As I mentioned in a previous post, a couple of weeks ago, my best friend and I took part in a local clothing resale pop-up market. We have dabbled a bit in thrift reselling in the past, though on this occasion, our merch was primarily our own closet cast-offs. As dedicated thrifters, we get a fair amount of regular closet turnover; we are constantly experimenting with different pieces, upgrading our wardrobes, and culling what doesn’t work. Direct resale is one way to recoup (some of) our costs, as well as extend the lifecyle of the clothing itself; other ways to do that include consignment, donation, and clothing swaps.

The experience of taking part in the pop-up market was an interesting and enlightening one for us – in addition to being a fun (if somewhat exhausting) opportunity to spend time together, and to connect with others. My best friend has a lot of retail experience, but this was my first time selling stuff outside of platforms like Kijiji, Instagram and the like. I’m not as much of a natural at it as I thought I would be, let’s just say. Having my own little secondhand store has been something of a pipe dream of mine for years, but I’m starting to rethink that a bit; the business side of it is definitely not my jam. Personal epiphanies aside, I had a few observations/thoughts gathered over the course of this resale adventure that I wanted to share here.

Your Clothes Aren’t Worth What You Think They’re Worth

I’ve said this before, but it bears saying again: clothes are not an investment. They lose most of their value as soon as you walk them out of the store. There are exceptions and caveats to this, but even a designer item that still has its tags on isn’t worth anywhere close to the full retail value. From experience, I would say that newbie resellers tend to make one of two mistakes: 1) pricing their merch based on how much they paid for it, or 2) pricing it based on how much they like the item. Neither of those things matter to the market. The only value an item has is what someone else is willing to pay for it. And you have to understand the psychology of the parties. All things being equal, a buyer doesn’t have an existing attachment to a piece of clothing, but will place a higher relative value on the money in their pocket. In contrast, a seller will feel a greater sense of investment in the clothing, because they already paid for it (whether for themselves in the first instance, or even purely for resale). There is also an opportunity cost that you cannot ignore; sometimes making a fast sale for a little bit less money is better than sitting on unsold merch for a long time in the hope of a higher profit. Bottom line: a lot of factors play a role in pricing, and pricing is one of the keys to success as a reseller.

Know Your Market

I think I learned a lot from watching other vendors in action. The ones that seemed to have the most customer traffic tended to have merch that was, for lack of a better word, pretty generic – brands popular with Millennials, solid colours (mostly neutrals), and fairly basic pieces. In contrast, the stuff my friend and I were selling reflected our slightly more “niche” aesthetic; we had somewhat fewer people buying from us, but in many cases the ones who did, bought multiple pieces. As casual or hobby resellers, that was enough to make it worth our time at this particular event; but if we were to try to get a proper side (or main) hustle going, we would likely have to re-think our inventory. It’s all fine and good to have a core of devoted customers who appreciate a specific aesthetic, but you have to make sure that it represents a market that can sustain your business. In my case, I don’t think a business model of “buy what I, myself, like” would work in the long term; my personal aesthetic doesn’t appeal to enough people.

Reselling Is A Tough Business

Margins are pretty slim if you are investing any money at all in your inventory – even at thrift prices. (The consignment model is much better from that perspective.) You have to deal in large volumes to make a decent profit, and that can be very time- and effort-intensive. Focusing on designer items can provide higher margins (but it’s not always a given because not all designer labels have equally good resale value) but it comes with its own drawbacks: such inventory is harder to source, and makes you reliant on a smaller pool of customers (with bigger budgets). I follow a few very successful resellers on social media, so I know it can be done, but it’s clear that what they do is no cake-walk.

To illustrate my point, here’s the low-down on our pop-up market experience.

Over the course of 2 days, my friend and I cleared about $1,000 in gross sales. This is a decent amount for what amounted to a kind of garage sale on our part. But everyone knows that gross revenue is not the same thing as profit, right? After deducting our expenses (booth rental, Square card reader, snacks, and miscellaneous supplies), we were left with $835. Of that, $100 went to a friend whose dress I sold for her. So we were left with $735, or about $367 each. [For various reasons, we decided to split the net sales 50-50 rather than based on how much inventory we brought to the table.]

Now, if we stop here, the money still looks pretty good. We spent roughly 14 hours over two days at the market, so we made about $26/hour. Of course, that doesn’t account for the time that went into preparing for the sale itself (steaming all the clothes, checking for flaws, making price tags, etc.). Let’s be conservative with that estimate, and say 3 hours each. We still made $21/hour, which is better than minimum wage.

But this is still an incomplete picture (if you were to look at this as a business rather than 2 people selling their own clothes) because it doesn’t account for the original cost of the clothes themselves. Those add up to $372 (most of the items were thrifted). This would leave $363 in true profit, or $181.50 each, or $10.70/hour. Less than minimum wage.

