Is there a market for second hand quality clothing?

[John_]

Hi all, new to this so might be a silly question?

Toying the idea of setting up a high quality second hand clothing shop, i.e. designer labels and vintage clothing. Customer type will be looking for people who want to buy something nice to wear for special occasions but don't want to spend extortion amount as they know that they will only wear it once, which most do, and then they have the option to bring it back to be sold again by us on their behalf if they want, with a split of course. Has anyone in similar line would like to share his/her experience, or anyone give me some guidance as to whether there is a market for such business.

Also does anyone know my best bet for sourcing such stock?

Any advice would very much appreciated.

Kind regards,

John

 

[Talay]

In my town there are a couple of such places where items can be purchased. I do not know if items can be sold also, as they are not charitable shops.

One it connected to a dry cleaner, which may act as a driver for the business somewhat.

 

I suspect charity shops have this sown up.

 

[Deleted member 138423]

I suspect charity shops have this sown up.

This...........

 

[John_]

Thx guys. I did think about charity shops being my main competitors but from what I can see is charity shops , in general, give the feel of being clothing shops but more of a bit of everything. However what I want to achieve is something more of an upmarket clothing second hand shop. Any thoughts will be very much appreciated.

 

[cheap]

Have you thought about getting stock the price you pay and the price you sell ?

 

[Talay]

Say you have a £250 dress. You don't want to give it to charity because they'll flog it for £10 and you'd like to get something back.

As a business, if you are buying stock, how much can you sell a £250 dress for ? My guess is around £35-50.

If £50 is the right figure, then just how much could you pay for it ? £10/20 perhaps.

So to the person getting rid of the dress, why on earth would I sell it to a private shop for £10 when I could give it to charity ? The lack of return would put me off.

However, if I could get £50 for it from the shop, how on earth can the shop pay me £50 because they would have to retail it at £100 at least and who in their right mind would pay nigh on 50% of RRP for second hand clothes ?

If you can work out this puzzle then perhaps there is a business but I am not sure where the economics work in this.

 

[Simon-M]

Have a look here. I have no idea if this works but why not call them and ask.

http://www.thegreenboutique.co.uk

 

[Alyson Dyer]

Say you have a £250 dress. You don't want to give it to charity because they'll flog it for £10 and you'd like to get something back.

As a business, if you are buying stock, how much can you sell a £250 dress for ? My guess is around £35-50.

If £50 is the right figure, then just how much could you pay for it ? £10/20 perhaps.

So to the person getting rid of the dress, why on earth would I sell it to a private shop for £10 when I could give it to charity ? The lack of return would put me off.

However, if I could get £50 for it from the shop, how on earth can the shop pay me £50 because they would have to retail it at £100 at least and who in their right mind would pay nigh on 50% of RRP for second hand clothes ?

If you can work out this puzzle then perhaps there is a business but I am not sure where the economics work in this.

These are often called Dress Agencies, the one near me is called "Twice as nice" they work by choosing what they will take from you, it needs to be top condition, still fashionable and suitable for their clientele. They then offer the item for sale in the shop and if it sells they take a percentage and you get the rest, if it doesn't sell they either reduce the price or return the item to you.
They do well with occasion wear, weddings, mother of the bride outfits including matching hat bag and shoes in some cases and evening wear both are occasions where things are worn only a few times so the clothes are in good condition. Very popular for those going to Ascot etc. the shops are often situated in the posher area of town where people want to keep up with the Jones' on a shoestring!

 

[PrestonLad]

These are often called Dress Agencies, the one near me is called "Twice as nice" they work by choosing what they will take from you, it needs to be top condition, still fashionable and suitable for their clientele. They then offer the item for sale in the shop and if it sells they take a percentage and you get the rest, if it doesn't sell they either reduce the price or return the item to you.
They do well with occasion wear, weddings, mother of the bride outfits including matching hat bag and shoes in some cases and evening wear both are occasions where things are worn only a few times so the clothes are in good condition. Very popular for those going to Ascot etc. the shops are often situated in the posher area of town where people want to keep up with the Jones' on a shoestring!

Yes... there's a seemingly successful dress agency in my town too. Operates pretty much the same as that.

Talay's scenario sounds compelling... except there's one other factor to be taken into account. Many people may prefer to give a dress away to charity rather than mess around trying to make 10-20 quid. But most people don't just have one dress to give away. They will be clearing out a wardrobe... or getting rid of a whole outfit, with dress, jacket, shoes... maybe hat and accessories... but whatever, more often than not, they'll have several quality items... and stand to make a hundred quid or more, which is worthwhile to just about everyone!

