Give your old and unwanted clothes a new life using Depop

Through years and years of impulse buying clothes, I had built up quite a collection to the point I had nowhere to put all these clothes. I had been giving unwanted and unused clothes away to charity but decided I would consider selling these clothes. Last summer, I had been thinking on setting up an eBay account but was unsure of how to use it so never bothered but after seeing people on social media advertising that they were selling their clothes on the app Depop, I decided to get this app and try selling my clothes on it. Since creating the account last August, I have sold over 80 items and have 55 five star reviews on my page and I am still continuing to sell my clothes now. 

The purpose of this post is to encourage others to try it for themselves and clear out their unwanted clothes whilst making a profit. If people started to either sell their clothes or give them to charity then this could reduce the amount of new or near new clothes that go to waste each year. Below I am going to give a bit of advice for selling your clothes online. 

The Depop app is easy to use as it is similar to Instagram in it's layout, so if you are a user of that then you will be able to navigate the app easily.

How to Sell

Once you have set up an account and added your PayPal details to that account then you are ready to start selling your clothes. To do so you can click the camera icon at the bottom and take or select 4 photos of your item. You should take one picture of the front of the item, one of the back, another of the label and possibly a fourth image of you wearing the outfit if you have a picture of this. If you have an image of you wearing the outfit then a possible buyer can see how it looks on and how it fits giving a better image than that if the item is hanging up. If you have photos of the item hanging up then you should make sure that it is a good quality picture and against a white or black plain background. Once you have added the images, you add a description of the item mentioning key information such as: brand, colour, condition of the item. It is up to you what you want to write in this section, you can be as creative as you wish. The next step is to select what category your item fits into and selecting the appropriate one. Next is to set your delivery price and how much the item will cost to buy. The item is then posted on the site for people to like, save or message you about it. When you click on one of the items of clothing, the description of the item will come up and you can also click buy here to buy the item. Once you have sold an item it will appear with SOLD written across the image and you will get a notification that you have sold an item. You then click on the top middle icon and ship to the address stated. After you have shipped the item you can leave the buyer feedback and rate them out of 5 stars. When they receive the item, they can then leave you feedback. The sell is then complete. 

Tips for Selling

• Depop charge 10% on every item that you sell but PayPal also take a small percentage for every sale as well which I was unaware of before starting to sell items so be aware of this when setting the price for items
• The postage costs for items can be differ depending on the weight of the item so it is important to set the right postage costs to cover the cost of posting 
• Make sure that if there are any faults with an item that they are stated clearly in the description and photos are taken of them so that the buyer is fully aware of what the fault in the item is