The other thing to consider is that less than half of the items we brought with us actually sold. I mention this because, unless your track record is 100% (i.e. absolutely everything you source, sells), then there will definitely be unsold inventory for which to account as well. Some inventory takes longer to sell; some doesn’t sell, and you have to count it as a loss. This is a relevant consideration for anyone operating as a business, rather than a hobby reseller/garage seller. And there is another thing: the time professional resellers put into sourcing their inventory, which is separate and apart from the financial cost of the inventory. If I were to apply this kind of analysis to our numbers in this example … well, let’s just say, my friend and I would not look like a profitable business.

This was a good reality check for me and my pipe dreams. I think I’ll be sticking with my day job. And I don’t mean to discourage any aspiring resellers in the audience, but I think being forearmed with knowledge is key to pursuing any new venture. In fact, if I missed some things in my analysis, please add a comment below – I would love to hear your reselling insights.

Kimono, Take One

My bestie and I attended our first clothing resale market last week, organized by The Wardrobe Exchange. It was an interesting and fun experience (separate post to come), and choosing outfits to wear was a part of it. Since we were selling clothing from our own closets, our outfits represented an opportunity to visually brand our booth. I knew I wanted to wear black – it’s classic and easy to look polished with minimal effort – but use texture and accessories to make it interesting. Initially I had planned to pair my fringed Barbara Bui wool skirt with my new BlankNYC studded moto jacket, but this proved too warm a combination for the venue (together with a cashmere turtleneck). So, instead, I tried out this recently thrifted kimono-style topper … and I loved it. I also received a ton of compliments on it; I think kimonos might be having a moment again. Here’s the original outfit – also great. The jacket is a compliment-magnet as well.

Kimono, Take Two

On the first day of the market, we did a bit of pre-sale shopping before the doors opened to the public. The first piece I scooped up was this Floreat kimono-style topper. What can I say? I have a one-track mind. I immediately decided that it would be the perfect accessory for my second day outfit, another all black affair. And so it was. Once again, I was overwhelmed with questions and compliments about it, which make this a great score for $26. I can’t wait to style it for spring and summer.

The End of Florals

I mean, not literally, but this was my last work outfit for the month of March, the theme for which was florals. And I was kinda relieved, to be honest. I still love florals, but wearing them nearly every day is not my jam anymore. I was pretty sure of it before, and this experiment confirmed it. That being said, this was a good outfit – I like the volume contrasts and the proportions going on here – and it’s nice to be able to reinvent older pieces like this Deletta top I’ve had since 2013 or 2014.

A long time ago, my husband and I decided that our current house was going to be our “forever home” until such time as we were ready to give up ownership entirely – likely in our 70s or beyond. Obviously, things can happen that might change that plan, but having that idea in mind has shaped the way we’ve approached our living space. I’ve come to think of our house as our “snail shell” – it changes with us as we change as people, and as a family unit. One of the biggest challenges is making the most of the available space because, unlike a snail’s shell, our house doesn’t actually get larger every year. That being said, my husband and I both believe that what we have (1,700 square feet, not including the basement) is big enough for the 4 of us, and that the key is being creative about how we use it.

I’ve said this before, but there are things about the way our house is laid out, and how the space was designed to be used, that drive me nuts. Some of it has to do with my evolving preferences. Like most people in North America with access to HGTV, I was at one point brainwashed into the idea that “open concept” is the best; when we bought our house 9 years ago, I didn’t bat an eye at the fact that our front door opens right into the living room, standing in which anyone can see my (not Instagram worthy) stove and the dirty dishes in my sink. I probably didn’t even think about dishes at the time, because I was 29, had no kids, and didn’t really eat much at home. A few things have changed in the intervening decade, including the fact that I have now seen through the “open concept” lie and long for a return to well-defined spaces equipped with walls and  – be still, my heart – doors. Doors that close and conveniently contain the mess on the other side.

This is, by the way, just a long preamble to telling you about our latest home DIY project: our front hallway.

[In case you were wondering, our living room bookcase remains 95% complete. Yep, still no doors on the bottom cabinets. That may or may not change soon. One can only hope; such is the way of DIY projects at our house. They’re inexpensive and done well, but they take years to complete. Sometimes decades. And there are usually 2-3 uncompleted projects on the go at any time, because my husband always has more enthusiasm for starting new projects than for completing old ones.]

As I mentioned, the space I am calling our “front hallway” is not really delineated in any particular way; there is a clear and unobstructed path from the front door right into the living room. The good news is that there is a bit of physical separation – about 8-10 feet. Enough to make for an actual foyer of sorts – though not a “lawyer foyer” for you McMansion Hell fans out there. All that’s missing are some walls. Or in this case, because our main floor square footage is not that big, some glass French doors.

