May 8th, 2025
Hey team, and welcome back to one5c! When we first started rolling out our guide to making our wardrobes more sustainable earlier this year, a lot of you were curious about what to do with your duds once you’re through with them. I’d be doing y’all a disservice if I didn’t first say “you should really try to keep things going as long as you can.”
But one5c exists in the real world, and in the real world at least some stuff is gonna cycle out. So today we’re serving up some tricks from our guide for responsibly getting rid of your old clothes that I hope satisfies whatever spring cleaning itch you’ve gotta scratch—and could even make a little cash in the process. —Corinne
THE BEST PLACES TO SELL SECONDHAND CLOTHING
By Angely Mercado
We’ve been conditioned to crave new clothes for every season, a fresh fit for each formal event, and a shiny pair of sandals for every summer getaway. But this cycle of fast fashion is one of the most potent examples of climate-harming consumerism. The fashion industry produces around 3.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year—equal to that of the entire European Union. And that footprint is only going up.
The merry-go-round of disposable duds leads to literal mountains of trash, including one so massive in Chile’s Atacama desert that it’s visible from space. In 2018, textiles accounted for 5.8% of the 292.4 million tons of solid waste in America. Our castoffs also get routinely shipped to countries like Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya under the guise of charity, even though their quality is usually too poor to be useful.
The best thing most of us can do to fix this is to shop in our own closets instead of rushing to the store, but the reality is our wardrobes often include items that we’re just never going to wear again. That’s when it’s time to let someone else shop your closet—literally. Extending the lifespan of an outfit by just nine months can shrink its carbon, waste, and water footprints by as much as 30%.
If you’re new to turning old duds into fresh cash, though, the options for selling can be overwhelming. Not every platform is right for every shoe, shirt, and top. In some instances, “you have to decide for yourself if it’s worth the effort to photograph and list those items,” says Becky Park, a content creator focused on fashion and reselling. We’ve narrowed down the best ways to rehome your forgotten goodies—and ranked them by ease of use and their ability to make a buck.
Low effort, low reward: ThredUp
Great for: Bags of bygone basics
How it works: ThredUp is the easiest of all the options. The site works like a consignment shop: Sellers order a bag from the site ($14.99 for a sack that holds up to 30 pounds) and fill it with gently worn wares. The ThredUp team authenticates, photographs, prices, and lists the items. They’ll donate or recycle anything they don’t take.
How much you make: ThredUp sets its prices dynamically based on the brand, sales history, and an item’s quality. When something sells, you get a percentage of the sale as cash or credit for new purchases. The higher the price or more elite the brand, the bigger the return: A $20 sweater might get a 15% return, but a $200 pair of boots might net 80% or more.
Special considerations: This option is great for wiping out a huge chunk of your closet if you’ve changed sizes or styles, but it’s not a catchall. ThredUp doesn’t take men’s clothing, intimates, PJs, jewelry, or formal gowns. Plus, clothes have to sell within 30 to 90 days, depending on the brand; once that’s over, ThredUp will send ’em back.
Low effort, low-to-medium reward: The RealReal
Great for: Big brand-name items
How it works: The RealReal is ThredUp’s rich cousin: online consignment for luxury, brand-name, or rare items. You send the company your goods (or drop them off at one of its 19 brick-and-mortar shops), and they authenticate, photograph, price, and list. However, they might also reject your items and ship ’em back to you if they’re not up to snuff.
How much you make: The seller gets a cut of the sale, starting at 20% and going up to 85% for the biggest-ticket items. The RealReal will also sometimes cough up extra for trending goods: One recent promo added a $150 bonus for Chanel, Gucci, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, Fendi, and Prada bags that get listed for $1,500 or more.
Special considerations: The RealReal leans on luxury, which means it is selective and its pricing is reliant on demand and market value, so outcomes may fluctuate. If something doesn’t sell by the end of the consignment period (365 days) you can opt to have it returned to you or donated to charity.
Low effort, medium reward: In-person thrift, vintage, and consignment stores
Great for: A big closet cleanout
How it works: There’s nothing super complicated about this exchange: You take a load of duds to a local shop; they weed through it, decide what to take, and make you an offer. Some chains—like Buffalo Exchange and Plato’s Closet—have national footprints, but you can also find smaller shops by plunking “consignment store near me” into Google.
How much you make: Many shops offer you a percentage of what they will sell the clothing for, so unless you’re selling a stack of vintage furs and Polène bags, the payout might be lower. Professional thrifter Dina Younis estimates that non-luxury items get an average payout of around $7 per piece. But the easiest way to get a read on the price is to take a wander in the store, look at some tags, and assume you’ll get around half that.
