January 22, 2024
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NoneSecondhand shopping is on the rise as people look for ways to save money and shop more sustainably. As a result, dozens of apps and websites are cropping up to help people buy and sell every type of used item, from broken phones to designer shoes.
Read on for a list of the best apps for buying and selling clothes, electronics, furniture, and more (plus a few apps you can use to sell services instead of goods).
These platforms are suitable for selling all kinds of different items:
If you spend any time online at all, you’ve almost certainly heard of eBay. This is the grandfather of every other online secondhand marketplace, and as of September 2023, it has 132 million active users.
You can use eBay to sell most everyday items, with just a few restrictions (e.g., you can’t sell live animals or anything that’s illegal or dangerous).
eBay allows you to choose whether you want to sell your items at a fixed price or to auction them.
Because it has such a huge base of potential buyers, eBay should probably be your first stop for selling online. It casts such a large shadow that in many ways it’s the default option, with the other apps on this list filling more specialized niches.
eBay allows for local pickup, although most transactions require shipping (which you can choose to pay yourself, or you can opt for the buyer to pay it).
eBay charges several selling fees, most notably a variable “value fee” when someone buys your item. On most items, this fee will range between 8% and 15% of the item’s value, plus $0.30.
If you sell to someone outside the US, there will be extra fees, such as currency conversion fees and “international fees.” Visit eBay’s site for more information on fees for selling internationally.
Meta Marketplace (still commonly referred to by its old name, Facebook Marketplace) is the other big name in this space.
This service is primarily used by people who want to sell items to people in their area, so it might be a better choice than eBay if you want to sell something bulky or hard to ship, such as a piece of furniture or a large appliance like a refrigerator.
Like eBay, you can list just about any physical item on Meta Marketplace, although it has some of the same restrictions (e.g., no animals).
Meta Marketplace is the inverse of eBay—although it allows shipping, most people use it for local transactions.
If you sell locally, Facebook Marketplace doesn’t have fees. Otherwise, it has processing fees of 2.9%–3.49% if you use the Facebook checkout feature.
OfferUp is one of eBay’s competitors—another marketplace where you can sell just about anything that isn’t illegal. One of its selling points is the lack of fees if you sell locally (whereas eBay takes a substantial cut of your profits regardless of how you sell your item).
The downside is that OfferUp is much less well-known than eBay, which means it has a smaller base of users. Especially if you want to sell relatively niche items, you might have a hard time finding willing buyers on this app.
OfferUp encourages in-person (local) transactions but allows sellers to ship their goods to buyers as well.
OfferUp doesn’t charge any fees if you sell locally. On the other hand, if you ship your items, there’s a 12.9% service fee that’s based on the final price, excluding shipping costs (with a minimum fee of $1.99).
As the name suggests, Nextdoor is also focused on local transactions. Rather than primarily being a marketplace, it’s a social media platform that’s meant to help people connect with their neighbors.
You can sell most everyday items on Nextdoor (although there’s a list of restrictions on the site). In contrast to many of its competitors, Nextdoor allows you to sell virtual items (such as digital art) and services (such as lawn mowing). You can also rehome pets on the site, although you’re not allowed to sell animals for a profit; instead, you have to pay rehoming fees.
The flip side of paying no fees is that you’ll have to arrange payment yourself (e.g., through Venmo or in cash). Nextdoor won’t handle it for you.
Nextdoor is designed for local transactions.
Nextdoor doesn’t take a cut of what you make.
This is yet another general-purpose marketplace for locally selling both physical items and services. You can view their restricted items on their website.
Like Nextdoor, 5miles also allows other types of posts that aren’t related to buying and selling (such as lost and found and pet adoption notices).
The app’s big selling point is its safety. Most of the other marketplaces on this list operate with relatively light oversight, whereas 5miles claims that its team “checks every item to make sure they match our safety guidelines.” They also say they’re vigilant about watching out for scammers.
To use the app, just snap a picture of the item you’re selling and upload it. Your listing will be displayed to people near you.
5miles is exclusively for local transactions.
For every item you sell, you’ll have to pay 5miles a 10% transaction fee.
Mercari is a marketplace where you can list almost anything that can be shipped. It’s similar to eBay, but it’s not as big (with a mere 20 million users, compared with eBay’s 32 million), and it doesn’t allow you to auction items.