Of course you have most retail costs to worry about, but you have virtually no working capital for stock... because you don't buy the clothes... you just take commission after it's sold.... and you're never stuck with outdated stock to liquidate... because you just have a clause that you give it back if it doesn't sell within a month or so.

 

[Talay]

... Of course you have most retail costs to worry about, but you have virtually no working capital for stock... because you don't buy the clothes... you just take commission after it's sold.... and you're never stuck with outdated stock to liquidate... because you just have a clause that you give it back if it doesn't sell within a month or so.

I think that is why utilising space in an existing business, as per the earlier quote of a dry cleaner, would be an ideal way to move into this line of business. Adding a whole retail cost base for the fickle demand of 2nd hand clothes would seem rather a demanding proposition from under which to generate a profit.

 

[pa695525]

I hope so John as I am just starting out running a dress agency! I have put an offer in on a shop lease and hope to find out the outcome of that tomorrow or Wednesday. I've been thinking this through for quite a while now and have done lots of research; I've rung existing agencies that are nowhere near where I live and talked to them about their experiences and have gained lots of valuable knowledge. I have also talked to friends and parents at my daughters school and the consensus is that there really is a good market for this. As long as there isn't a similar competitor within a stones throw of where you want to be, charity shops are not really a threat.

I do hope you take the plunge, it would be good to keep in touch and we can share our own experiences.

 

[patientlady]

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=102185&highlight=hand+shop

Hi This thread may help you

This is not a new concept, but can work as long as your overhead is low. It is seasonal and you must work out your business plan with this in mind.

 

[John_]

Thank PA. like you I have been thinking this for a while but still couldn't decide best way forward. I current already got a beauty shop which I could potentially shut the hair section as it is not making any money and partition the shop and set up the dress agency there. In doing this I could test the water and fine tune my system before commit myself to a different location. My concern with this is I don't know what impact this would have on the shop as it is doing really well at the moment, apart from the hair side. My other option is to set up the dress agency on a green site, I've already got an area in mind and have seen shops in the market which are quite affordable to rent. But taking this route it would mean I am taking a bigger plunge and more costs/risks involved.

PA, please keep me posted as I am really interested in how you getting on. Thx, John

 

[John_]

Thank you for the link patientlady. It is very useful. I am so glad that I am not a lone. I know this concept is not new but it all started with a conversation with a friend of mine when we were chatting about clothing and dresses for party. She said most of the time she goes on huge expense, time and money, to find a perfect dress for a party or wedding and only wear it once or twice and never wear it again, the wedding ones in particular as she doesn't want to be seen wearing the same dress on photos. I asked a few more female friend and they all said the same. At that point the idea came to my head. Spoken the idea to friends and family, they all agreed a good idea, some even offer to invest into it but not a route I would take. However, there's is still one very important person I need to convince ... my wife as she's not so sure. I need her support the most. A few more boxes of chocolate I think.

 

[hind]

in frankfurt in germany there is a shop deals in second hand clothes designer and shoes and bags ... i saw many ppl buy from it ... and by the way its was not cheap at all ... may be after all is a good business

 

[patientlady]

John
I think I have said it on the other thread but the MOST important thing to do when taking in stock is to REFUSE the tatt. It can be hard, but it will be your business not there's! You will be inundated with stock, that is the problem.
We have had a shop in our town do exactly what you propose, close the non profit side and open with the nail bit and tan spray booth, but she has taken in rubbish and it looks more like a jumble sale, also there is no parking, which I would say is a mistake.
Be choosy, only take classic or designer labels and you won't go far wrong.

Everytime this subject appears I think I should start again

 

[hind]

I found one shop in frankfurt in germany salling a second hand designer clothes .. And it was not cheap at all .. So maybe its a good idea but u need a good good location

 

[Thinehost]

We used to have a "deja vu" shop next door to us; the lady only accepted the best stock, paid the owner when/if it sold, and she only kept the stock for (I think) a maximum of three months when the owner either had to pick it up or it was then donated to a charity shop. I believe she did very well.

Good luck with this
Margaret

 

[John_]

Thank all for the brilliant feedback and advice so far.

I am a firm believer in presentation and customer service are the utmost, hopefully this will distinguish me from other charity/second hand shops. I am toying the idea of keeping thing simple by putting stock in fixed price brackets, say £50, £40, £30 etc, so whenever I am stocktaking, selectively of course, and put them into these price brackets. Display them at their initial price for say a couple weeks, then move them down a bracket until say after 6 weeks the customers can either take them back or I dispose them myself say at £2 for further 1 week. This way my stock taking will be hugely simplified and it doesnt matter which bracket I put it in initially because if it doesn't sell it will move down another bracket in 1 or 2 weeks.