Special considerations: We’ll be blunt: You’re a little at the mercy of the taste of the individual shop, which means it will not be easy to sell everything in one shot. Expect to return home with a few pieces, or maybe even plan to hit up a few shops if everything doesn’t get gobbled up at your first attempt.
Medium effort, medium reward: Vestiaire Collective
Great for: Clearing out brand-name wares
How it works: Think of Vestiaire Collective as a peer-to-peer edition of The RealReal. You are in charge of photographing and listing your items, but they’ll help out with pricing suggestions and send you a shipping label. Vestiaire also vets the items for authenticity using a combo of technical skill and artificially intelligent photo scanning so buyers shouldn’t end up with a counterfeit.
How much you make: Listing is free, but Vestiaire takes a 15% selling fee and another 3% fee for payment processing. If you opt in to Smart Pricing, which dynamically updates based on demand, items may sell faster but for less.
Special considerations: Unlike more mass marketplaces (we’ll get to these in a second!), Vestiaire is selective. You can’t list items priced below $18, so it’s best reserved for higher-end goods (anything from quality Levi’s to Cartier necklaces) to make this site worth your effort.
Medium effort, medium-to-high reward: Facebook Marketplace
Great for: Unloading locally
How it works: Facebook Marketplace is the 2020s version of Craigslist or a classified ad in the newspaper (remember those?). You write a listing, upload some photos, and set an asking price. Then it’s one-on-one negotiating with potential buyers until you come to a deal.
How much you make: You can set your own prices here, and you get to keep every cent of the sale. But be fair. Search around for the average price for a similar item (basically, plug those key terms into Google as if you were looking to buy the thing you’re selling) and keep your price or lower it based on how worn an item is. Buyers may want to barter, so be prepared to negotiate.
Special considerations: You have to be patient to master Facebook Marketplace. Stories abound with oddballs ending up in someone’s DMs or interested parties ghosting potential sales. The process is also pretty manual: You and the buyer have to get to a happy place together on pricing and pickup. The upside is that you’re helping out your own community instead of shipping duds miles away.
High effort, medium-to-high reward: Online marketplaces
Great for: In-demand one-offs
How it works: Poshmark, Depop, and even Etsy are reselling hotspots. Marketing and pricing items on these sites is on the seller, which means you’re the one researching prices, taking photos, adding descriptions, monitoring inventory, and shipping the product. A nice touch: You can see when shoppers favorite your wares and offer them deals.
How much you make: While you can set your price on all three platforms, all of them will take a cut. Poshmark takes a flat commission of $2.95 on anything under $15, and 20% of anything above that threshold. Depop charges a fee for buyers of up to 5% of an item’s purchase price, plus a fixed amount of up to $1, excluding taxes and postage. Etsy takes a transaction fee of 6.5% of the item price plus shipping.
Special considerations: While these platforms have all the benefits of ecommerce—like finding customers all over the map—they put much more onus on the seller. Buyers on these sites also like to haggle, says Park, the reselling expert, so she recommends setting prices 10% to 20% higher to leave room for negotiation.
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THE ROUNDUP
IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK
Good news! Fossil fuels provided less than 50% of the electricity in the U.S. for the entire month of March, a first in the nation’s history, according to a new report from energy think tank Ember. This is largely due to big year-over-year upticks in solar and wind power: Wind grew 12% and solar jumped a massive 37%.
Food startup Savor has launched a nondairy butter made from captured greenhouse gases. The Bill Gates–backed company puts gases like methane and CO2 under heat and pressure to turn them into carbon chains that can then become fatty acids and then the fats that make butter so fantastic. The process has its skeptics, but Mr. Gates says you can hardly tell the difference from the real deal.
The American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Societyare collecting and cataloging research to fill gaps left by the dismissal of the scientists working on the U.S.’s sixth National Climate Assessment. This report—which comes out every four years and is mandated by Congress—lays out the current impacts of a changing climate and serves as the groundwork for policies that focus on adaptation and lowering emissions.
Hawaii just passed a first-of-its-kind lodging tax to help fund environmental protections and defend against climate-related disasters. The law adds a 0.75% increase on already-existing taxes on short-term rentals and hotels, as well as a new 11% charge on cruise ship bills. Islands like Hawaii are especially at risk of climate change impacts, and high levels of tourism have exacerbated these problems.
You might have suspected this but: Electric vehicles break down considerably less than their gas-powered counterparts, according to a new analysis from Germany’s Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club (their equivalent of AAA). The org found a rate of 4.2 breakdowns per 1,000 EVs built between 2020 and 2022, compared to 10.4 breakdowns per 1,000 combustion cars built in the same time frame. Ready to get on the EV bandwagon? Download your quick-glance guide for getting into a planet-friendlier ride.
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