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Unfiltered Review: Why Buying and Selling on ThredUp Isn’t Worth It

Have you ever used ThredUp before? The concept is interesting and really popular – many influencers promote it all of the time as a great way to score secondhand pieces.

So what is it? ThredUp is an online consignment store. They allow customers to send in items, they inspect them, decide if they are worth listing, and then list them. You can pay a fee to get your items back or they allegedly donate them otherwise. They frequently run deals up to 45% off for new customers. It’s great that they have a mission to keep items out of landfills but from a consumer perspective, I can’t say I’ve had *great* experiences either way. I’ve felt let down in the end from sending my items in and also from purchasing from ThredUp.

Before you chose to send items into ThredUp or purchase from them, I want to share my experience with both buying and selling on ThredUp.

Selling On Thred Up

I’ve sent many items over the years to ThredUp and in total 94 items have sold on ThredUp and I earned $176.10 for those items. The items that gave me the most value were some of my husband’s J.Crew sweaters. Overall I made about $1.87 per item that sold. That is ABYSMAL.

Currently, you have to pay a $14.99 selling fee for every bag of items you send in. Over the years I have sent in 10 bags (my first in 2014), not all of which had a fee but some did. You can pay an additional fee to have what they don’t accept sent back to you.

It can also take them MONTHS to process bags of clothes sent in so a lot of these clothing items are just sitting in bags waiting to be processed. Then, they are only available on the site for a set amount of time before they “expire” and if not sold, are “donated” or sent off somewhere else.

You can look more into the financials here if that’s your jam, but it seems to me that in order to make more money, they have implemented fees at every step of the process for the consumer – from buying to selling, there is a fee for everything you do with the company.

This is a screenshot from the first bag I sent in in 2014:

And for my last bag of items I sent in to ThredUp in 2024, this is what I earned:

This is what I sent in and what I earned for each item that sold:

On your selling dashboard, you can see what they listed from what you sent in seperated into what sold and what did not. So while 94 of my items have sold, there were also many that did not (at least 24 but the records seem incomplete).

Unfortunately you can’t see what they didn’t actually end up listing from what you send in so unless you kept a record yourself there’s no way of knowing.

There are also some things like this that say they sold and I “earned” money for them but also they they are ineligible for earnings so I didn’t actually receive the payout:

As you can see, it’s not really the best way to make money from selling your clothes if that’s what you’re looking to do. If you don’t care about making any money from them though, it’s a different option than just taking them to a thrift store.

You don’t get your payout for an item until the return window closes and they only keep your items listed for a few weeks before taking them down and “giving them a second life.”

If you’re actually looking to make some money selling things, I’d try another platform like Mercari. I’ve made over $8,000 selling on Mercari since 2020. I have shared my tactics on this before – if you’re interested, you can read more about that here.

Buying On ThredUp

I see a lot of ads and sponsorships from ThredUp frequently so I wanted to try it for myself as a buyer and see how it went. I placed my first order recently and got 8 items for $136.39 so around $17 an item. This was with a 45% off code and a $6.57 credit.

I was super excited to finally see some stuff I was interested in so I placed an order a few weeks ago. The box arrived in lackluster condition:

That might not be ThredUp’s fault exactly, but I did want to point it out because the cardboard is quite thin and if it was left out in the rain, it definitely would have started disintegrating.

The box iteself is actually only held together with one piece of tape. This kind of surprised me because paper tape is not only more sustainable but a lot more sturdy too. I think it’s a switch they could make in their packaging.

One thing I didn’t realize is that if you want to return something, there is a $3.99 restocking fee per item. I ended up having to return 6 items so I paid $24 just for them to “restock” the item.

If I got the full cost of the merchandise back, it would have been $99.51. Instead I got $64.58 for my return.

Ultimately the two items I kept cost me around $72 – which I would have been better off buying them new than getting them secondhand at that price.

Also some of the items, specifically tops I ordered smelled so bad. I’m not sure if they were treated with something or just stored poorly, but I mostly sent them back for that reason.

Latest Update – They Are Removing Their Rewards Program

As a final kick to the bucket, ThredUp sent an email in September letting customers know they are discontinuing their rewards program:

Hey Star!

We’re writing to let you know that we’re making some changes to the ThredUp Rewards program. Starting October 1, 2024, you will no longer earn ThredUp Rewards points, but you’ll still be able to use any points you’ve accumulated until they expire or by January 15, 2025, whichever comes first.

This decision wasn’t an easy one but it will allow us to remain more committed than ever to providing great everyday pricing and frequent discounts and deals. It also allows us to continue investing in improving your shopping experience with new shopping tools like style chat, image search, and others coming soon!
For more details, see here. Thank you for choosing ThredUp and for making sustainable shopping choices.

Best,

ThredUp

One person told me this was their final straw with the company and they wouldn’t be purchasing anymore.

I Asked Instagram…

I received many responses saying ThredUp has gone downhill from what it initially was. No one seems to be having a good experience with the company anymore. The fees are exorbitant, the shipping is expensive, the return process is a nightmare… the list goes on.

Overall, ThredUp Is Incredibly Disappointing

As a seller and consumer, I would not recommend shopping on ThredUp unless you’re good with just throwing money into the abyss. Yes, their mission is a good idea, but in practice it’s a nightmare. Sellers receive very little for the inventory they provide to the company, many things are overpriced for what you would find secondhand locally, and their customer service is down the drain.

It seems like they are passing the price of their influencer marketing onto the consumer and the entire company is suffering as a result.

If you want to make money reselling clothes, I’d recommend listing on Facebook Marketplace, Mercari, or Poshmark. You’ll make more money that way and probably have a better experience.

Have you used ThredUp? Tell me about your experience in the comments!

honest thredup review
honest thredup review

About the Author

Nicole Booz

Nicole Booz is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of GenTwenty, GenThirty, and The Capsule Collab. She has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and is the author of The Kidult Handbook (Simon & Schuster May 2018). She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and three sons. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s probably hiking, eating brunch, or planning her next great adventure.

Website: genthirty.com