Poshmark vs ThredUP vs Flyp: Which Is Right For You?
Poshmark vs thredUP vs Flyp
The internet is rife with comparisons of some of the most popular online resale and consignment shops.
It isn’t hard to find several articles finely combing over the pros and cons of the Poshmark vs thredUP debate while completely missing the many other options rising in prominence. I don’t mean obvious retailers such as Amazon, Goodwill, or eBay, but other high-end luxury and vintage consignment brands like Flyp or Tradesy.
Whether you want to buy or sell second-hand women’s clothing, luxury bags, vintage street clothes, or much more, the options are growing.
Social media Bloggers love the Poshmark vs. thredUP debate, but is it the right one to have?
Of course, topics like Poshmark vs. thredUP will always be interesting to debate, but rather than simply stick to these two, I will add in a third competitor that I think best represents the new age of online consignment shops, Flyp.
After we cover all three, you should have a great idea about your options and choices for your buying and reselling needs.
Poshmark
Poshmark is a very popular online resale and fashion purchasing site similar to classic consignment shops melded with modern social media. The site helps you to recycle or clean out your closet with their prepaid shipping label offerings.
On the unique seller end, you have a social media style account where you can upload photos of the items you have for sale and list any unique details (or damages) the item may have. The algorithms help you to get your items in front of potential buyers and for you to be recommended: “closets” (collections) that fit your style.
There is also the feature for “Posh Parties” where the site will host events that will help to promote and sell goods across the site. These events all link together with your social media accounts.
Reselling and Payout on Poshmark
Once you make a sale on site, you are given a pre-paid, pre-addressed label ready for your shipping box. You then use a local USPS site to send the package.
The commission structure for a resale on Poshmark is decent since you technically took the photos and promoted the product on your own. Any item over $20 gives Poshmark a 20% commission on the selling price (which includes shipping). Items under that amount have a tiered pay structure.
Payout is timely on Poshmark, with it generally occurring once the customer receives and verifies the items. Your Poshmark account funds will grow, and you will eventually request a check sent to your home.
Selling on Poshmark
It can take a good amount of time to list multiple items on Poshmark. If you are taking quality photos and spending the time to write up a meaningful description, we are talking up to an hour or more an item. When you want to list twenty-items, you officially have a part-time job.
This style of selling items is more suited for those with fewer, more valuable goods who enjoy spending time pursuing customers and making sales themselves.
If you don’t have a large social media following, your Poshmark sales may also be a bit stunted. Much of the site runs off your ability to socialize and connect with your various accounts to cross-promote items.
On Poshmark, unless someone is looking for your exact item it can be very difficult to get in front of that customer unless your social media presence is powerful.
Poshmark trends best when selling women’s clothing of mid-tier name brand designers; Coach, J.Crew, Gap, Kate Spade, etc. This is the customer base most often browsing the Poshmark pages.
The next wave of resale: Flyp
Flyp is the site we will look at as an example of where the future of online consignment seems to be headed. While Flyp also lets you easily make money with high-quality brand name items, it is how they have tweaked the process that is so interesting.
Consignment agreements are where you retain ownership of an item, while a store or salesperson goes and sells it for you in return for a percentage of the sale. This has been a prevalent practice in the sale of luxury goods, especially for those who are unable or unwilling to put in the long hours and time needed to find the best buyers for an attractive listing price and make a great sale.
Flyp enhances this classic method by giving you the option to have salespeople bid on the right to sell your items. This causes a great seller’s market as you are getting access to specialized sales people competing to give you the best commission rates possible. This process also benefits the buyers since they are going to deal with salespeople angling to give them great deals.
This melding of social media, PayPal, real-time bidding, and worldwide markets shows just how many possibilities we may have for updating our traditional sales method — and if you are looking for a modern and easy way to sell your clothes, Flyp should be your next adventure.
Flyp itself works best with posh items like Mercari, Gucci, Chanel, J. Crew, and other designer brands. These brands have a good ability to retain wealth and earn you back more extensive sales that justify the money spent on commission.
Online Consignment is a Booming Business
Even with the tumultuous year of 2020 and COVID-19, online consignment sites like Flyp have continued to thrive. More buyers than ever are looking for good deals on designer goods. They also realize that luxury goods are becoming incredibly safe investments into one’s future.
Physical assets of any type are never a bad idea, and Luxury items have been shown to retain wealth well for decades.
These increased buying habits, and entrepreneurial initiatives, have turned luxury goods into a recession-proof industry. It stands to reason that more money than ever will begin to enter into these markets.
thredUP
thredUP is known for their clean out kit and clean out bag program, and they aim more for the general consumer crowd rather than for pure luxury items.
With thredUP, you send in a collection of clothing items that have been collecting in the closet. The site will then decide which items will become a donation and which will make it to the marketplace. You also have the option to donate proceeds to the charity of your choice, making this the easy option if spring cleaning really is your only goal. Still, thredUP will not sell damaged, stained, or non-mainstream brand goods.
Payout on ThredUP
thredUP has a more confusing payout system since some items you will pay for upfront, and some will make you money based on commission. You will need to work with the site to figure out which items will receive which pricing and sales methods, but ultimately it works similar to a general consignment store where they take control of the sales end of things.
Payouts will also be a more complicated and timely process due to the nature of the sire and the listing system. You will typically be able to get any of your funds (once items have sold) within a couple of weeks.
Selling on thredUP
Selling on thredUP requires little to no effort on your end; simply send the items in and reap the rewards. However, you do pay for this in how much return you get.
For high-end luxury items, you will undoubtedly be getting less than you would in a true consignment situation, but for mass amounts of mid-grade brands and fashion items, the time you save may be well worth the reduced sales earnings. Think of it as a generally small commission akin to a thrift shop.
Buyers always want a lower price on women and men’s clothing, kids’ clothing, old clothes, and new clothes, so finding buyers is not generally difficult for thredUP.
If you are more concerned about clearing up a massive amount of closet space, and have a lot of clothes that may or may not retain some value, then you should use thredUP.
You Have Many Options for Selling Your Clothes
As we have shown, you have easy ways to donate the proceeds of your clothes (organizations like Unicef are a great choice if you need any ideas) as well as make money from (or increase your collection of) luxury goods like handbags and coats. At the same time, new shops like Flyp are appearing that offer whole new ways to shop, and whose effect on the market is still not fully understood.
After some searching and testing, you will find a site that fits your needs or caters to your customers just the way you need it to. And if one doesn’t? Well, we are likely to see plenty more sites appear in the near future. Huge investors and companies are getting in on it now, the likes of Nordstrom and Alibaba.
Each method is “best” for a different type of seller and a different type of buyer. Rather than compare the sites, you should begin to see which career more closely matches your required needs. This may mean making accounts and trying small sales on each site to get a full idea of the process. The risk for these sorts of tests in both time and money is relatively low.
