https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ-njlaJY3k

I love Thredup! It’s the biggest corporation I know of that receives my financial support of my own free will. It’s been a staple in my quest to have affordable clothes, buy second hand, and have a personal style that facilitates my self expression.

As the final cap on all our content around Beltane, Personal Style, and Zero Waste I thought I would walk all of us through the system I use to get the most out of Thredup.com. All of these tips can be loosely translated to all online second hand marketplaces and the skills built from using these tips can help you navigate in person thrift stores as well.

As with all things Sky Clad Coven, the ultimate goal is to craft function that creates space for joy, utilizing Zero Waste and Witchcraft where we can to do it. Addressing personal style, it’s important to do our due diligence to try to get what we need second hand or from ethical businesses, but we’ll never advocate you go without just because you can’t find what you want in one of these more eco-friendly places. We can only do the harder work if we prioritize filling our own cups first.

I’ve also heard plenty of valid criticism of businesses like thredup, size inclusivity and price gouging among the complaints. I also wish they offered men’s clothes or took a page out of witchbitchthrift.com where not only do they not separate men’s and women’s clothing, but they measure each piece and list it based on their universal size chart. This way, the clothing is sized based on the condition it’s in now, not the size on the tag. I have my own criticisms about their search capability and how the garments are tagged. I’m doing this tutorial because it can be difficult to search for exactly what you need. Their native subsection options you can use to refine your search are good, but not very good and are often inaccurate - the only reliable ones I’ve found are the colors. There are even differences between the mobile app and website - if you try to look at the “all shoes” category on the mobile app, there will also be random clothes but it doesn’t seem to do that on the desktop site. I also love velvet clothes but trying to search for velvet on thredup is impossible because there is also a brand called Velvet - even if you use their native “Accent” selector to choose velvet, the Velvet clothing brand comes up instead of clothes made of velvet.

My focus today is on Thredup for a few reasons:

Most items are returnable, which is unheard of when it comes to second hand clothing, especially online markets. I would only ever buy items from places like Poshmark or Depop if they were duplicates of items I already know and love, although I do love buying makeup from those places.

I love being able to get clothes from many different brands in the same shopping trip. I’ve been on a limited budget for a while now, so being able to order a few things from many different brands while only paying for shipping once is very appealing. In this same vein, I love the idea of buying multiples of the same item in varying styles or sizes or colors to find one that you love - like I want a denim jacket in the near future, so I’ll probably throw down like $300 on a BUNCH of different styles and fits and colors of denim jackets, then just keep the one or 2 that suit my style best. The same goes for other items like this; dress pants, jeans, basic tank tops, anything that you just want 1 or 2 of but aren’t sure what particulars you want yet.

I want this business to thrive and improve, because it could be the blueprint for delivering second hand clothes to the market in a way that is just as easy as shopping new.

The system I’ll lay out in the rest of this post are the framework that build a muscle, a skill that will make all your online shopping more successful. You’ll be able to look at the way a garment is hanging on a model or a mannequin and know how it will fit you. You’ll be able to better determine which colors are in your best color palette. You’ll be more resistant to trends and impulse buying clothes you don’t actually like because you’ll know how to assess how trends fit into your personal style.

Step 1: Create an account, set your sizes

Buying second hand in general requires us to be accurate about our current size. I would go as far as to keep accurate bust, waist, and hip measurements to better assess whether a garment will fit the way we want before purchasing. in Thredup, you’ll go to your account and set your sizes - I always select the size I am the most, and then one size above and below on the lettered sizes (if I’m usually a small, I would selext XS, S and M) because the cut of a garment makes a difference in which size I would prefer. For numbered sizes I choose a more conservative size and then one size up as well, for the same reason - to accommodate differences in garment construction and the general differences in women’s sizing among different brands. This will create a wide but still tailored to you first selection of garments to browse.

Step 2: Favorite with abandon, then prune ruthlessly.

