Latest news with #secondhand
Daily Mail
16 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
I'm a full-time Vinted reseller who has earned £18,000 from flogging cheap clothes online - here are my top tips on how to become successful on the platform
A secondhand online clothes seller who has made thousands of pounds on Vinted has revealed her top tips for sales success. Maisie, who is from Yorkshire, searches cat boot sales, charity shops and online pre-loved websites for cheaply-priced garments with a high resale value. Although it started off as a side hustle, Maisie made reselling her full time career last year after earning £18,000 from flogging clothes. Now, she has helped others by telling them how they too can make a wage from the app - and according to her, it's very simple. Maisie said: 'I absolutely love buying on Vinted to resell on Vinted. It's so easy and it just goes to show the difference that a good quality picture with good lighting and a good background can honestly make.' She says that you should always list similar clothes sizes at the same time on Vinted, as people may browse your page and find other items that they like, resulting in more sales. 'They're more likely to get their money's worth by buying a bundle from you so it will boost your sales and your profit at the same time,' Maisie added. 'You're only having to ship out one parcel and the buyer is only having to pay one lot of postage and fees.' Masie has made £18,000 from selling on Vinted so far and has now made reselling her main job Maisie said wannabe sellers also have to be careful about how they draft listings on Vinted - as sometimes a post can appear as though it was shared earlier than it was. In another clip, the reselling expert explained: 'If you draft something and then a week later you decide to hit live and publish it, it won't show as a new listing. It will show when you drafted it, which was a week ago. 'It will come up older in the listings, it won't show up at the top, it will show up as being a week old which will affect how people are looking at your listings because a lot of people will search for newest first.' Recently, Maisie revealed how she sold a dress for more than four times what she paid for it. She purchased a WoolOvers boho linen dress for just £3.30 on Vinted as part of a bundle from a seller. Maisie then ended up reselling it on eBay for a whopping £20.46. She also has her own system so she can find the items she has listed quickly and get them shipped off to the buyer 'If you're not keen on getting out to car boots or charity shops or you just don't have the time, get on Vinted,' she said. 'Then, get this stuff delivered to your door, take better photographs, and list it back on Vinted!' This video racked up many comments from other impressed Vinted sellers who praised Maisie on her sales success. One wrote: 'Amazing flip!! I've just started reselling too!! Sometimes it is just a case of taking better photos too!!' Another said: 'That's amazing,' to which Maisie responded: 'Magic of photography eh!' Many other Vinted sellers have praised Maisie for sharing her clever tips and tricks on how to sell clothes for a profit A third penned: 'Thank you! I love watching your videos.' She also has her own system so she can find the items she has listed quickly and get them shipped off to the buyer. In another video, Maisie explained how she had bought clear plastic bags and used stickers to number each one. She then puts an item into a bag with a designated number once she has listed it and puts the number in her post, so it reminds her which bag it is in. 'It's going to make life so much easier and it is so satisfying coming in and doing ten listings and then putting them into bags,' she said.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
‘I am Alan f***ing Sugar': I marvel at my business acumen on DoneDeal
We cope with stress in all different ways. Some are healthy, like binge watching reality shows about Mormon wives and their hair extensions. Some are less healthy, like running a marathon instead of going to therapy. But as long as our chosen outlet of emotion isn't hurting anybody else, who are we to judge? My partner would argue my outlet does hurt him. It's not drinking or gambling or live-action medieval role-play. I'm not forcing him to look at my run times on Strava. Instead, he merely has to sit in the car and make sure I don't get murdered while I pick up my latest Facebook Marketplace purchase. You can correlate how much external stress I'm facing in my life to my time spent scouring mid-century furniture on DoneDeal . At my lowest I was convincing my partner to drive to a random person's shed in Monaghan for a €50 piece of furniture that once might have been a dresser that 'just needed to be sanded back'. When things got really bad I was digitally scouring the Waterford Crystal collections of other people's dead grannies, trying to complete my set. 'I'm so sorry to hear about your granny, do you have two of the Champagne flutes in the Lismore pattern?' I would fire off, as if they would actually be used for Champagne and not Aldi sparkling wine. READ MORE I don't even like sparkling wine and I really love using the dishwasher so chances are they would never even make it out of the cupboard. But that's the joy of buying second-hand stuff - there's no need for rational thought. The stakes are too low to think about being practical. What if the President or someone equally important like, I dunno, Twink, suddenly knocked in and I couldn't serve them sparkling wine in crystal flutes (never mind the fact that when the Australian ambassador actually did pop over for dinner, he was happy enough to eat and drink off our mismatched collection of Ikea and Dunnes finest homewares). Now that moving countries from Ireland to Australia has robbed me of access to my beloved Adverts and DoneDeal, I now rely on Facebook Marketplace as my sole trading platform. We're in something of a trade deficit as I'm only buying. In my defence, I had to refurnish an entire house. Rentals in Australia don't come with furniture, so I assumed my natural role as a hunter and gatherer. It's only me and my sniper-like Facebook Marketplace skills in securing an as-new Ikea couch for €350 less RRP that stands between our bums and the cold, hard floor. It can be a treacherous but mostly annoying pursuit. The problem is everyone wants to score a bargain, or make a decent amount of money selling off an item. But we can't all be cute hoors simultaneously. There are people trying to flog 'lightly used' Nars bronzers and La Roche Posay sunscreen. I don't know about you, but when buying products that go on my face, I'd prefer if a stranger's fingers hadn't been in them. [ Sizible: Making sure to get the perfect fit when clothes shopping online Opens in new window ] I blame Dragons' Den reruns for people trying to sell the free coat hangers you get at the dry cleaners for €1 each. Facebook Marketplace really needs an 'Are you well?' button for these types of ads. But in fairness, buyers can be melts too. Like the time I was asked repeatedly if I would drop items I was giving away for free to the other side of Ireland, at my own expense. I was sweaty with anticipation as I messaged a seller last week. She was offering two GHD hair tools, like new. The ones I'd been eyeing up, that retail for more than €150 each new. She was willing to part with them for €30 each. I pounced. I marvelled at my business acumen with that margin. 'I am Alan f***ing Sugar,' I thought to myself as I queued for the ATM on the way to the goods exchange location. [ Yes, will give Irish shoppers choice. But no, it's not 'good news for all' Opens in new window ] It was only in the car as we waited in the pitch black and rainy night did I question if the prices were too good to be true. Her profile looked legit - had been up since the 2010s. But she was selling loads of GHDs. Maybe it was a trap designed exclusively to ensnare millennial women. 'Are you going to get us killed?' my boyfriend asked with a tone that suggested he'd welcome this event over doing any more Facebook Marketplace pickups. No, it turns out she just worked for the company and was doing a spring clean. Behind her lurked her bodyguard boyfriend who met the eyes of mine and gave him the weary nod of marketplace veterans who had seen too much.
CNA
3 days ago
- General
- CNA
Commentary: Libraries are more than their books – just look at the Yale-NUS uproar
SINGAPORE: It is an oddity in our world of fast fashion and disposables that we're reluctant to dispose of books. While I'm unsentimental about discarding old clothes and furniture, books give me pause: Those that did not move out with me still form a disorderly pile in my parents' place, eliciting occasional mild distress. I'm clearly not alone: The active Facebook group Books Don't Throw (Singapore) is 117,000-strong and growing. Community libraries have flourished, run out of Housing Board void decks or like the Casual Poet Library, where individual shelves are rented and curated by different owners. The outrage over the ill-considered and unceremonious disposal of books from the Yale-NUS College library is more evidence of how many of us feel strongly about books. One of my most prized possessions is a second-hand copy of How the Hills Are Distant, a poetry collection by the late pioneering Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam, published in 1968. Mr Wong was a beloved friend and mentor, a friendship that bridged our difference in years, before he passed in 2022. A Malaysian friend gifted me this rare book, declining to tell me how he found it. If someone tried to take it away from me, loss of limb, or even life, might ensue. Even without a backstory, the physical book feels sacred in our age of digital reproduction. THE VALUE OF THE SECONDHAND BOOK Perhaps only works of art, national symbols and religious objects share this distinction. We seem to instinctively prize the tremendous value books can bring to the next reader – and the next in its onward journey – above other forms of value generated by secondhand items. (Would a similar disposal of library chairs have triggered a similar outcry? Maybe not.) It's important, however, to recognise that institutions do face different considerations from individuals. NOT A ROUTINE WEEDING EXERCISE Speaking to librarian friends in the wake of the Yale-NUS uproar, some worried that some commenters were taking a simplistic view that books should never be discarded. Libraries around the world routinely practice weeding, to ensure their collections maintain their quality and relevance, given limited space. Damaged books are recycled. Duplicate, outdated or less-used books are withdrawn, given away and sometimes recycled. For example, Nanyang Technological University has said that outdated or older editions of books are sent for recycling. As an author, I've made my peace with the possibility that my books will get damaged, remaindered or even destroyed. Yet it's clear that NUS Libraries should not have treated the closure of the Yale-NUS Library as a routine weeding exercise, which they have acknowledged as an 'operational lapse'. Although NUS Libraries rehomed 80 per cent (or 36,000 books) of the Yale-NUS collection in its other libraries, they still intended to dispose of 9,000 books, without making wider attempts to rehome these books, beyond select faculty members. Two Yale-NUS professors have come out to say that they were not informed of supposed attempts to give away these books to faculty. That the administration did not realise that Yale-NUS students and alumni might have wanted the books speaks of a deep disconnect. LIBRARIES ARE MORE THAN THEIR BOOKS But the issue goes beyond rehoming these books. Libraries develop a significance beyond individual books. One of Singapore's foremost artists, Shubigi Rao, has worked on a years-long project, Pulp, on banished and destroyed books. In her book Pulp II: A Visual Bibliography Of The Banned Book, Rao examines the 1992 destruction of the Vijecnica library of Sarajevo, deliberately targeted by Serbian nationalists. The poet Goran Simic, interviewed by Rao, said: 'It's like they tried to kill the memory of Bosnia, of Yugoslavia, of the world.' In the midst of shells and sniper fire, Simic organised a group of friends to retrieve books and ultimately rescued over a million books. The library and its survival have become a symbol of Bosnia. As I place my copy of Pulp II back on my shelves, I realise that all libraries, including my own, are singular acts of synchronicity. Never again will these books meet in such a constellation. They're an expression of who I am, and used to be. Associate Professor Andrew Hui, a founding faculty member, told CNA that he recalled contributing hundreds of suggestions to build the Yale-NUS library's early collection, before a professional librarian was appointed. These books, which have passed through many hands, connect hundreds of students and alumni across the years. With the closure of Yale-NUS, the remnants of its library have become a potent symbol of the soon-to-be-defunct institution. Ultimately, the university's oversight – not just an ' operational lapse ' – was not recognising the symbolic significance of the library, and its meaning to the Yale-NUS community. I turned up to the Yale-NUS library on Wednesday (May 28), the first day of the book giveaway that has been organised after the furore, as a guest of alumni – one of them, my brother. The place was quickly packed, with book lovers stalking the shelves, trying to moderate the size of their haul. A snaking queue formed to enter the library. Despite the events of the past 10 days, there was an air of carnival about the place. 'This is the best reunion,' my friend remarked. At the end of the day, only about 2,000 books are left for adoption according to the NUS Libraries Telegram channel. It would have been perfect if the book giveaway had been held alongside the Yale-NUS closing reunion, which took place two weeks ago. Yet this also seems a fitting, bittersweet end for this institution, where spirited student action has led to a much better outcome.
The Sun
6 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
I've made £4,000 on Vinted – here are my top tips, including what to write in your product's description
A SAVVY seller has shared her top tips for making money on Vinted, after she made £4000 from selling her old clothes. Vinted is an online marketplace where people can buy and sell second hand clothes, shoes and accessories. It's completely free to upload clothes to the app and Vinted does not take a cut of sellers' profits and instead charges buyers a small fee to purchase each item. TikToker Dassie Andreu (@dassieandreu) is a Vinted whizz, and took to the video sharing platform to share the tips she uses to make quick sales. Consistency Dassie revealed that when using Vinted, it is important to upload regularly. "And I mean every couple of days," she said. Vinted orders items on its site from newest to oldest, so if you are constantly uploading items, your profile will always appear at the top of the site. Keywords In order to make your items visible to as many people as possible, Dassie revealed you need to use lots of keywords in the item description. "Don't just say boy's jumper, say boy's blue navy jumper, long sleeves, warm, perfect for the chilly season." Parcel Presentation To make sellers come back and buy your items again, Dassie said it is important to package them nicely. Sharing a clip of a parcel she collected recently from a seller, Dassie said: "It looks really unprofessional, and I probably wouldn't buy from this seller again. "There were even holes in the bag." I made £550 in 48 hours reselling clothes but NOT on Vinted - I found a platform where sellers get the full asking price - Online marketplaces like Vinted and Depop have millions of users across the UK, with the cost-of-living crisis only increasing their popularity. One in six people now say they buy used items, according to research commissioned by review site Trustpilot. So, now's the perfect time to make yourself some extra cash on the likes of Vinted. According to the popular platform, sellers do not have to pay tax on earnings they make from the site. QUICK facts on tax from the team at Vinted... The only time that an item might be taxable is if it sells for more than £6,000 and there is profit (sells for more than you paid for it). Even then, you can use your capital gains tax-free allowance of £3,000 to offset it. Generally, only business sellers trading for profit (buying goods with the purpose of selling for more than they paid for them) might need to pay tax. Business sellers who trade for profit can use a tax-free allowance of £1,000, which has been in place since 2017. More information here: This, HMRC stated, is because selling personal items through platforms like Vinted is not itself taxable. ''If the money a member makes on Vinted over a year is less than the amount they paid for the items they are selling, then there is no tax to pay,'' a Vinted spokesperson explained. ''Generally, only business sellers "trading" for profit might need to pay tax. ''A tax-free allowance of £1,000 has been in place since 2017 for people who trade for profit.''