Mercari’s product categories include:
They don’t allow you to sell digital products or other prohibited items (which, as usual, include live animals and illegal goods).
Another downside is that you can’t ship to buyers outside the US, which you can do with eBay. However, for selling within the US, many reports online say that Mercari is the better option due to the simplicity of the listing process and the lower, easier-to-understand fees.
You can sell locally on Mercari if the Mercari Local service is available in your area (which connects buyers and sellers in the same regions with item deliveries via Uber or Dolly).
If Mercari Local doesn’t cover your area, Mercari’s policies don’t explicitly allow you to accept in-person payments by cash for transactions conducted through their platform, although it may technically be possible for you to do so.
For nonlocal sales, you can use the Mercari shipping service (where you buy a prepaid label from them). If you don’t want to do this, you can also use any other shipping method you prefer.
Listing fee: None
Selling fee: 10%
Payment processing fee: 2.9% plus $0.50.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform where you can set up your own store to sell all kinds of products and services, both digital and physical.
Shopify is a very beginner-friendly platform with an intuitive interface, so even if you’re new to e-commerce, you can easily create and manage an online store.
Your customers can pay you via various methods, including PayPal, Meta Pay, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay. You can also offer additional options, including Shopify Payments, which will allow people to pay via credit card. You can also arrange to be paid in cryptocurrency.
Shopify allows you to offer shipping (with options to buy USPS, UPS, or DHL Express shipping labels), local delivery, and local pickup.
There are various monthly plans to maintain your online shop. These cost $39–$105 per month for small businesses (and there may also be special offers for the first few months).
There are no transaction fees if you use Shopify Payments, but if you use other payment providers, additional fees of 2%–0.5% will apply (depending on which plan you have).
There may also be currency conversion fees if you sell to buyers outside the US.
Classified ad sites are online spaces where you can post advertisements for products, services, jobs, housing, and more. They’re usually organized into categories to make it easier for users to find what they want.
Whereas the online marketplaces we’ve listed so far allow you to handle transactions on the platform (which has the advantage of added security and convenience), these classified sites are more suitable for communicating with buyers directly and organizing your own payments and shipping (which usually means no fees).
Check out these 3 popular classified ad sites:
Like eBay, Craigslist is an established site you’ve probably already heard of. It’s nearly three decades old but is still going strong. In 2019, it finally released a smartphone app. It now has two different apps available for download: the original app and CPlus Classifieds, which is a souped-up version with extra features.
You can sell most items on Craigslist, although as you’d expect, there are several restrictions.
As an established platform, it has many of the same advantages that eBay and Meta Marketplace have—in particular, a very large base of users (which translates into a lot of potential customers).
The main downside of Craigslist is that, while it will let you list items for sale, it won’t actually facilitate transactions for you. In other words, you’ll have to arrange a payment method (and ensure you get paid) yourself.
Most people use Craigslist for local transactions, although if you sell something to a buyer who’s outside your area, there’s no reason you can’t ship the item.
Craigslist doesn’t charge any fees for listing or selling items.
Recycler.com is a classified ads site where private sellers and local businesses can list new and used goods and services. It attracts up to 18 million web shoppers each month.
The site connects buyers and sellers (or renters) of anything and everything, including used cars and trucks, pets, real estate, jobs, general merchandise, and local services. It has just a few restrictions, as detailed in their FAQ.
It started as a print publication called Recycler Classifieds. Although its focus is now on online listings, it still maintains a print presence.
As with Craigslist, you’ll have to deal with payments yourself for anything you sell on Recycler.com (i.e., picking a payment method and ensuring you get paid).
It’s down to you which shipping options you want to offer in your ad. Alternatively, you can just sell locally.
You can post basic listings for free, but there are also premium listing options available for a fee. These offer features like higher visibility, longer listing durations, and additional promotion. There are no other fees.
VarageSale calls itself an “online garage sale” or “virtual garage sale.” It’s a local marketplace designed for people who prefer not to buy and sell anonymously. It’s marketed as a safer alternative to sites like Craigslist.
To use VarageSale, sign up with your details and join a community in your neighborhood. If there isn’t a pre-existing community, you can create one yourself. You can then interact with and sell goods or services to people in the same places where you live, work, and play.
