Little Kidogo Merchandise — Pricing Vintage Clothing
Learn how to value vintage items for reselling
The special feeling of discovery; an opportunity to make a statement against the artificiality of modern consumerism; the authenticity that comes with owning an item from the past; the attention to detail and high-quality craftsmanship; the exclusivity that comes from wearing a one-of-a-kind, rare piece. *
The truth is there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to valuing vintage fashion. What can be said for certain is that knowing the history of a piece, its lineage, perhaps, the fact that it may very well be the last of its kind on earth, and an appreciation for the sweat and tears that went into its design — the combination of history, rarity, design and a true love of fashion can help one determine the best price for an item.
The average customer doesn’t realize how vintage inventory circa the ’60s and earlier is becoming harder and harder to come by. What they do understand are these questions: Is this piece modern enough to wear today? What’s it made out of? Can I get the same style somewhere else for less? Did someone important I recognize design it? It all depends on how much the customer is going to want the piece for themselves.**
Objective Evaluation
In general, the piece’s current desirability and the size of the market for it are the most important factors, whether it’s still produced, discontinued or re-released: these are all considerations…in very basic terms, the most important factors are brand, model, condition, material, and colour — in that order. *
Determining the most accurate price guide for selling vintage clothing depends on an objective evaluation of key variables;
- Garment’s era
- Purchase cost
- Trend
- Quality
- Availability
- Designer
- Season of sale
- Garment Condition
Now let’s look at the multiple factors to consider before placing resale value on a particular garment —
1. Garment’s Era
Keeping the perspective of the customer in mind, a dress from the ’40s — while more rare in quantity — may hold a “buying” value less than a different style from the ’70s.**
Age definitely needs to be considered when pricing vintage, but the trick is not to have an automatic uptick of price just because the piece is as old as your grandma! >< So how does one know when to price by era and does era even matter?
- Find the tag and decipher the age of the piece; if the brand is highly covetable (ie Christian Dior) and the age of the item is older than 40 years, it will be more expensive than an 80’s easy-to-find polyester dress.
- Price vintage based on age when you’ve acquired a collector’s vintage piece, which are those garments from the 1920s or earlier, research to the asking price for a customer base of collectors instead of the general public as they do not understand high value on antique items that well.
- Evaluate the item’s age next to the other key variables (whether it fits with modern trends, the piece’s materials, market availability, designer panache and whether its in season for sale immediately).
More research:
The Vintage Fashion Guild has a great Fashion Timeline for help dating trends of a particular era so that you’re accurately dating a piece.
2. Purchase Cost
How much is your wholesale “comfort point” price for smart investment to resell and make money from? That’s up for you to decide with trial and experimentation to help determine how much you can resell a particular piece for.**
Selling vintage requires a significantly larger investment of resources than selling current season items. Here are some tips to keep in mind when thinking of the purchase cost of your stock;
- The objective is always buy to resell for a profit, so for the most financial gain, your cost-of-goods should be as low as possible, even if the piece is a true stunner, if you’re not paying wholesale prices for it you should not buy it with the intention to profit whilst reselling it.
- Strive to purchase your vintage goods at the least expensive wholesale prices as possible, this gives you more room to mark up a garment to its appropriate value that will also make you a profit.
- Goods at wholesale prices (approximately a few dollars each) can be purchased via wholesale dealers like Raghouse, or by shopping thrift stores, flea markets or if priced reasonably, antique store booths.
- Not buying vintage at low-enough prices to then mark up and then sell to your customer at a profit is business suicide, you are investing in goods that are overpriced investments and will harm your long term financial success.
- The more money you invest that isn’t received back into your bank account with a profit on top, the less money you have to operate a healthy, flourishing business model.
- A few misspent investments here or there will add up to an overall net loss that may be difficult to recover from without investing your personal cash back into the business.
- Also consider the amount of research that go into each piece before it even hits the shop floor.
- The amount of money spent on cleaning and repairing the item.
