WSJ Your Money Briefing - How Young Entrepreneurs Earn Thousands Selling Clothes Online

Episode Date: June 1, 2025

This is a special bonus episode of Your Money Briefing. We’re calling it Keeping it Money, where we'll share personal stories that offer even more insight on your money habits and goals. We’ll take a deep dive into ways that you can make some extra cash.  In this episode, host Ariana Aspuru speaks with online resellers who use platforms like Depop, Poshmark and WhatNot to turn items like old clothes into additional income that helps support their lifestyles and even pay down student loans.  Tell us what you think of this episode! Send us an email to [e-mail].  Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind

you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Some of this is new inventory that I've sourced, but haven't gotten around yet to listing, taking photos, and really going through the process of how I'm going to price these items and what prices I think they should sell for. That's Angelina LaCari. This is what it sounds like when she's sorting through racks of clothes to sell online. My eyes are going to that like

bright pink number. What is that? This one is going to be a kind of high-low maxi dress that is a wrap be a kind of high-low maxi dress that is a wrap style with the ruffles in the front, kind of a tulip hemline is what we call them. And the brand on this one is actually Young Fabulous and Broke, which is sold on Revolve and also I feel like describes my life very well. And despite that little joke, this is actually how Angelina finances her life. Selling clothes used to be a part-time side hustle to help pay for college. But now it's her full-time gig. At this point, she's not just selling her clothes. She's sourcing her own inventory. Most recently, I had this beautiful maxi dress and it was an off-shoulder maxi, very flowy.

And when I looked it up and did my research on how to price it, I realized that it's sold out everywhere because it was really popular this year for maternity photo shoots. And so the dress that originally retailed for $600 something, I sold for $600. And that's just not very common. and definitely was my highest price sale in a long time or maybe ever. How much did you pay for that dress originally? Less than a dollar. Welcome to a special episode of Your Money Briefing. It's Sunday, June 1st. Here at YMB, we're all about covering the latest trends in personal finance that shape how you spend,

save, and talk about money. And today, we're trying something new. We're calling it Keeping It Money, where we'll share personal stories that offer even more insight on your money habits and goals. For this episode, we'll take a deep dive on the ways that you can make some extra cash. Think of those side gigs, supplemental income, tips and tricks you hear about and you're

like, wait a minute, I should get in on that. Today we're talking about selling all those unwanted items piling up in your closet. Angelina, who you heard from at the top, goes out to find what she sells. But if you've already got clothes that you haven't reached for or you just don't want anymore, there's your inventory. And there's no need to stop at clothes. You can put shoes, jewelry, and other accessories up for sale too. In 2023, the U.S. secondhand apparel market was worth about $43 billion, according to

the online reseller Thread Up. The company also estimates that the market could grow about 11% per year on average through 2028. So there's a lot of potential here. But what do you need to know before selling clothes online? And how do you maximize your chances of making a profit? I learned essential tips from sellers to help turn that turtleneck, which, be honest, you're never gonna wear, into a moneymaker. That and more after the break. So you've always been picky about your produce,

but now you find yourself checking every label to make sure it's Canadian. So be it. At Sobe's, we always pick guaranteed fresh Canadian produce first. Restrictions apply. See in store or online for details. Okay, it's time to make some money off of that

stack of clothes in the back of your closet. Grab some coffee, a drink of water, and settle in for your closet clean out. Which might be familiar to you if you've spent some time on TikTok. I just graduated college so it's time for a closet clean out. Okay guys, excuse how I look. I am doing a huge closet clean out right now. It's time for another closet clean out and today we're focusing on dresses. Let's get into it. First you have to choose how you want to sell your clothes. You can box your stuff up and send it off to a company where they list and sell it or you can sell the items yourself. Each platform is different in style, in what kinds of customers they attract. But a big difference is in how much of a cut they take.

Here's my colleague, Jinju Lee. She covers the retail and energy market, but she's written about the business of reselling clothes. The maximum revenue you can get is through a platform where you're doing most of the work, like eBay and Poshmark, but it's gonna be more work. But then the perk of listing on somewhere like ThreadUp and the RealReal is that they do all the work for you.

All you have to do is send them the items. Angelina Licari, who you heard from earlier, sells clothes as her full-time job. She splits her time between two platforms. One is Poshmark, which charges sellers a flat fee of 20% for sales $15 and above and $2.95 for sales less than $15. The other is Whatnot, which charges sellers a standard 8% commission on the final sale price and a payment processing fee. Another option you might have heard about is Depop. There's no fee for selling

on Depop for US users, but there is a payment processing fee, which is 3.3% of the price plus 45 cents. That's where Jade and Torres has sold about a thousand items over the past few years. My username on Depop, it is JT Vintage with three Es at the end. You'll first see just every type of vintage clothing pretty much from T-shirts to sweatshirts, pants, there's hats, there's everything on there. Jaden's taking a gap year from Penn State to focus on his clothing resale business.

At first, his freshman year roommate showed him the site and helped him get started. Now, the 21-year-old spends his time driving almost two hours away sometimes to Goodwills or local thrift stores to source clothes for his online business. I love wearing clothes that you go out, no one else was wearing that. And that's really what got me into it. Jaden says time and patience are a big part of the game. When he first started out, each thrift store trip was a challenge.

Over an hour, I was looking at every little thing, thinking I missed this, missed that. But now I'm really like set in stone with what I'm getting and what I know I can sell pretty fast. He told me he can tell what's staying in the store or leaving in his cart just by feeling it. Sometimes, even when I'm swiping through, you can feel like the vintage tees are a little more thicker and better quality than what's made now. So I can feel pretty quickly if I want to look at this shirt

because it's not all polyester. It's good material. Once you've decided what you want to sell or you shirt because it's not all polyester. It's good material. Once you've decided what you want to sell, or you've spent enough time in Goodwill to find that perfect vintage tee, it's time for you to make a game plan, which leads us to step two, organizing, sorting, and prepping your clothes.

This is the step that can eat up hours of your time. Jaden likes his Depop page to look as professional and clean as possible. So this is a big part of his process. I would say the most time consuming part is maybe taking the pictures or listing them. I'm like really specific and I need my like pictures to be perfect. I take a good bit of pictures. I'm like after I'm scrolling. I'm like, after I'm scrolling through, I'm like, this one, I need this one looks better than this one.

I'll delete this one. The same goes for Angelina LaCarrie. She and I talked about how she manages her Poshmark business. But even before selling clothes became her full-time gig, Angelina still had to set aside big blocks of time to post her items. I actually found myself really doing things in batches. I would spend a whole Saturday or Sunday bulk taking photos of all of these items and getting them listed. Now that she does this full-time, her system works like a well-oiled machine.

Angelina gave me the inside look at her setup, all from her one-bedroom apartment in Plano, Texas. Where do your items go? Like, they start in a pile. How do they end up on that rack? And then where do they go, like, physically after that rack? It can get hectic if you don't have the organization down, which definitely took me a long time

to figure out my best process for that. I have some big blue storage bins that roll and fit into my storage closet pretty well. So they usually go in there or they immediately go into the wash. Following that, I get them on the rack. I steam them. I take the photos. I get them listed. Angelina shares the apartment with her boyfriend and says it's important to separate her workspace from her living space.

So getting items quickly packed and ready to ship is essential. I buy clear polymailers that close on Amazon and I sit down and one by one I fold them up nice and neat and I have stickers that are numbered to be able to inventory them. As she prepares her clothes for sale on Poshmark, Angelina jots down as many details as she can. If there was anything to call out like a stain or a snag, make sure to grab a picture of that. And I also take measurements at this point. Some brands run oversized, some are smaller than others.

So having those measurements in the description of your listing is really helpful. You don't need a fancy camera, but Angelina does have a strategy to help her clothes stand out. I prefer to make it an all white background as research I've done shows it's better for SEO purposes and Google searches.

And she says you can add some personality into the pics. My best advice when it comes to that is if you have a cute rug that you like to style your clothing on, just make sure that it looks clean and orderly and not just kind of thrown on the floor. But I've seen so many different styles of photos work for different people, including modeling. That's just what works best for me right now. And to get those sales really coming in, Angelina puts a ton of detail into her

listings. Including the size in the title helps a lot. The color, the brand, if there's a specific style name for that brand, just describing as much as you can. You don't have to have a novel of what this item is, but adding in something along the lines this Y2K style skirt pairs great with kitten heels. Even if it's a skirt that you're listing, now someone searching for kitten heels might

also see the skirt and be like, oh, it would look great with it. Okay, so you've spent hours sorting, taking pics and measuring your items. Now you want to make sure you're actually making money. Right. This takes us to our last step. Keeping detailed accounts of your finances, knowing how much money you're putting into this and what you're taking home. The biggest tip from these sellers on keeping track of your money. That's after the break.

It's Truck Month at GMC. Tackle the open road with added confidence in a 2025 Sierra 1500 Pro Graphite at 0% financing for up to 72 months. With an available 5.3 liter V8 engine, 20 inch high gloss black painted aluminum wheels, off road suspension with available 2 inch factory installed lift kit, plus a towing capacity of up to 13,200 pounds, you'll be ready for anything this Truck Month. Truck Month is on now. Ask your GMC dealer for details.

Making money selling clothes online takes time, effort, and organizational skills. Angelina and Jaden say that you have to keep track of what you're bringing in. Their secret weapon? Spreadsheets. I keep everything really, really organized. You don't want to sell someone the wrong thing or put the wrong shipping label on something. Jaden keeps it simple and uses his iPhone Notes app. I'll keep a little like spreadsheet type of thing

almost in my notes. Like I know how much I spent at this Goodwill. When something sells, I know roughly know how much I spent at this Goodwill. When something sells, I know roughly like how much I made off it. Angelina's process is similar. It'll start with the title, which is usually brand name and then item. The cost of the item is really helpful for me to keep track of, as well as the size and then description, which will include the measurements and then I do have a tab after that that has listed date so I can keep track of the

day that I list the items and am able to see when it sells how long it's been up there for and kind of keep the metrics on that. Once you know you're making money don't start spending it yet. Angelina's not just using spreadsheets to keep track of what she has and hasn't sold. There's another reason why keeping track of your income is important. Taxes. At the end of 2024, Angelina's online sales were a little slow, so she took a part-time job to supplement her income. After accounting for that part-time work, Angelina's 2024 tax bill for the money she made selling clothes was about $1500.

She paid about $3000 in taxes for her Poshmark business the year before that. Angelina says it took her some time to get a grasp on all the steps that came with filing. One of the things I'm interested in is how you organize this career when tax season comes along come April. What are some of the tax implications with selling clothes online like this? It's definitely important because it's something I had no idea about and didn't really even think about until tax season came. And I was like, oh, good to know.

Wish I would have known this sooner. tax season came and I was like, oh, good to know, wish I would have known this sooner. But on Poshmark, if you sold a certain threshold amount, you would receive a 1099 from Poshmark for an online seller, which makes you an independent contractor of the company. And with that, and the fact that I was doing this full time and I didn't receive a W-2 employment, I had no taxes withheld throughout the year. And so that is definitely something very important to keep in mind. I learned the hard way the first time and that's okay because now I'm keeping spreadsheets open every day. I like to sit down the first week of every month as well as the last week of every month, as well as the last week of every month.

And it really only takes an hour or two with a cup of coffee in the morning to go through, balance the books, make sure everything is looking right. And it saves you so much pain at tax time. When vintage seller, Jaden Torres checks his books, AKA his notes app, he's taking in close to $2,500 on a good month. And he tries to save most of it.

If I do spend the money, it's going right back to me spending it at a Goodwill or a thrift store to get more clothing. That's really where it's going to. Long term, he's planning to use the money to open an in-person shop in his hometown of State College, Pennsylvania. I could see myself opening a storefront and selling to the students that come here every year. It's a big campus.

It's a college town and I've lived here all my life. I could see a store down there that I own, definitely. Angelina Lacari has similar goals. Since this is her main income, it first has to pay the bills. My goal is to bring in roughly $1,000 a week, if possible. At the beginning of this operational process, when I was going, I was around $500 a week. And now I'm often on hitting that $1,000,

but more average bringing in around $800. After her bills are paid, Angelina shifts to another financial priority, her student loans. She currently owes about $57,000. Angelina is 25 and has been out of school for a few years. She hopes that her business will help her pay off all her loans before she turns 30. But the biggest thing for me is my student loans for sure. And the fact that I can tackle those with this, it has been life changing. Time for a recap.

What did I learn from Angelina and Jayden about making extra cash off of your old clothes? First, find the right platform for you. Poshmark, ThredUP, Depop, are the many other options that are out there. They each take a different cut. Second, organize and ready your inventory for sale. Now this will take a long time. Make sure to set aside a few hours minimum to get going. Take great pics, measure your items,

and make note of any imperfections. And the third step, accounting. Write it down. Know what you've sold and how much you've made. Keep notes of all that income so you're not surprised by your tax bill. After all of what we spoke about, I had to ask Angelina what she thought

of my one attempt at selling clothes online. I actually have tried this out in the past, not on Poshmark, but a different website. Okay. I was graduating from college and I had like a few tags on things I never wore. Like I had a Levi's pair of shorts, never wore, tags still on.

I had like a romper, I think from Urban Outfitters, never wore. And I put it online to sell and like not all of it sold. And I got really discouraged about it. Like how do you not get discouraged when things don't sell? When you find a piece, you have a piece in your closet that you knew you spent so much on and splurged for and I loved. Yeah and just loving it and no one's biting and for a second you're like wait a second like is it you're overthinking. You're like, is it not cute?

Is my style weird? It's helpful to take a moment and look on whatever website it is that you are wanting to sell on and kind of type in what it is you're selling and see what previous people have sold it for. Maybe you're asking a little too much. Just having the patience to strategize and switch it up, whether that's changing your title, changing the description, sending offers, stuff like that,

like I said, definitely can get discouraging, but if you're willing to work through it, it definitely is worth it. That's it for Keeping It Money, a special episode of Your money briefing from the Wall Street Journal. Liked what you heard? Let us know what you think.

What other topics should we feature? If you're listening on Spotify, you can leave us a comment. Or send us an email at ymb at wsj.com. I'm your host, Arianna Aspuru. This episode was produced by me, Jess Jupiter, and Charlotte Gartenberg. Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Sound design by Michael Laval. Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer.

Scott Salloway and Chris Sinzley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is The Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening. I can't believe I forgot to mention a few exciting pieces. But this one is actually a vintage Dior slip skirt with a lace trim on the bottom. I'm like, I'm not gonna lie that little that skirt like I'm gonna be thinking about that skirt for a while. I know.

It's so cute. It's one of those things that's been sitting in a pile forever and I'm like, okay, it's time to list this, it's time to let it go.