Am I being too naive? Any thoughts or advice will be very much appreciated.

Thx again, John

 

[Alyson Dyer]

The problem with your idea of dropping a price bracket after a certain length of time is that the canny shoppers (which by definition is the majority of your potential clientele as they are in the market for pre-loved items) unless they have a specific occasion, will keep an eye on an item until it reaches the lowest price and then buy thus lowering your profit.
I think you have to price items individually rather than use fixed price brackets as you want to be a dress agency not a jumble sale! You want to make the shopping experience a browse for "unique pieces" rather than a scrum for a cheap frock if you want to attract the shoppers with the most cash.
I realise this makes the paperwork a little more complicated but a simple spreadsheet should suffice to keep a track of items. Also these establishments usually have designated days for accepting items which means you can concentrate on one thing at a time, separate the buyers from the sellers and your regulars will then know when to come in to snap up the latest items.

 

[patientlady]

Thank all for the brilliant feedback and advice so far.

I am a firm believer in presentation and customer service are the utmost, hopefully this will distinguish me from other charity/second hand shops. I am toying the idea of keeping thing simple by putting stock in fixed price brackets, say £50, £40, £30 etc, so whenever I am stocktaking, selectively of course, and put them into these price brackets. Display them at their initial price for say a couple weeks, then move them down a bracket until say after 6 weeks the customers can either take them back or I dispose them myself say at £2 for further 1 week. This way my stock taking will be hugely simplified and it doesnt matter which bracket I put it in initially because if it doesn't sell it will move down another bracket in 1 or 2 weeks.

Am I being too naive? Any thoughts or advice will be very much appreciated.

Thx again, John

Hi John
Before the clothes go onto the rail you will need to have a signed contract agreement between your customer and you. On this agreement will be your terms and conditions, which you will need to cover, Selling price by agreement, insurance to cover damage and theft, and agreement if the goods do not sell.
When I had my shop I kept the goods for a max of three weeks, in the third week the goods were reduced by 25% (by agreement). If not sold and not collected in the fifth week I sent them to Charity. These days I understand there are co's that will buy these from you.
One point that I had forgotten was that I insisted that all clothes that needed dry cleaning had been, with proof, not sure now how that would affect anything due to dry cleaning costs!

 

[John_]

Thank you patientlady. I've already drafted a T&Cs, also a list of criteria for my stock. Not sure if I should buy some stock to start off with, if so be grateful with some suggestions, or just build it as I progress.

 

[John_]

Just found out there is a dress agency nearby today. Went to checked it out and it turned out to be a shed, no bigger than a typical garden shed, on the back street with access via a driveway. It has dress hanging outside (which is a bit dusty in my opinion). It looks like a typical 'second hand' shop from the outside as I didn't go in to check out but will do some stage. It's apparently been there for many years ..... so they must be doing something right. So, a promising start I think.

 

[John_]

Sometimes it makes me wonder, people operate like this and still survive for so many years!! Annoying, but quite often those are the people that do really well. I just don't understand.

 

[John_]

The problem with your idea of dropping a price bracket after a certain length of time is that the canny shoppers (which by definition is the majority of your potential clientele as they are in the market for pre-loved items) unless they have a specific occasion, will keep an eye on an item until it reaches the lowest price and then buy thus lowering your profit.
I think you have to price items individually rather than use fixed price brackets as you want to be a dress agency not a jumble sale! You want to make the shopping experience a browse for "unique pieces" rather than a scrum for a cheap frock if you want to attract the shoppers with the most cash.
I realise this makes the paperwork a little more complicated but a simple spreadsheet should suffice to keep a track of items. Also these establishments usually have designated days for accepting items which means you can concentrate on one thing at a time, separate the buyers from the sellers and your regulars will then know when to come in to snap up the latest items.

Thank you Alyson, may be I should still bracket the stock as a guideline to simplified the stock taking process, and then price them accordingly, within the brackets. Obviously this will be within the T&Cs, this way the customers dropping off their items will know roughly what to expect. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. The last thing I want is to turn it into a jumbo sale shop. With regards to the 'unique item' do you think if people really like an item, they would prepare to wait a week or two until it become a bargain, knowing for the fact that it is already a bargain, and that it is unique, and they really want it, and the party/wedding is on in next few weeks. I am sure some will wait but I would imagine some would worry that it might be snatched up. Beside, they have the option to bring it back to re-sell once they finished with it with a view that they maybe able to recoup some of the difference that they would gain had they wait. Just a thought.

