own [ __ ] so I am about
11 hours deep into packing orders and
we're chugging along folks
I don't know how exciting any of this is
to you guys so I thought I would just
show you like the very short version
which is essentially that I like to
segment my steps like I'm an assembly
line except it's literally just me in an
assembly line so the first phase
consists of weighing my items on a
kitchen scale and creating the shipping
labels online so when it comes to
creating your shipping label you have
three main options
I don't know how interested you guys are
in like shipping logistics but this was
something that really confused me early
on when I was trying to figure out how
to sell clothing so I'm gonna talk about
it for a second so the first option if
you're selling on an app like deep hop
or Poshmark
is to just use the apps in app shipping
label creator how many times did I say
app too many times in one sentence
basically apps like Dee pop have an
option where the POC will create the
label for you you just have to enter the
weight and then Dee pop will email the
completed label to you and you can print
it out so this is the most convenient
but it also is the most expensive since
these apps overcharge a little bit for
their shipping so that brings me to
option number two which is what I use
when I sold on Dee pop and even in the
early years of having my own website
which is PayPal's online shipping label
creator it's a little bit more time
consuming because you do have to click
through individually for each label and
create your own but it'll save you one
to three dollars per label compared to
those in-app shipping services so it
really does add up and in my opinion it
was worth my time and then option number
three is what I use right now basically
I sign up for something called ship
station which integrates with Shopify
and Squarespace stores that is so many
S's basically it automatically creates
shipping labels for you which saves you
time but it also gets you a discounted
rate on those shipping labels so it
saves you money as well however there
is a monthly subscription fee which runs
from like nine up to $100 depending on
how many labels you're creating in a
month so I'd really only recommend it to
people who are either doing like a huge
closet clean-out or you run your own
business so you're getting orders every
single week anyway that is my whole
spiel sorry if that was boring is how
moving onwards once I have all of my
shipping labels printed I write a little
thank-you note on each invoice for the
customer then it's time to commence the
packing phase in which I as the name
would suggest this is very
self-explanatory I'm packing up my
orders I'm attaching the labels yes I'm
doing this on the kitchen floor because
I ran out of space in the rest of my
apartment because my entire apartment at
this point was covered in packages of
clothing I had so he orders to ship and
then I put the finish order in a box and
hopefully they will all be done by
tomorrow morning so I can go to the post
office and that is pretty much where
we're gonna week this video overall I
shifted just over a hundred orders of
clothing so seriously thank you so much
again to everybody who bought something
and yeah I hope this video was helpful
for anybody who's looking to sell their
clothes and give them a new home and I
will see you guys next week
[Music]
