thredUP

For as long as I can remember, I have always had a love/hate relationship with children's clothing.  I find something I like, buy it, and 5 minutes later its been outgrown!  What a pain.  I feel like all we do is spend spend spend on clothes and I'm not going to lie, my kids are rough on their clothes, so it hurts when we put out so much money just for them to be ruined or outgrown after only being worn a few times.  Okay okay, of course they aren't really ruined to the point that they can't be worn, but of course stains and marks are going to happen and those drive me crazy.  Shopping seems to be more of a hassle than anything because I struggle to balance what is cute vs. what is practical while still getting a good deal.  Now, I don't have to worry about that anymore!

Last week, I got to talking with my sister-in-law Danielle about kids clothes and she told me all about a site she uses called thredUP which is a virtual consignment sale.  I'll admit I was a little leery at first as I feel like my experiences with resale shops has gone downhill lately.  Clothes are disorganized, overpriced, and very obviously worn.  You could spend hours looking for what you need because stuff is thrown around everywhere.  It's just not fun!  ThredUP takes all the hassle out of consignment shopping.  After Danielle pointed me in the right direction, I spent 2 hours browsing the clothes.  Everything is neatly sorted by categories making things so easy to find plus there is a search bar at the top so you can see if they have the perfect item you are looking for.  Seriously, SO EASY!  After all that browsing, I decided to pick 2 items for each kid just as a test run to see how their stuff was.  I placed my order on Friday and it already arrived today!!  Just 4 days which I found super impressive.

The box was adorable and packaged like a gift which I loved.

I dug right in to check out all our new clothes and boy was I impressed!!  Of the six pieces five of them were in impeccable shape.  Honestly, I would have never guessed that they were second hand clothes.  The last item has the faintest of stains and you really have to search for it so it doesn't bother me in the slightest.  Each piece of clothing has its own thredUP tag which I thought was the perfect touch and made me feel like I was getting brand new clothes.  I loved this!

Eliza was napping when the box came and Zach's clothes are for the summer so I only had Samantha to model her clothes.  She looked SO cute in everything.  She got the khaki shorts and jeans!

I am honestly shocked by how impressed I was by the whole shopping experience and quality of the clothes.  Now here is the great part, you have 14 days to decide if you want to keep your items.  If you decide to return them, thredUP proves you a prepaid postage label to return them!  If you return your items for store credit there is no charge, however, if you want your payment returned to your original payment method there is an $8.99 fee.  ThredUP also gives you the option to request a Clean Out Bag so you can send in your old clothes for PayPal or store credit.  Now, I read that they are super strict with their clothing and only accept <40% of what is sent into them.  Like I said before, we are rough on clothes and I seriously doubt they'd take any of our stuff so I haven't yet sent anything in.  However, it's easy to navigate the site to find out how to send in your items and what brands they will and won't accept.

But wait, there is more!  As of 2/10/2016 thredUP has teamed with 18,878 schools across the country so when you shop your school earns!  You can search for your K-12 school and once selected 5% of your purchases will go right back to the school you chose.  You can even designate your payouts from Clean Out Kits to go back to the school rather than yourself.  At this time, thredUP sends out checks to the schools' PTA twice per year and the check must be at least $100 or the money your school has earned is lost.  Unfortunately at this time, I am the only shopper linked with my daughter's future school so I better get to shopping!

For someone who has been turned off from consignment shopping, I can definitely say that I will be frequently visiting this site from now on.  I can't wait to start searching for summer clothes!  If you haven't yet tried thredUP and are interested in doing so, you can sign up via THIS link and get a store credit just for singing up!!  (I am not sure how much the credit is as the e-mail link gives $10 and facebook share gives $20, comment if you sign up and I can edit my post!)  You can try out the clothes and not have to pay out that much if anything!  After the bonus I got from signing up through my sister-in-law I only paid $24.93 shipped for all 6 items.  You've really got nothing to lose!