The National
7 days ago
- Automotive
- The National
The basic rules for buying a second-hand car in the UAE
The difference in price point between showroom-fresh and second-hand cars is significant. Yet, everyone has heard stories from friends and family about used-vehicle purchases that have ended in, at best, severe inconvenience and, at worst, complete disaster. Don't let that put you off, however, as simply knowing the basic rules for buying a second-hand car can leave you confident in your purchase. 'Buyers are advised to closely examine the vehicle's service history, mileage and overall condition – both mechanical and cosmetic,' says Karim Maksoud, managing director of Al Habtoor Motors, which deals in both new and used vehicles. 'It is equally important to verify that the car is free from any accident damage and has undergone a thorough, professional inspection,' Maksoud adds. There are two options when looking for a used car – going through dealerships or sourcing a model directly from the previous owner. In the main, you're likely to pay a little more to a dealership, but they invariably offer perks of one sort or another, and these can be highly attractive when it comes to having peace of mind when making your purchase. Al Habtoor, for example, offers a 14-day exchange guarantee and a five-year top-up warranty, while Al Futtaim has roadside assistance and comprehensive inspections included with its Toyota and Lexus packages. Carlos Montenegro, managing director of fleet strategy at Al Futtaim Automotive, another key player in the UAE used-car market, says transparency and trust are key, especially when buying from an individual owner. 'The most obvious red flags include inconsistent service history, signs of accident damage, unusually low pricing and unclear vehicle ownership or importation history,' he says. Once you find a car you fancy, one of the first things to do is track down its vehicle identification number. VIN is a unique, 17-character alphanumeric code assigned to every car that will help ascertain its legitimacy. The digits show the motor's country of origin, manufacturer, vehicle type and attributes, the year it was built and the plant in which it was assembled. This code allows interested parties to assess the vehicle's registration, insurance status and, crucially, any history of accidents or theft. There are multiple online options for checking the VIN, the easiest being the websites for Emirates Vehicle Gate, Ministry of Interior, Dubai's Roads and Traffic Authority, Abu Dhabi Police or Tamm. When checking the code's validity, Maksoud says: 'It is essential to verify that the VIN matches all official paperwork.' Both Maksoud and Montenegro stress the relation between a car's mileage and its overall condition. Distance-wise, figures suggest drivers average about 19,000-24,000km a year, so you can tell if a vehicle is above or below what you might expect by multiplying how old the car is by those digits. Looking for dents, scratches or rust is a given, but it's also worth thoroughly examining the panels up close to look for inconsistencies in paintwork. These could be an indicator that the car has had a DIY patch-up after being scraped. If the car is low to the floor, getting down on your back is not strictly necessary. Instead, run your fingers along the underside to see if there is any scratching not visible from an upright position. It is, however, worth getting down on your hands and knees to check for any pools on the tarmac under the car while it is stationary, though – leaks of any kind are never a good sign. Tyres are another area to check for wear and tear, with tread length being the key issue. You can test by inserting a Dh1 coin into the grooves at various points. In general, if you can twist the coin, the tyre is worn and needs replacing. Montenegro also recommends asking for certifications such as a 99-point or 145-point inspection, as these are often provided by dealers. Inside the car, make sure you press every button there is to check each is doing what it's supposed to. It's also worth tapping the dashboard in a few places to ascertain that it's still solid – things can become loose with age. Also check the seating – it isn't just about whether it's comfortable or not, but also how worn the material is and whether it might need replacing. Air conditioning is a key area of concern in this region, so start the engine and sit there for a few minutes to check all is in working order. If the chilling isn't thrilling, it could just be a case of topping up the refrigerant, but you should also look out for odd noises, such as squealing or rattling, and be cautious of mouldy smells. Any aircon servicing outlet should be able to cure this, but you should consider how much you might have to spend when it comes to what you're finally paying for the vehicle. You can get a refrigerant top-up for as little as Dh100, for example, but an overhaul will be significantly more. Both experts agree that a test drive is essential. It's difficult to assess problems from the engine's sound alone, but you should be able to tell if it sounds clunky or lacking in power. All cars lose grunt as they age, but it's worth checking out the specs of a particular vehicle to give you an idea of what it was capable of when it was fresh off the production line. All this aside, if you want to be really thorough, it's worth seeking the services of a qualified mechanic to give the car a once-over. A good technician will not only be able to assess any potential problems, but also tell you how much it might cost to put them right and what impact that will have on price negotiation. Maksoud says: 'After-sales support and credibility of the seller play a key role in a safe and satisfactory purchase.' Montenegro concludes: 'A well-maintained used car should come with a verified service history, low to moderate mileage relative to its age, and a clean body and interior.'
