WASHINGTON 鈥� If you鈥檙e looking for fashion bargains, look no further than the palm of your hand.
Consignment shopping has gone mobile.
鈥淧retty much at the disposal of my fingertips, I can literally upload a shirt I want to sell, give it a description, and a price. Within minutes it’s live for thousands of people to see,鈥� says Jennifer Jandris, a program assistant from Arlington, Virginia who sells clothes through聽, a mobile platform聽for buying and selling clothes.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 really different from going into a bricks-and-mortar store, 鈥滼andris says.
Typically, a person who wanted to sell items would have to make an appointment with a consignment shop, in which they would have to physically bring in clothes and accessories for appraisal.
If they wanted to sell them online, eBay and Amazon were the main options.
Now, startups聽are changing they way consumers buy and sell secondhand clothes.聽Tech聽companies are trying to streamline the process of buying and selling, offering cash and聽convenience in exchange.聽The move has been described as a shift from e-commerce, what鈥檚 being called 鈥渕-commerce.鈥�
鈥淸Mobile] works with people鈥檚 lives. It’s the most convenient way,鈥� said Ryan Russikoff, business development manager with .
Rebagg is a platform that specializes in reselling high-end, designer handbags聽鈥� think Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Herm猫s.聽The bags are vetted for authenticity before they are placed for sale on Rebagg’s sister site, . Russikoff said they’re offering a better alternative for the “thousands” of bags sitting in the back of women’s closets, collecting dust.
“The luxury resale industry, specifically online, is just starting. We’re going to get all these bags by making it simple and easy for clients,”聽Russikoff said.
Poshmark began as a mobile-based platform in 2011 with ease and simplicity in mind, as well.聽A company spokewsoman said聽there are聽now 1.5 million聽women who sell on Poshmark.
Co-founder Tracy Sun says the company sees itself as a tech firm that is聽leveraging consumers鈥� existing social networks to spread influence and brand awareness 鈥� and to sell clothes.
“These women already have influence with their peers,鈥� Sun said. 鈥淭hey don’t want to be advertised to. They want recommendations.”
Poshmark聽recently made a deal聽with more than 60 designers, who will offer goods at wholesale prices to聽the app’s top sellers.
Jandris says this has made selling on a consignment lucrative venture.
“I’ve actually turned this to an entire business,”聽Jandris said.
She聽has nearly 260,000 followers and has more than 1,630 items listed in her Poshmark 鈥渃loset,鈥� where people can like and share what they’re into.
The buying experience on these apps isn’t that different from purchasing from eBay or Amazon. But the array of services offered by these virtual consignment shops varies.
Some companies will ship the goods for you, while others will send over boxes and pre-addressed shipping labels and leave you to handle the mailings. Some services will photograph and post items online on a seller’s behalf, while others leave that to the person selling the goods.
Commissions on sold goods averaged聽between 20 percent to 25 percent, though not all services聽allow sellers you to set their own prices.
Most of the聽two dozen so physical, D.C.-area consignment shops surveyed for this story had some form of online shopping available to consumers. But the vast majority required in-store appointments for those seeking to sell clothes on consignment.
Some physical stores offered downloadable mail-in kits from their websites and offered to pay for shipping. Georgetown-based , for example, allows potential sellers聽to submit forms from its website, where the聽shop also hosts occasional virtual auctions.
That said, some of the web- and app-based businesses are making聽connections with bricks-and-mortar shops. , for example, is like a virtual a hub for consignment shops. Last year, online consignor partnered with Target, offering store credit to聽individual sellers聽who obtained “Clean Out Kits” for聽purging unwanted聽clothes.
customer engagement specialist Kelley Gerdis says the future of consignment shopping is definitely mobile. Swap is a subsidiary of the Finland-based Netcycler, an online service that facilitated trading and giving items away for free. The company is working on a mobile app that it hopes to roll out聽this year.
Swap, whose warehouses are based in suburban Chicago, began as a consignment shop for kids clothes, toys and games. It has since expanded to offer womenswear and plans to offer menswear soon.
Gerdis says demand for these web-based sopping and selling services聽are being driven by an increasingly more eco-friendly consumer base, folks who are trying to extend the life cycle of everything 鈥斅爀ven old聽clothes.
“Why do they have to go to a landfill when they can go to someone else’s house?鈥�
