The RealReal Review: Is Selling on The RealReal Worth It?

The RealReal (often abbreviated TRR) is an online consignment store that buys and sells used designer clothes, shoes, accessories (e.g., handbags), and home decor. It focuses on high-end items, meaning pieces that sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars on the secondhand market.

The company provides a mobile app, and it also has 19 physical outlets that you can visit, including 16 that you can shop at. 1 These are mostly located in major cities like New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. You can check for The RealReal outlets near you on the company’s site.

How selling items on The RealReal works

Unlike apps like eBay or Poshmark, which are marketplaces that connect you directly to customers, The RealReal sells items on consignment.

That means they’ll facilitate the entire selling process for you. You’ll send your items to The RealReal, and they’ll handle everything from photographing them to shipping them to their purchasers.

All of this makes offloading your used items very easy. The downside is that you also won’t have much control over any aspect of the process.

In particular, you won’t be able to set any prices yourself. The RealReal will do that for you. They’ll also take a cut of the profits, which means you won’t earn the full resale value of the item, something that we’ll go into more detail about below.

How to send your items to The RealReal

There are five ways to get your pieces to The RealReal:

1. In-home consignment appointment

If you have 10 or more items by brands on The RealReal’s Designer Directory, you can request a free concierge pickup service. A TRR employee (called a “Luxury Manager”) will stop by, inspect your items, and collect them from you.

This service isn’t available everywhere; use the link above to check and see if The RealReal has an outlet near you. If they don’t, you’ll probably need to use another shipping option.

2. Free UPS pickup

If you have fewer than 10 items or The RealReal’s usual concierge service is unavailable in your area, you can get a free UPS shipping label to send your items to The RealReal. Just print the label out, box your items, and send them off from a UPS center.

3. Drop-off at a store

As mentioned, The RealReal operates several physical stores where you can drop off your items. When you do, their workers will help determine the resale value of your clothes so you have an idea of how much they’ll be listed for.

4. Curbside drop-off

You can also drop off clothes at The RealReal’s physical stores (without sticking around for the appraisal). You can book a curbside drop-off on their website or in their app.

5. Lockbox (NYC only)

If you’re in New York City, you can use The RealReal’s “Lockboxes” (provided through the package delivery service GoLocker) to drop off your items. You’ll get a one-time code from TRR to use in one of GoLocker’s locations in the city.

Items in Lockboxes are insured up to $15,000. 2

As mentioned, The RealReal specializes in high-end luxury and designer clothing, shoes, and accessories, as well as certain pieces of home decor, such as wall hangings. They have a “Designer Directory” (linked above) that lists acceptable brands. Some of the most notable names include:

• Acne Studios
• Burberry
• Cartier
• Christian Dior
• Chanel
• Fabergé
• Gucci
• Louis Vuitton
• Valentino
• Versace

That list is far from exhaustive. The RealReal accepts items from dozens of other high-end brands.

What condition does The RealReal require items to be in?

TRR only accepts items in good condition. They won’t accept pieces with any of the following issues:

• “Non-professional” alterations, such as DIY tailoring on clothes or after-market diamonds added to watches
• Severe damage, such as missing or broken zippers or buckles, prominent stains, splitting seams, etc.
• Missing signatures or dates (on artwork)

You can read the full list of issues that disqualify items on TRR’s site.

The bottom line is that TRR serves a luxury market, and although they don’t require items to be in absolutely pristine or “like new” condition, they aren’t interested in anything that has much wear and tear.

The RealReal’s other requirements for items

In addition to their quality standards, The RealReal also has a few other common-sense requirements for items.

You must legitimately own all items you list, they cannot have any liens on them (i.e., outstanding legal claims from others), and they can’t be counterfeit or otherwise illegal. 3

You don’t need to worry about these requirements too much. As long as you aren’t trying to defraud anyone or fence stolen property, you won’t run afoul of them or get into trouble.

The RealReal sets its prices for items based on their condition and their usual resale value, which itself is determined by demand. This means that how much you can make depends on what you’re selling, and two identical items may sell for different prices at different times.

Anecdotal reports from users suggest that the prices offered by The RealReal vary widely. That said, they’re almost always lower than what you’d get by selling on online marketplaces like Poshmark and eBay.

That’s usually the case with consignment shops. They’re less work for you, the seller, but you’ll earn less than you could by negotiating with interested buyers directly.

How The RealReal’s commission structure affects their payouts

The RealReal also employs a commission structure, which drastically affects your potential earnings. The percentage of each item’s resale price that you’ll receive depends on:

• What type of item it is
• How much it sells for

The RealReal’s system is somewhat complicated, so we’ve broken it down in the table below. The leftmost column shows the price a hypothetical item would sell for; the others show what percentage of the sales price you’ll receive for different classes of items.

How Much You’ll Earn From Items on The RealReal

*Also includes non-sneaker shoes, accessories, unbranded jewelry, home decor and art, childrens’ items, and any other miscellaneous goods not listed here.

The takeaway is that the more valuable your item is, the bigger your cut will be when The RealReal sells it.

