If you’re wanting to declutter your space but you’re struggling to find the motivation, it might help you to know that there’s money to be made. We’ve found 3 apps that will help turn that unwanted clutter into cash
For your old clothes: Vinted
Vinted is an application where you can sell second hand clothes, homewares, entertainment and even petcare. According to this YouGov survey, ‘younger people are far more likely to buy second-hand clothes or gifts for Christmas than the older generation, citing environmental reasons and sustainability as their main consideration.’ As such, apps like Vinted are extremely popular.
You can sign up to Vinted with Facebook, Google, Apple or just using your email address. From there you can list an item by taking some photos, adding a title and description, then choosing a Category, Brand and Condition. As this is an app which allows you to sell to private buyers, you can set the price that you’d like to list the item at. From there, it’s a waiting game.
It should be noted that even though you have to wait for a buyer, Vinted doesn’t charge you to list a product on the app, and it doesn’t charge you selling fees either. Vinted even allows you to print prepaid shipping labels. The buyer then pays a ‘Buyer Protection Fee’ and a percentage fee of between 3% and 8% of the cost of the item for each purchase, which is listed under each product. As such, you might earn a little more for your second hand stuff on Vinted.
For your old books: Ziffit
Ziffit is an app which allows you to sell unwanted books, games, CDs and DVDs in bulk. It’s not as well presented as the other two applications on this list, but what it lacks in looks it makes up for in useability. Get started with Ziffit by making an account, and from there start scanning barcodes of the books, games, CDs and DVDs you want to sell. One of the other great features of Ziffit is that you don’t need to separate these items out in any way. Simply scan each barcode, regardless of what it is, and the app will tell you what price Ziffit will purchase the item for.
The downside that we found with Ziffit is that the price that you get for each item isn’t very high; we scanned 31 old books, games and DVDs and received £21.95. There were a few items that Ziffit paid a higher price for (our Twilight Zone short story collection was purchased for £2.30), but the majority of our items went for 50p or less (The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire was our lowest priced purchase, selling for a measly 10p).
However, Ziffit redeems itself by taking all effort out of the selling process; we didn’t need to go anywhere to drop our books off, just booked a slot with one of their couriers and they came to collect the box. You can also use an InPost locker if you’re not available for a courier.
For everything but the kitchen sink: Twig
Twig’s tagline is ‘The Bank of Things’, because this app allows you to get an instant valuation for an item and get paid immediately to a Visa Debit card which you can use for online and in-store purchases.
The application itself is well presented and user-friendly; get started by opening an account and creating your username (or TwigTag). From there you can start selling items. At the moment, you can sell Fashion, Electronics, Books and Lego on Twig; however the app states that they are soon expanding so that users can sell Jewellery, Bikes, Watches and even Vehicles and Property.
We tried it out with an unwanted t-shirt from H&M, but unfortunately it didn’t accept the item for cash value (it did ask us if we wanted to donate it for a good cause and plant 10 trees instead). This seems to be a much better application for more expensive brands and items where there is a high demand for the product itself; entering the item as something from the designer brand Free People allowed us to upload photos of the item, the brand label and stated that we could receive up to £55.31 if the item was accepted.
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