 

[patientlady]

Thank you patientlady. I've already drafted a T&Cs, also a list of criteria for my stock. Not sure if I should buy some stock to start off with, if so be grateful with some suggestions, or just build it as I progress.

I opened with stock from my wardrobe and stuff I picked up from friends, family and bargains from charity shops!
If you put a notice on the window while you are painting the shop you will be inundated with stock! As said that will not be your problem, its turning the tatt away!

 

[John_]

Thank you for the tip patientlady. I will need more in the coming days. Right now, time to raid the missus wardrobe. I know she had quite a few items she never worn, shoes in particular

 

[Ding Dang Doo]

There is a dress agency close to us, and Mrs Doo regularly takes her old clothes to them to sell. They usually price the clothes up for my wife, and whatever the clothes sell for, the shop splits 50/50 with the seller. They have a 50% off sale at the end of every season. and my wife is given the choice of having her unsold items entered into this, or not. Anything unsold (which isn't much) can be collected, or given to charity.

The system seems to work well, and the shop is well established.

Best of luck!

Pete

 

[webstore]

Toying the idea of setting up a high quality second hand clothing shop ..... Also does anyone know my best bet for sourcing such stock?

You could try listing on my free oldstock.com website in the wanted section.

 

[pa695525]

Thank all for the brilliant feedback and advice so far.

I am a firm believer in presentation and customer service are the utmost, hopefully this will distinguish me from other charity/second hand shops. I am toying the idea of keeping thing simple by putting stock in fixed price brackets, say £50, £40, £30 etc, so whenever I am stocktaking, selectively of course, and put them into these price brackets. Display them at their initial price for say a couple weeks, then move them down a bracket until say after 6 weeks the customers can either take them back or I dispose them myself say at £2 for further 1 week. This way my stock taking will be hugely simplified and it doesnt matter which bracket I put it in initially because if it doesn't sell it will move down another bracket in 1 or 2 weeks.

Am I being too naive? Any thoughts or advice will be very much appreciated.

Thx again, John

Don't forget John, clothes have a weigh-in value so maybe (if your conscience allows?!), send some to charity and weigh the rest in for money. The T&C's should reflect this - goods not collected after the agreed sale period will be donated to charity or disposed of at our discretion" - you then get a little something back for having stocked the item for 6-8 weeks at no return

 

[romnickhudges]

Well, there might be some interested people with second hand quality clothing and there's nothing wrong in that. Personally, I think there is a market for it but I don't know exactly where to market it.

 

[profitmagnet]

Have your ever travelled to Eastern Europe (Non Eu countries)? The prices of clothes are expensive so people tend to buy second hand clothes which are bought from Asian countries/Russia. You should check out more on this online and find some leads. Hope this helps.

 

[pa695525]

I am looking for software that can cope easily with the sale of second hand clothes, shoes and accessories for a dress agency I am hoping to open very soon.

I need to create on it individual customer records so that each item a customer brings in for me to sell on their behalf can be given a unique barcode to attach to the item and that barcode linked to their record. Once an item sells, the barcode is scanned and marked as sold on the customer record, thus telling me I owe them money (it works on a 50:50 split so if an item sells for £10, the customer gets £5 and the shop retains £5). The customer is only paid their money 2 weeks after the item has been sold to allow for any returns. I don't want to pay a customer then the item is returned for whatever reason; I'd be out of pocket then as no way of claiming the money back! It's important the software copes with all this.

I'd also like an opening balance and closing balance feature that updates with retail sales and customer payouts so I can balance the till at the end of the day.

Items are only left with me for 8 weeks, with an option for me to reduce the price of them by 25%-50% after 4 weeks if unsold, so a price reduction option is important, along with the option to review on a daily basis which items are ready for reduction and which are ready to return to the customer as they have been in the shop 8 weeks.

I would therefore need hardware-wise:

touch screen display
cash drawer
barcode generator
barcode scanner
receipt/customer record printer

option of a built-in debit/credit card reader??

Am I making sense? Is this all possible?

 

[Jason Hart]

Hi
We sell boxes of clothing on our website at secondhandwholesale in the uk.
We put together boxes of gender branded used clothing bought in at our buying stores.
The second hand clothes we sell to traders online and stores. They seem to keep coming back for more so we must be doing something right huh.
All the items in the box have been checked for their saleablity.
Hope we can be of service
Jason