Thrifting and finding bargains online – key tips

New sellers

All of the following tips are related to mistakes that sellers often make. Selling online is a learning process: while more seasoned vendors have learned to avoid these common errors, new sellers don’t necessarily know how to list their items so that they could maximize their visibility and thus profit. Or they simply don’t care. They just want to declutter and make a few bucks. Their listings often (but not always!) have bad pictures, short item descriptions, or a buy-it-now price that’s way below the general going price for the item. Thus, buyers don’t find them attractive, and your chances to score a bargain greatly increase. Indeed, some of my best finds have been from small-scale, new sellers.

Bad pictures

One of the most common errors that I see every day is bad pictures. These are pictures that are dark, don’t show the whole item, don’t portray the color correctly, are taken of a very wrinkled item, and so on. No matter how great the item is, if the pictures are bad, people are not as likely to click the listing. This is good news for you if you’re able to look beyond the lackluster photos. These items often go for a lot cheaper than similar items with great, bright pictures. This works, particularly, for auction-type listings. Bad pictures don’t attract as many bidders, and the price stays low.

Here’s an example of a pair of Vince boots that I scored for £16 back in October. As this is an old listing, I’m not able to show it to you in detail. Yet, as you can see, the first picture was very dark. The other pictures were similar and showed very little detail. This was an auction – not a buy-it-now listing. The bad pictures combined with a short description meant that people didn’t know what they were buying, and I was the only bidder. I decided to pull the trigger and take the risk because, well, Vince suede boots. And the price was great even if the boots had some flaws.

When I got them, I was very pleasantly surprised – they were brand new!  The coolest part was that they’re the Casper boots that are still being sold in stores. E.g., at Neiman Marcus they’re now on sale for $416, and they originally retailed for $595. Had the seller mentioned the style name and taken better photos, the boots would have sold for a lot more.

Incomplete titles

This leads me to talk about listing titles. Had I listed the Vince boots above, I would have most definitely included the style name in the title. But there are a lot of sellers who don’t do that. That’s why, even if I’m looking for a specific item, when I perform a search, I don’t write the style name in the search box. Say, had I been looking for Vince Casper boots specifically and typed that in the search box, I would have never found the boots I bought. This is key to finding bargains online.

This is why I tend to keep my search keywords short and sweet. While it takes longer to go through listings, as there are more of them, this helps me to find a larger variety of things.

Another example of this is this pair of new-with-tags Mother jeans that I got for £16. As you can see, the title does not contain the style name. Yet, if you’ve ever bought jeans, you know that the style matters greatly. Moreover, the title says “skinny jeans,” while these are in fact a straight cut. Combined with dark pictures (none of which shows the style name), these probably weren’t very attractive to many buyers. This is why I was able to get them for a great price.

When they arrived, I was very happy to notice that they were high-waisted. They ended up being the Swooner Rascal Ankle style and exactly what I had been looking for. A pretty good deal for a new-with-tags pair of Mother jeans that retailed for roughly £200.

Incomplete/inaccurate descriptions

Sometimes sellers don’t bother to describe their items. I’ve seen this a lot particularly on eBay in the UK. What you get is “used” or “new”, but no information beyond that. It can be difficult to know, e.g., if the item has flaws, how it fits, what the material is, etc. Thus, many buyers tend to steer away from listings like this. Again, if you know what you’re looking for and have enough detective skills to conclude the essential information e.g., from the pictures, this is your chance to find bargains. (And you can of course ask the seller for more information, too.)

As an example, this past fall I bought two Everlane cashmere dresses on eBay for £6.50 and £18. One of them had been described as a sweater, not a dress (hence, this also related to inaccurate titles and wrong listing categories).

The other one had pictures that showed the dress as purple, although it was grey. There was no description, except for “used”. The listing didn’t even state that the dress was cashmere. I had been drooling for the style on the Everlane website, however, so I knew what I was getting. Both ended up being in excellent condition. Here, having Everlane as a saved search was crucial, too: these were buy it now -listings and anything from this brand sells fast.

This is the dress I got:

Another example is this pair of brand new Joie booties that I got for next to nothing. The seller has described them as irregular, and the title also suggested that the booties were for teens. The size was off, too, as 39 corresponds to UK size 6, not 4.5. Joie is a relatively little-known brand in the UK, and this combined with an inaccurate description deterred bidders – this was an auction with a low starting price. The boots are perfect and the “flaws” are natural variations in the leather. These retailed for roughly £300. Not filtering for size here was key to finding a bargain.

Wrong categories

As I suggested above, sometimes sellers list their items in wrong categories. Thus, if you’re looking for a sweater and filter accordingly, you won’t be able to find a sweater that a seller accidentally listed as pants. This is one of the main reasons why I tend to use as few filters as possible. Similarly, not all sellers list e.g., the color or the material of their items. Thus, I rarely use those filters. Obviously, if you’re looking for, say, a yellow sweater and don’t care too much about the brand, filters make sense. But for my brand-based searches I don’t like them. This helps me find great deals that sellers have listed inaccurately, and thus other people don’t easily find them.

This applies particularly to auctions with a low starting price – it’s obviously an asset for you if other bidders don’t come across the item. I got this Sézane necklace for a very good price, because it was initially listed as a men’s item. Thus, it didn’t come up on the searches of those who use the “women’s clothing and accessories” filter.

Similarly, these new-with-tags Vince cashmere pants were listed as men’s, although they are women’s. The buy-it-now price was very low at £26. I’m sure that, had the seller listed them correctly, someone would have bought them before I had the chance to do so.

Here they are in a different color:

I must say, though, that the seller had probably the best item description I’ve ever seen. It totally cracked me up and made my day.

Odd auction end times

One tip related to auction-type listings, specifically, is to pay attention to the time when the bidding ends. Auctions that end when most people are awake and have time (generally in the evening) tend to go for considerably more than those that end at odd hours. That is, in the morning or at night.

Again, I’m using a Sézane item as an example. Please bear with me – it’s just that this is what I’ve been mostly buying lately. This auction for this Sézane sweater ended at 4:30 am, and I managed to snatch it for a price that’s quite a bit lower than the trending price for sweaters from this brand. (Also, very short description, as you can see.)

You don’t have to be awake at crazy hours, though. The whole morning is good, as people don’t shop as actively as in the evening. These pumps ended at 10 am.

Finding bargains from brands that are not as well-known

Finally, you can find bargains from brands that are not universally known. Unfortunately, no one will sell Chanel bag for a few bucks. But for brands that are a little more obscure, the demand isn’t as high.

There are also important regional differences. In the UK, I can find e.g., Vince or Tory Burch on eBay for a lot cheaper than in the US, as they’re not as popular here. This year, I think I’ve bought five Vince cashmere sweaters for less than £15 each. And have you ever seen Rothy’s for this cheap in the US (luckily, they’re not my size)?

While Madewell is not a very expensive brand to begin with, there’s no way I could find a pair of sandals for £6 in the US. That’s what I paid for these. And they’re new, too.

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I’ll write more about what brands to look for at thrift stores in my next post. Let me know what you’ve found online and share your tips on finding bargains!