Second hand baby clothing business

[Saffron94]

Hi
I am a young mother and looking to start a second hand baby clothing business using a website and other platforms like ebay.

I plan to only sell high quality second hand baby items. Items from well known shops such as next, mothercare, monsoon, h&m etc. I intended to get stock from buying bundles from gumtree and visiting car boot sales.

I will price items per items and plan to sell each item for under £5. Doing multiby deals on essential items such as vest suits and sleep suits. I plan to have the same price for delivery (no matter how many items) to encourage people to buy more.

My first question is do you think this is a good idea? Do you have any tips or advise? I was also wondering if there are any applications or programmes I can use to keep track of stock and use for eBay/website purposes to save time as there will only be one of each item.

 

[PipeTen-Carl]

I think the important thing will be ensuring (and affirming to customers) the quality and more importantly cleanliness of what you provide, for babies, being second hand. I imagine you'll also to ensure what you're buying and then reselling complies to the regulations for selling that sort of things (fire labels, small parts and jazz), as you'll be accepting some liability.

I don't have kids, so I can't say how well it would work, those were just my first thoughts /2p

 

[Bradley Holmes]

I think you would have to measure how much time it would take to find and get ready for example, 10 items.
Take everything into account, your time on the website, driving to the boot sale, bringing the products home, washing them. and packing them for sale.

Then once you know it takes x amount of hours to get a product ready. Then think about the £5 you want to sell it for.
I think you would end up doing a lot of hours for a small profit.

 

[epat]

dont forget if you sell on ebay, both ebay and paypal will seriously eat away your profit margins with their fee's.
Not to mention the annoying buyers who do not read auctions, then complain about nothing, and paypal take their side, as they also do not tend to read complaint forms properly.

 

[Jon Neale]

This is something I once considered. However, I now have 10 week old twins and the reality is that baby clothes are very cheap from outlets such as Asda, Tesco etc. As a parent you have the choice of paying £8 for 3 brand new baby grows from a high street shop or maybe £3 for used individual items then you will always go with the new. Also, most baby clothes are well used, washed (and very often tumbled dried) which means they shrink a bit and wear quickly.

I may be different to may but ours have grown so quickly the idea of spending more than a few quid on clothes is nonsensical. Mine are wearing items for no more than 3/4 weeks.

I wouldn't want to put you off as I too once thought this was probably a good idea with the ability to collect second hand clothes pretty cheaply but the reality, for me at least, is very different.

Now if you could sell sleep.................

 

[Saffron94]

I got the idea because I was buying my sons clothes from monsoon and next and paid £23 for a jumper from monsoon and £18 for 3 sleep suits from next! Although more expensive than asda primark etc quality and design seems to be better and parents seem to favour these brands. When I sold them on ebay (after he outgrew them) the sleepsuits went for £10.00 which was over half of what I paid and the jumper went for about the same so I know these items from specific stores sell well.

I went to a carboot a few weeks later and there was a lady selling baby clothes for 20p each. I picked up lots of next stuff costing me around £3 and sold as 2 bundles and made around £25.

Thanks for all your comments and advise. I may still go ahead but start of with a smaller amount to test the market initially.

 

[Jon Neale]

Good luck to you.

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

My wife sells our kids clothes on eBay whenever they outgrow them and they almost always sell (especially Monsoon, Next, M&S etc). She seems to fair better when doing 'bulk' items sales as apposed to individual, presumably it is the convenience of buying branded in bulk for a particular size that attracts the buyer. Best of luck with turning this into a business.

 

[epat]

Tip, dont rely on WTC, the government is cracking down and HMRC are hounding people to starvation before paying a penny, even businesses that are a lot more than just selling on ebay.

If your relying on WTC which most people are in the early stages, do not just follow the rules, send in FULL proof the business is viable and being run in expectation of a profit and that is regular and organised at the start of the claim.