VarageSale is only for in-person pickup. They ask sellers not to ship items.
VarageSale is completely free to use, with no membership fees, listing fees, or commissions.
All of the platforms we’ve listed so far accept listings for all kinds of goods, but there are also a lot of fashion-specific platforms. If you have clothes or accessories to sell, you can use these to reach a targeted audience and get better prices.
Here are just a few of the many apps you can use to sell your clothes:
Vinted is a marketplace for buying, selling, and trading secondhand fashion items. It’s been big in Europe for years and is now gaining traction in the US.
The site is mainly meant for clothes and accessories, including women’s, men’s, and children’s. However, certain other items are also allowed:
Sellers can offer three shipping options within the US—USPS (whereby you print a prepaid shipping label generated on Vinted), custom shipping (i.e., shipping providers or delivery options that aren’t available on Vinted), and meet-up and collect.
Vinted has no fees at all for sellers. Buyers pay the shipping expenses.
This is a platform you can use to sell women’s and children’s clothes, shoes, and accessories.
However, it isn’t a marketplace like the other sites and apps we’ve mentioned. Instead, thredUP calls itself an “online consignment and thrift store,” and it operates similarly to a normal consignment store.
Rather than listing your clothes on the site, you send them directly to thredUP; they then decide which items are sellable (and donate any that aren’t), quote you a price to buy your wares, and then sell them for you.
They have categories for:
They accept all brands, but they don’t accept men’s clothes, anything counterfeit, or fashion items in certain other categories (e.g., formal gowns or sleepwear). Their site has a list of all the items they do not accept.
The platform also has various criteria for the quality of the items they accept. Items have to be less than 5 years old and in good condition (so nothing with wear and tear, shrinkage, stains, holes, broken or missing parts, or alterations).
To send thredUP your clothes, order a “Clean Out Kit” from their Clean Out page. The kit will include bags for your items and a shipping label (which you will pay for only if your clothes are valuable enough). You then send the bag back to thredUP, after which they’ll email you to let you know how long the kit will take to process.
Listing fees: None.
Commission: 20%–85%, depending on the value of the items. More valuable items have lower commission rates.
Other fees: thredUP will also take $2.99 from your profits (as long as you make more than that) to cover the cost of your Clean Out Kit.
Flyp is a consignment platform for designer and name-brand fashion items. Unlike thredUP, Flyp doesn’t do the selling for you. Rather, they connect you to other independent sellers, who will purchase the items from you and resell them.
You can use Flyp to sell:
They don’t accept nonbranded items or ones from generic, unknown, or boutique brands, so save your Shein and JC Penney items for another site.
Once Flyp has matched you with one or more sellers you like, you’ll have to send the sellers your items using a shipping label that Flyp will give you. Flyp will pay for the label upfront and will only make you repay the money if and when you earn enough from your sales.
Flyp estimates that you’ll earn 40%–60% of the profit from the items you send, depending on how much they’re worth. In addition, Flyp charges a 10% service fee of their own, and they’ll also deduct fees for shipping after you’ve sold your items ($0.99 per item, with a $9 minimum per lot).
Depop is another social marketplace for buying and selling clothes, shoes, and accessories. The interface looks like Instagram’s, and it’s very popular with Gen Z and young fashionistas.
Many Depop items are used, vintage, or repurposed fashion pieces. The site doesn’t feature as many high-end designer fashion and luxury brands as the other fashion apps we’ve listed, so it’s probably not the best place to sell these types of items.
You can sell other miscellaneous products, including:
Depop is less picky about the condition of items they accept than some of the other sites we’ve listed. They accept items with flaws or in less-than-perfect condition (as long as the listing accurately describes the condition per their guide).
You can also find a list of forbidden items on the Depop site.
Depop has a few options for shipping. One is to arrange it yourself with whichever courier or service you prefer. Alternatively, you can use the “Ship with Depop” option (for buyers in the US), which costs $4.39–$13.49 and gives you the option of either getting your item collected from your address or dropping it at a post office or USPS collection box. 1
Listing fee: None
Selling fee: 10%
Transaction fee: 3.3% + $0.45 if you use Depop payments; 3.49% + $0.49 if you use PayPal
Poshmark is a “social marketplace” where you can sell clothes and other items. It also has social media-like features, such as the ability to chat with other users, like posts, and follow news feeds. The goods that people list on the platform are fairly high-end.