If your item is relatively low-value for a designer piece (measured in hundreds of dollars rather than thousands), TRR will walk away with most of its value.

The RealReal’s commission bonuses for frequent sellers

Complicating things even further, if you keep selling on The RealReal, the company will eventually raise your commissions.

Sellers are grouped into four “tiers,” based on how much they’ve sold on the platform (in total, not on any one order). You’ll receive a modest boost when you graduate to a higher tier.

You can see the specifics in the table below:

Tier-Based Commission Bonuses on The RealReal

These bonuses are relatively small, and, even on extremely high-value items, will usually add a few dozen dollars to your payout at most.

The upshot is that selling on TRR is more worthwhile if you’re offloading very expensive designer pieces, but you’ll rarely receive anything close to full value for your pieces. Unfortunately, that’s just the name of the game with consignment stores, both online and offline.

How will The RealReal pay you?

You can receive your payouts through any of three methods:

Payment Methods on The RealReal

To start selling items, visit The RealReal’s signup page and enter your:

• Full name
• Email address
• Phone number
• ZIP code

You’ll then be shown the options available for sending your clothes to The RealReal, whether you do that through their concierge service or UPS delivery.

Where to download The RealReal’s app

It’s possible to sell through TRR’s website, but if you like, you can also download their mobile app using the buttons below.
To start selling items, visit The RealReal’s signup page and enter your:

App Store Google Play

The RealReal’s requirements for sellers

The RealReal requires all sellers to be 18+ years old. 3 Beyond that, there aren’t any particular criteria you have to meet, as long as all of your items conform to their standards.

It’s possible to sell from anywhere in the US, although, again, if you’re not located in a major metropolitan area, it’s likely that not all of TRR’s shipping options will be available to you.

We’ve explained how The RealReal works in detail, and hopefully, you’re getting a sense for whether or not you’re interested in it.

To reiterate, it’s a convenient way to offload secondhand designer goods that otherwise would just sit around in your closet and gather dust.

However, there’s a price; you’ll make less from your sales than you would if you used another platform, such as eBay or Poshmark, and did more work yourself.

What real users have to say about The RealReal

We’ve collected several accounts from online message boards that are more or less representative of the sentiment toward this app among clothing resellers and flippers. Reading these may push you one way or another if you’re on the fence.

It’s also worth doing your own research by reading the reviews on the company’s App Store and Google Play pages, linked above, as well as their Trustpilot page. Bear in mind that reviews from buyers and sellers are mixed together.

Case A: It’s worth using The RealReal to get rid of things that won’t sell elsewhere

One user on Reddit (in a community that’s devoted to TRR but is independently run) writes that they’ve been selling with them for years.

They give a mixed but mostly positive review, praising TRR’s professionalism but noting that their payouts are quite low, especially on items that sell for under $200. They also compare them unfavorably with thredUP, one of their main competitors.

They write that TRR is the “last place” they go to “get rid of designer stuff” that won’t sell elsewhere. This matches many of the comments we’ve seen in other places: if you’re willing to put in a little legwork, TRR shouldn’t be your first stop, but if you strike out on other, more lucrative platforms, they provide a decent, last-ditch place to get rid of items you don’t want anymore.

Case B: TRR is good if you don’t want to put up with the hassle of selling on eBay

Another user in that same thread gives a positive review of The RealReal. They acknowledge that it’s important to be “realistic about what the market will bear,” and that it isn’t a good idea to depend on TRR for income, but overall, they’re happy with how fast items move on the platform.

They write that their items on TRR usually sell within 2 weeks, in contrast to marketplaces like eBay, where they sometimes take months or even years to sell (if they ever do).

They also write that they’ve never had any issues with The RealReal losing or misplacing items—a common fear that many people who sell high-value items on consignment have.

Case C: TRR pays too little and doesn’t give you enough control

A third Redditor in another thread also compares The RealReal unfavorably to its competitors, noting that TRR sells items with bigger discounts than comparable platforms (meaning you get less money). They also note that when you sell on thredUP, you can adjust the selling price, in contrast to TRR, which takes that decision out of your hands.

Overall, the sentiment in the thread is that The RealReal simply doesn’t pay enough.

Another user also points out it’s sometimes possible to get even less money than you expected, because TRR calculates commissions based on how much items actually sell for, which can be considerably less than what they’re listed for. This means that the quotes you can get when you take items in for appraisal can be misleading.

The takeaway: The RealReal is worth it for some sellers, but it isn’t perfect

It’s clear that at least some people appreciate the service that The RealReal provides. If you have expensive items that you want to get rid of and you just can’t be bothered with the hassle of selling them elsewhere, this is a decent solution.

However, it’s important to keep your expectations realistic. You’ll make considerably less money than you would if you sold on a marketplace-style platform like eBay, Poshmark, Vestiaire Collective, or Grailed.

Using TheRealReal as a seller means trading extra money for saved time. The app is legitimate, not a scam, and it’s certainly right for some people, but it’s up to you whether or not you’re one of them.