But that’s not today’s project. Sorry if I got your hopes up; you’ll have to wait until next year (fingers crossed) for that story.

In anticipation of the French doors we will be putting in at the “entrance” to the living room, we decided to re-jig the hallway space a bit. What we started with was a small, mostly useless built-in bench and a deep closet which I liked to call our “bottomless pit”. This is what it looked like on an average (winter) day:

Real talk, yeah? Here’s a look at the closet (mostly emptied out):

The closet was large but mostly useless. It was 10 feet tall (like the rest of the main floor) and 4 foot deep, but it had only one crappy metal shelf and a single rod for hangers. Typical builder basic stuff. We shoved some organizer boxes and shoe shelving in there, but it was still just … a dark, bottomless pit of random junk that we couldn’t be bothered to organize properly. It was always overflowing with things, which drove me nuts. So what to do?

Get rid of it, of course!

It probably sounds counter-intuitive, so here was my rationale. [This was my idea, and it took some convincing before my husband signed on.] On the other side of the main floor, by the door to the garage, we have 2 other closets. Both are smaller, but previously significantly under-used. We also have a large “bump-out” space for our washer and dryer, which was also under-utilized. One of the closets was mostly full of junk and some of my husband’s coats; the smaller one was filled with cleaning products and – I kid you not – a waist-deep layer of plastic bags (which we reuse). It was time to get organized.

My husband quickly put together an extra-large shelving unit (using IKEA pieces) above the washer and dryer. This now holds all of our household products, from paper towels to cleaning supplies of all descriptions. The closet where the plastic bags and cleaning supplies used to live was quickly remodeled into a tiny but functional closet for my coats and shoes. It’s just a little less than 2 feet wide and about as deep, but we’ve added two shelves, a rod, and a small shoe rack, and it’s sufficient for my seasonal outerwear and outdoor shoes. [I rotate my summer and winter outerwear.]

I went through our big closet and ruthlessly purged anything that was not actually usable or useful anymore. What was left, I organized into bins and/or hangers, and moved into the second (larger) closet by the garage door. That would be my husband and the kids’ coats and shoes, along with related miscellany such sports equipment (we don’t have a lot), travel stuff (weekender bags, etc.) and shoe care materials. It’s a tight fit, but it’s manageable.

Next, it was time to tackle the front entrance itself.

My husband hated the faux bench, which was basically used by the kids as a depository for random junk. He tore it out and installed a custom-built storage unit, along with a heavy-duty row of hooks above. He even added a marble countertop to the storage unit because he can’t help himself. We use the hooks to hold up the outerwear we use daily, including the kids’ snowsuits. It gets bulky, but at least it keeps stuff  off the floor and easily accessible. The storage unit currently holds baskets filled with the kids ephemera – gloves, hats, scarves, etc. Again, easily accessible but out of sight.

Lastly, we get to the closet. My plan was to turn it into a seating nook, with the idea that this would create a sense of a separate identity for the hallway; it would be its own space, rather than a part of the living room. Here are some of my inspo photos:

After a LOT of back-and-forth – as I mentioned, my husband was not immediately sold on this idea – we ended up deciding on a simple approach. To make it seem less like a closet conversion (which is what it is), my husband knocked back the wall a bit to add some height and architectural detail. Luckily, the hardwood flooring had been run by the builder all the way to the back wall, so we didn’t need to worry about any floor transitions; we just had to fill the small holes left by the door tracks. We took down the shelf, patched the walls and … that was pretty much it. This process took a long time for various reasons (the last 3 months have been a rollercoaster in our family) but the work itself was straight-forward when compared with some of our other projects. Or so I am told.

The best part, of course, was the styling. We ended up choosing a small loveseat from Structube which was on sale as it was a floor model, and the last piece of its kind in stock; it’s a nice, neutral seating option that fits in with the décor of our living room. We added a couple of inexpensive floating shelves (under $40), and I styled them using thrifted pieces I already had at home (plus 3 pictures I thrifted specifically for this space).

Here’s the end result:

I love this so, so much. I think it’s going to “make sense” even more once the French doors are put in, but I love how cozy it is. My only regret is that it couldn’t easily be wired for light; I would use it as a reading nook in a heartbeat. We may end up adding some LED lighting in the future, and we will be changing the hallway light fixture as well, which may also help improve the lighting.

One thing I have added was a storage box ($15 at IKEA) under the loveseat. It has handles on the front, so it can be pulled out, and there is a zipper on the top. I plan to use it for storing out of season coats, etc.

In the interests of full disclosure, here is a less staged photo of the new space:

It looks like this more often than I’d like, but “training” the kids to put their things away neatly is a work in progress. I still think it’s an improvement over what this used to look like, so I’m happy. Small steps.