I heard about the website ThredUp through a friend and immediately wanted to give it a try. ThredUp is a website that allows you to buy used, like-new clothes from popular brands. This concept actually reminds me of the physical store Plato's Closet that I used to frequent as a teenager! I've always been a fan of donating, re-using, and recycling clothes so I thought I'd give it a whirl and let you know what I thought!
I decided on a gray sweater originally from H&M and a red sweater originally from Ann Taylor (Similar). I was hesitant to buy anything that might not fit properly so I opted for larger sweaters that are easier to eyeball online. If you're interested in trying out ThredUp yourself, you can use my referral code to get $10 to spend on their website. It kicks back a reward to me as well.
Pricing:
Since I used the referral code of another blogger, I got $10 off my first purchase - which was definitely a huge plus! I ended up getting two items that added up to about $18 as a result of taxes and shipping, but with the $10 off, I ended up paying only about $8 for the whole lot.
$8 for two sweaters was definitely a bargain, but given that this was only with the $10 off, I actually didn't think that the original prices of the items on ThredUp were much of a bargain. While I understand that some of their items are from very high quality brands and hardly used, these items are still second hand. With second hand things, I always expect a pretty good discount, but as I was browsing the items on ThredUp, it looked like I could've been on any full-price retailer's website.
Selection:
ThredUp gets a huge thumbs up for selection - there were tons of items from all kinds of brands imaginable. As with any second hand store, it can be hard to sort through the items since there's really no pattern to what products are available, but ThredUp does a good job of categorizing all of their available items and having both a front and back picture of the product so that buyers can get a good feel for how an item might fit.
Quality:
Since ThredUp's products are advertised as "like new", I had pretty high expectations for the quality of the sweaters I received. Neither of the sweaters has any holes, stains, or other obvious "old" looking indicators but at the same time, I also could tell that they were not new. The H&M sweater had sleeves that were a little bit rolled on the edges and both sweaters had the distinctive smell that most second hand items do.
Overall Verdict:
I was pretty happy with my total ThredUp purchase, however, if I'd had to pay full price for the two sweaters, I'm not sure that I would've been as happy. It's difficult to gauge size online already and with second hand items that may have been worn and washed before, buying the correct size becomes even more difficult. On top of that, if you are paying a price that might as well be the same as a fully-priced item, it might not be worth it to even take a chance on a second hand item.
In the end, both sweaters fit me nicely and I only paid about $8 for both of them but had I paid the full $18 price tag, I think I would've expected newer-feeling clothes!
Have you tried out ThredUp? How was your experience? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
