I have heard several of you complain about the cost of children’s clothing and toys! You buy your child new clothing just to have them outgrow it two months later. That expense adds up!
ThredUP is a great community I recently discovered and am stoked to be able to participate in very soon! When you sign up, ThredUP will send you ten flat rate Priority Mail shipping boxes. Then, as a member you are able to fill these boxes full with boy or girl clothing, labeling the size, and then post the available box and contents online for other members to review. Members are able to pick out boxes that they would like. All you pay to pick a box is $5, plus the cost of shipping – the flat rate Priority Mail price. Because the buyer pays shipping, it is free for you to ship the item.
And recently thredUP added toys to the list of items available for trade! I recently read an article about a Houston woman who bought her two children a Play Station 2, clothing, and Star Wars gear for Christmas – all for $45, thanks to thredUP!
Interested? Sign up here.
Check out Zearly! They have a similar concept to ThredUp. So many parents have tons of clothes that are new or hardly worn that their kids don’t wear anymore! Zearly is a site where parents get points in exchange for their child’s gently used clothing. The points can be used to get more clothing on their site or gift cards to major retailers such as Target, Walmart, Amazon & several other retailers. They even provide a postage paid bag to send the clothes back in! All you have to do is get your postage paid bag, fill it w/ gently used baby & toddler clothes & send it to Zearly. If you live locally (Burbank, CA) you can also drop off clothing by contacting Zearly in advance. Once Zearly receives the items, you get points for qualifying items (items without stains, tears, broken zippers, etc). Items that do not qualify for resale are donated to various children’s charities. In the future, Zearly plans on shredding clothes that cannot be donated or reused and stuffing Zearly monkeys with it to donate to charity. Once Zearly gives you the points, you can either shop for clothes on their site or request your gift certificates. It’s that easy. For a limited time, you can use promo code EP20PO to get 20% off any points purchases & clothing purchases through 6/1/11.
Hopefully you and other parents will find this site useful. I know I did and I recently spent my gift card on some summer swimwear for my little one. Enjoy and thanks for reading my response!