This step and the next step are somewhat interchangable, depending on how defined your personal style is. When I started shopping on Thredup almost 7 years ago (I’ve used the same account the whole time, my first order was in 2016!) I would simply scroll the “all” category until I got bored, favoriting along the way. This can be incredibly overwhelming but, if you aren’t sure what you want, can be a really awesome way to learn. As the title of this step suggests, I want you to favorite with abandon and then prune ruthlessly. What that means is that you favorite clothes that have even one thing you like about them - color, cut, detail, length, pattern, fabric, anything that you like about a garment earns it a favorite. When you can’t scroll anymore, go to your favorites and put on a much more critical eye - unfavorite anything that you think would sit in your closet unworn. Rise and repeat until patterns start to emerge - do you gravitate toward certain colors, cuts, garment types, brands even? These are all important pieces of information we can use to tighten up your saved searches in the future.

The second part of this step is that you have to scroll often. Treat your Thredup app like a social media app you scroll when you have downtime or need a break from work. Waiting in the school pick up line? Scroll. Air drying in a towel on your bed? Scroll. Scroll until you see something you favorited before.

Step 3: Create or Refine Saved Searches

As I said in the previous step, it’s perfectly acceptable to start here if you already have some ideas about what you want to be looking for. I create basic saved searches around the garment types laid out by Thredup. I have one for Shoes, Dresses, Tops, Jackets, Jeans, Pants, Skirts, Shorts and Swimwear. Each of these saved searches are also refined by color (gray, purple, blue, teal, green, because that is where I will find my Summer Color Season colors) and I set the “Pattern” choice to only Solid because I almost never favorite pieces with printed fabric. I’ll lay out my exact saved searches with explanations at the end of this step.

For you, these choices should come from either information you learned through favoriting items or some other aspect of your personal style. Some choices are specific to each garment type, like sleeve length. Anything you can do to ensure you’re seeing more of the types of garments you want in your wardrobe, and filtering out the ones you would never buy in a million years.

I always have a handful of saved searches that are based on keywords. These keywords also come from the experience of scrolling. I have one for “Wrap” which brings me tops, dresses, and skirts described as wrap but also many kimono/scarf/poncho type garments that I also love. Others include “flare” “thermal” and “zip up”. You can create these by typing your keyword into the search bar, refining the search by color and pattern, then hitting that Saved Search button.

LASTLY as far as saved searches go, I love to keep temporary saved searches of specific brands. I do this occasionally for brands I know I love like Free People, but also if I come a cross a piece or several from a new brand I’ve never heard of so I can see everything available from them. One of the quirks about the Thredup app is that if you start scrolling on a particular saved search or even a subsection of theirs like “dresses”, if you scroll for a while, go to a different app, and come back, the app will slingshot you back to the top of that subsection which is why I suggest manageable and ultra refined saved searches that are easy to keep up with. This doesn’t happen if you click on a particular clothing item or even the brand name if you fingers are nimble enough, which will bring you to another subset defined by the brand of the garment who’s page you passed through. What you can do is simply hit that saved search button and go back to your current spot on the original subsection. When you eventually go back to scroll these lists, remember to filter for color and pattern to save time.

At the end of this process, if you choose to embark on this journey, you will have a curated list of available second hand clothes that you can then shop from when you need to replace items in your wardrobe. Just like how the Style Guide Notion template sets you up for reduced overwhelm at the actual purchase time, managing and nurturing your Thredup account will offer the same level of preparedness and reduce impulse spending. Especially when trying to take advantage of the Thredup sales - how amazing to be able to look back through items you’ve already vetted and be able to order a few pieces that are eligible for a sale, knowing you aren’t just falling victim to the marketing of the sale. If I need an outfit or a dress or some shoes for a particular event like the wedding I just attended, it’s amazing to be able to go shopping in my favorites for pieces I’ll love and feel good about knowing they’re second hand.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions or have thing you’d like me to address, I can always add on!