Published on: May 5, 2020
As most secondhand stores are currently closed, I wanted to write about alternative ways to find bargains for your closet. To be honest, I mostly wear sweatpants these days – the only time I leave my house is to walk my dog. But I’m still doing online secondhand shopping. I like to imagine all the different cool outfits that I will wear when I eventually return to the office.
As you have probably heard, secondhand clothing business is booming, even as traditional clothing retailers are struggling. In addition to specialized secondhand sites, such as ThredUp and the RealReal in the US, independent sellers are increasingly listing their gently used clothes on different platforms. Especially now, many people are spending a lot of time at home. This means that they have time to go through their closets and get rid of the unwanted pieces that they no longer wear. Hence, there are great bargains to be found online, but you need to know where and how to look for them.
Online secondhand marketplaces
Obviously, to start your bargain hunt, you first need to know your online selling platforms. For used clothing, one of the biggest and best-known sites is eBay. What I like about eBay is the huge selection that it boasts. eBay is also global; it currently has 23 national websites. You can order stuff internationally, too, even to countries that don’t have their own eBay site, such as Finland.
When I lived in the US, my favorite marketplace was Poshmark, where I used to sell (and, let’s be honest, buy a lot). I really liked the social aspect of it, as you follow and share other peoples’ closets. Tradesy is pretty OK for higher-end goods. In Europe, my friends have told me that Vestiaire Collective is also great for designer clothing. I haven’t tried it, though, as the shipping costs are on the higher side.
I know that a lot of people shop on Etsy for vintage clothing, but I hate to admit that I’m not cool enough to really get the whole vintage hype. But if that’s your thing, definitely check Etsy out. They also have a wide selection of handmade items. In Nordic countries, there’s a platform similar to Poshmark called Tise that I recently learned about. And there’s the Finnish app Zadaa that’s available in Denmark and Germany, too. I’m eager to give both Tise and Zadaa a try when I go to Finland at some point. These are just a few examples; there are many other marketplaces out there, too.
In this post, I will focus on eBay, as it’s relevant for readers in several countries. More specifically, I want to share my experiences related to the usefulness of eBay’s saved searches list. In my next post, I’ll give more general tips that are applicable across different platforms.
eBay saved searches list
For a long time, I would use eBay to casually browse for things. While I found something worthwhile every now and then, I rarely came across great bargains. I had used the watch list feature to keep an eye on auctions and found it useful. However, it was the “saved searches” list that changed my eBay experience and success rate drastically. It helps me to quickly see all the newly listed items that match the keywords that I have specified, and thus makes it possible to snatch items before anyone else does. Here’s a quick overview of how this works.
Create eBay saved searches
To start with an eBay saved searches list, you’ll first have to do a normal eBay search. As an example of a simple search, let me look for Sézane items. Here, “Sézane” and “Sezane” are two different searches. I search for “Sezane”, as sellers tend to use it more commonly. (But as you’ll see, I have created eBay saved searches for both keywords.)
Note that when you do a search and don’t specify a category, eBay tends to automatically select a category for you. That is the category that has the most items matching your search. For instance, for Sézane, this would be women’s clothes.
Filters
If you want to see all items in all categories, I recommend you to clear the filters. (That said, for my other search “Vince”, I have specified the category as “women’s clothes, shoes, and accessories”, as I’m not interested in men’s clothing or baseball memorabilia. But for Sézane, it’s basically just clothes, shoes, and accessories, and I want to check them all out). In this picture, you can see that the number of Sézane items my search found rose from 178 to 281, when I cleared the filter.
Filters are handy, however, if you know that you’re in search of a specific item in a specific category and size, e.g., a Sézane sweater in size M. You can also limit your search in terms of price. E.g., you can decide to see only items that cost less than say £40. However, I want to see what’s out there and thus have no filters for this search. Sometimes sellers also miscategorize listings, which means that filtered searches can’t find them. This is good news for you if you don’t use filters, as the price tends to be lower on these items. More on this in my next post.
Keywords
When you perform a search, be specific. It can be frustrating to go through hundreds of listings that are not what you’re looking for. For instance, when I search for Vince items with the keyword “Vince”, I get a ton of Vince Camuto pieces that I have no interest in. Thus, my search command is Vince -Camuto, which means that eBay shows me items that contain the word “Vince” but not “Camuto.”
Save your search
Once you have performed your search, eBay gives you the option to save it by clicking the heart icon. Before saving a search, I tend to sort the items from newest to oldest, but this is totally up to you. You can e.g., sort from cheapest to most expensive, too, if you want.
Once you have saved the search, it appears on your eBay saved searches list, here:
Here’s an example of my saved searches. The list used to be a lot longer, but I ended up buying too much stuff that I didn’t need. Now, I keep the list short and focused.
How to use your eBay saved searches list
Once something new that matches your search is posted, there will be a blue dot after the search title. When you then click the search, you see the new items that have been listed since you last checked. For instance, here you can see the blue dot after my Vince search:
When I click the search, it shows me the newly listed items.
The eBay saved searches feature is very useful, particularly when people list items with a low buy-it-now price. These items go fast, and checking your saved searches gives you the chance to score them before other people do.
A few of my recent finds
I have found most of my recent purchases through the saved searches feature. For instance, this Sézane cashmere sweater was listed as buy-it-now for £35, which is way below the general asking price.
Similarly, I bought this Sezané cardigan for £33 minutes after the seller had listed it for sale:
And this Sezané shirt for £12:
And to show you that I buy items other than Sezané, too, I got this Vince wool/cashmere sweater for £10:
Notifications vs. checking the app regularly
You can choose to receive email notifications for the newly listed items, too. However, these come in the form of digests once a day. Once you get the email, most of the best stuff is already gone. That’s why the best way to take advantage of the eBay saved searches feature is to check the app or website regularly.
A word of warning, though: the eBay saved searches list is highly addictive! When I first discovered it, I would check it for new items every 15 minutes or so, and I had a major FOMO all the time. I also ended up buying way more than I actually needed (hence the curtailed search list!) That said, it has improved my eBay experience a ton. There’s no going back to my old ways of doing searches.