At only four months of age my little bruiser is already wearing 12-to-18 month clothing. We received a bunch of baby onesies and sleepers shortly after my son was born, but with his long torso and meaty thighs he has already outgrown all of them! I didn’t expect any gifts for our second born child and I am more than grateful for the generosity of friends and family. I gave away the majority of infant clothes long before number two arrived.
Our bassinet has been collecting dust ever since I decided to ditch it in favor of co-sleeping and the mobile above my son’s crib seems to keep him wide-awake rather than helping him reach any state of slumber.
Since this is most likely our last child, (it took us two and a half years to conceive two children), I see no need in keeping infant clothing or baby equipment around. This week I gathered two large bins of unwanted clothing and trucked them off for consignment.
I considered waiting for the consignment sale this October, but then promptly decided against it for two main reasons. Fist, I didn’t want the stuff in the house any longer. Second, I didn’t want to do more than necessary to get rid of this stuff.
As a consignor I would only earn 55% of the sale price of each item, plus pay a $10 fee. Not to mention the work involved in hanging, tagging, cataloging and delivering items. It just didn’t seem worth the extra effort.
The local consignment store provides cash up front, which probably means I earn less than comparable stores, but on the plus side I don’t have to wait for a check. I dropped off my stuff and waited for the store owner to pick over everything.
I didn’t catalog everything I dropped off, but here is a list of most of the stuff:
- 2 sleepers with hats and booties
- 2 packs of Carter’s onesies (6 in a pack)
- 2 packs of mitts
- 2 Carter’s open bottom sleepers
- 5 onesies
- 2 Old navy maternity dresses
- 1 Old navy maternity shirt
- 1 belly band
- 2 pairs of maternity pants
- 1 maternity sweater
- 1 fleece sleeper
- 2 Gymboree outfits (shirt and pants)
- 4 baby hats
- 5 Carter’s outfits (1 long sleeved onesie, one short sleeved onesie & pants)
- 1 Carter’s security blanket
- 2 packages of baby socks
- 1 Gymboree boy’s sweater
- 1 Polo baby sweater
- 1 boy’s winter coat
- 1 Gymboree winter coat
- 5 long sleeved Gymboree onesies
- 1 Baby Bjorn
- 1 Co-sleeper
Thirty minutes later I was offered $106.71 in cash or $125 in store credit. I took the cash option.
I looked up the pricing guidelines for the consignment sale and I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have made much more selling there. I could have earned more selling the co-sleeper through craigslist, but I feel good enough about the end result.
making a little cash is always a good thing!
I think you made the right decision by dropping off your items at your local consignment store. I sold a bunch of baby items (clothes, toys, gear) at a consignment sale in May for the first time and didn’t realize how much time/effort it was preparing the consigned items for sale! All the hours I spent figuring out how to price items, inputting info for tags, ironing clothes, attaching tags, hanging items, etc. was not really worth the $115 (50% of the proceeds) that I made in the end. I will think twice before consigning again!
Thanks for telling me about your experience. It seems like consignment sales have a whole lot of overhead. A friend said I probably could’ve earned another $50 or so, but who knows. Given how easy it was I would definitely sell this way again.
PiC and I were talking about this and our wee one is wearing clothes twice hir age-size. I am convinced that sizing by weight would get us much closer to the right sizes than by age ever does.
I agree. Luckily at least some of my older son’s clothes fit. I hate buying clothes when they outgrow them so quickly!
I have been debating this exact thing in my mind lately. I have literally hundreds of items that I’ve been saving for the next consignment sale – so much that you can’t even open the guest room closet door. I get a little panicky at the thought of the time it will take me to sort, hang, and tag all that stuff. Plus it’s a trip out of my way to drop the stuff off, and usually at least two hours to put it all out on the sales floor. I’m now coming up on getting rid of the big baby items, too, and it sucks to have to store those things for months on end waiting for the next opportunity to get rid of it.
I’ve done well at the consignment sales that I’ve sold at, always making more than I spend, but I’m thinking maybe it’s time to drop off a bag of stuff at the local consignment store and just see how it compares.
If you take this approach definitely blog about it or send me an email. Since I’ve never tried a consignment sale I’m guessing at how much I could charge for each item. I also know all stores offer different prices, but I’m curious how much less you might earn from a direct-to-store sale versus the consignment sale. One of the biggest factors in my decision was simply getting rid of the stuff. I don’t want things hanging around any longer than necessary. When this little guy outgrows the baby equipment I’m sure I’ll drive straight to the store š
I did the comparison and just wrote about it!