- The amount of time and money spent on photographing and getting the item ready for selling online is also something crucial to take into account when buying new stock.
Keep asking yourself if the item is worth the final price YOU need to put on it to actually make a profit from it.
3. Trend
It’s not to your or the customer’s benefit to hike up the price of a piece just because it resembles Christian Dior’s New Look and therefore have potentially found it’s way onto the set of Mad Men, but not every girl is looking to wear a fitted circle dress that needs sphanx or even better yet, a corset/girdle to wear and look attractive in.**
It is very important to consider THE question; “how wearable is this piece” and based on the answer to that question, you’ll better understand its true demand and how that factor influences its true price.
- Consider the trend influences from the runways and vintage fashion icon influences to understand what style are attractive to your customer today.
- Take note of what trend forecasters predict are the next season’s big clothing hits as the runway shows happen, taking note of styles, colors, fabrics and silhouettes, then when shopping vintage, you can invest in pieces you know will be trendy next season.
- Price a piece based on how it relates to the current trends as seen on the runways and in the stores: How much is the demand for this style, and how readily available is its vintage supply? If the demand is high and the supply is low, you’ve hit gold!
More Research:
Top trend forecasting sites in the industry are WGSN, Trendstop and Trendzine.
4. Quality
Vintage clothing is special because oftentimes you’re selling pieces made with the finest quality materials and handcrafted with unique detail not found on today’s assembly line of mass produced goods.**
When pricing a vintage piece, a smart seller should perform research on just what kind of material the piece is — understanding how certain textiles look and feel helps when evaluating the appropriate selling price of a piece.
- Evaluate first whether the fabric is natural or synthetic — an 80’s polyester dress will be significantly cheaper than a 50’s silk shirtdress.
- Natural textiles are considered more valuable because they are typically longer lasting and more luxurious feeling.
- Examples of commonly used natural plant textiles include silks, cotton, flax, jute and hemp; natural animal textiles are wool, cashmere, mohair, angora, silk and of course leathers.
- The most popular synthetic fibers are polyester, acrylic, nylon and spandex — all of these synthetics were invented in the ’50s or later, so you can understand why most vintage pieces pre-1940s were made from natural fibers and can be considered of higher quality than a younger vintage garment.
- Natural fibers are more luxurious, longer-lasting and harder to come by, and therefore should be valued at a higher price point than their synthetic, mass-produced counterparts.
Beginning in 1972, the Federal Trade Commission introduced the “Care Labeling Rule” which required brands to list the piece’s materials and care instructions on attached tags.
More Research
The Fabric Stock Exchange and Fabric.com are amazing resources listing information on common fabric types
5. Availability
The reality is that vintage shopping and thrift store shopping is becoming more and more popular in the mainstream. The skills that a vintage seller has are being absorbed by the general consumer herself, oftentimes inspiring that “vintage shopper” to become a “vintage seller” as her thrift store shopping addiction grows.**
Just because the piece is cool by today’s fashion standards doesn’t mean that you can automatically flip it for a steep profit — the greater the demand and the more of the supply? Not necessarily a higher price point.
- Decide if your customer could easily purchase the vintage piece somewhere else for less, if “yes”, price the piece with a smaller mark-up than a piece that’s harder to come by in the secondhand shopping world.
- Pieces with original designs aren’t just thrifted everyday and can be priced at a higher value than more prolific and easy to come by pieces obviously.
- The greater the demand and less of the supply, the more expensive that item should be.
- The less of the demand and the greater of the supply? Then you simply shouldn’t be selling that piece to begin with.
Don’t expect people to pay much for an item if they could/would find it themselves! Most of the time you shouldn’t even buy these ‘easy’ items, rather specialize in hard-to-find, special clothing.
6. Designer
The average customer isn’t going to know anything about labels or designers beyond what’s most familiar to them today. Think high-end designers with true name panache (YSL, Dior, Chanel).**
True and recognizable designer labels should be priced accordingly. Examples include vintage pieces by runway designers that were part of a season’s runway or buying collection.
- Runway collections from top designers are the most coveted and valuable pieces because of their limited availability.
- Pricing a garment higher just because you know the history of its designer isn’t fair to the customer, who isn’t as familiar with the history of fashion as you.
- Do your research to verify your hunch that a finely tailored, top quality stylish designer piece wasn’t just sold from a vintage ready-to-wear collection in department stores.
- Not every designer vintage piece is created equal and therefore should not be priced similarly.
- When pricing a recognizable designer, true authentication should first be confirmed by the design house.
- Address the label’s uniqueness in the description of the piece when selling online and price the piece as a collector’s item much like you would garments from the 1920s or earlier.
- Manage your customer’s understanding and expectations so that they don’t mistakenly think you are “ripping them off” with this one piece they can’t understand why is so much more expensive than everything else in your shop.
Have an amazing piece from ’60s British brand Biba or ’50s iconic designer Anne Fogarty? These are the names that collector’s recognize — but not necessarily your customer.**
More Research
Fashion Encyclopedia will aid in your general know-how of the period styles and silhouettes definitive of specific designers across the eras.
7. Season of Sale
Carrying a smaller inventory of spring/summer pieces during the fall/winter seasons and vice versa is always a good idea because when selling online, you should have a percentage of international clientele who experience seasons opposite of yours.**
It is important to see yourself as a global brand when selling vintage online and know that seasonal shifts influences when a customer is most inclined to purchase particular styles.
- When it’s winter in the United States, vintage lovers in Australia are experiencing summer lovin’.
- Price your off-season pieces less than your in-season to encourage cross season sales.
- If that sexy summer maxi dress doesn’t sell at a discounted price in the cold weather months, mark it up to an appropriate seasonal selling price when the sun starts shining in your corner of the globe again.
8. Condition
Of course, the older a piece of clothing is, the more likely it will display indications of its age. Signs of wear should be expected. Although condition ranks as a main buying consideration for vintage clothing, its not as crucial for older items, some sellers rely on a naming system that will help you assess what you can expect when you buy vintage clothing.
Because vintage clothing is not new, its important that you properly understand the condition of a garment. However do note that it is really better to try to trade in items in very good condition or better.
A) Mint — An item is as perfect and pristine as when it was originally made and shows no sign of wear (mint condition is rare for vintage clothing).
B) Near mint — An item shows only the slightest signs of wear.
C) Excellent — An item shows typical signs of wear due to occasional use.
D) Very good — An item is considered wearable but has some surface flaws (staining or soiling, for example).
E) Good: An item is wearable but cannot be returned to excellent condition even if repairs are made.
- Tell prospective purchasers if the item has been cleaned or not, either by hand washing or dry cleaning.
- Old and very precious antique items are best left to the conservationist professionals. The aged look may even be part of the attraction.
Once experienced, with sound finance behind you, you may prefer to buy single top condition items from an auction house and trade more exclusive items that actually give you more pleasure to sell and to buy.
But wait, there’s more
Don’t think a torn garment is worthless and has no monetary value as many collectors buy up older damaged garments specifically for quilting, dressing old or antique dolls in authentic fabrics as well as using pieces of material in re-enactment costumes. But it’s worth may be limited.
Last but not least Get online and research similar items of the ones you have in stock.
Want to know even more? Read about how we take care of our merchandise here.
More about the author:
Carla Inez Espost currently consults, trains, produces, manages and creates Immersive content for Little Kidogo.
Little Kidogo is a distributed collective of world-class professionals on an ambitious mission to enhance lives through enabling African artisans to live off their work.
“We spend our time building bleeding-edge products that we believe will enrich our lives and the lives of the communities we live in. We are working to enable more Africans to become producers of digital content rather than consumers. We believe we can achieve this goal by actively sharing our learnings and the methods we utilize day by day to build great products.”
References:
*https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/the-art-and-science-of-valuing-vintage
**http://sammydvintage.com/vintage-style/how-to-price-vintage/