Poshmark is very widely used, with 100 million people (or “poshers”) using the site across the US, Canada, Australia, and India. This means it’s a great way to get your clothes seen by lots of potential buyers.
Although Poshmark is predominantly meant for clothes, you can also list:
Restricted and prohibited items (e.g., socks, underwear, plants, and animals) are listed on their website.
Poshmark will send you a prepaid shipping label for your items, which you can ship either by scheduling a USPS package pick-up or by dropping them in the mailbox or at a post office. Alternatively, you can go to a USPS location, where they can print the label and ship the package for you.
Listing fee: None
Selling fee: $2.95 for items that sell for under $15; 20% otherwise
For more valuable items, you may want to use one of the following platforms to fetch a better price. They’re mainly for selling luxury clothing and jewelry.
Vestiaire Collective is an international marketplace for pre-owned women’s, men’s, and children’s luxury fashion items, including:
Their focus is on high-end designer clothing and fine jewelry, especially vintage items (which they define as anything that’s 15 years old or older).
They’re also quite picky about which brands they’ll accept. Their website has a comprehensive list of brands allowed on Vestiaire Collective (plus a list of brands you cannot buy or sell).
A major advantage of this platform is that you can sell your item to buyers in 46 countries. If the buyer’s in your country, Vestiaire Collective will pay your shipping costs; otherwise, you’ll need to pay for shipping yourself (including any related customs fees). Either way, Vestiaire Collective will provide you with a shipping label to use.
Listing fee: None
Selling fee:
Payment processing fee: 3% (or $3 for items priced at less than $80)
The RealReal touts itself as “the world’s largest marketplace for authenticated luxury resale.” It’s an online store (although it also features brick-and-mortar locations) where you can consign clothing, fine jewelry, and watches for men, women, and children. They also have categories for fine art, home decor, and beauty items.
The RealReal allows you to buy and sell items from designers like Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Prada (with a comprehensive list of designers they accept featured on their website). One of the company’s distinctive features is the rigorous authentication process it uses to make sure that everything on the platform is genuine, so it’s only for selling very high-quality items.
To sell with the RealReal, you can:
The RealReal charges commissions of 20%–70%, depending on the value of your sale (with lower commission percentages for bigger sales). If you choose to get paid in credit to use on the site, you’ll get an extra 5% added to your balance, meaning you’ll effectively pay a lower commission.
Worthy calls itself a “jewelry selling partner.” Basically, it’s an online auction site where you can sell the following luxury items:
As part of their service, they’ll handle shipping your jewelry, cleaning it, taking studio photos, and grading (where an independent organization will assess things like the cut, color, clarity, carat weight, and craftsmanship of the gemstones and metals used).
Once they’ve made your piece ready for auction, you can set a reserve price (the minimum price you’re willing to accept), and Worthy will create an auction listing for you and promote it to the professional buyers who use their site. You can then start your auction and wait for offers.
Worthy will pay for you to send them your items by FedEx Shipment (fully insured).
Worthy charges a commission of 10%–18% on your sale, depending on how much your items sell for (with lower fees for higher prices).
Note: Worthy doesn’t have a mobile app for either iOS or Android; to sell your items, register on their website.
If you have more than a few old phones and broken laptops lying around, you’re in good company. Believe it or not, your old electronics aren’t necessarily junk—they might be worth something.
There are many sites you can use to sell items like phones, laptops, and tablets. Here are a couple:
Decluttr is a website where you can buy and sell tech and entertainment goods, including:
It’s not a marketplace, as you don’t sell your own items directly to other site users. Instead, Decluttr offers you a price for your items and then sells them as part of their own inventory. Decluttr will even buy broken electronics and refurbish them.
The advantage of selling on Decluttr is that you don’t have to worry about taking photos, writing listings, or talking to sellers. You just have to scan the barcode for your items (or manually enter identifying details), accept or decline the offer you get for each one, pick your preferred payment method (which can be direct deposit, PayPal, or check), and mail Decluttr the items you want to sell.
If you sell over $5 worth of items, Decluttr offers a free shipping service for sellers (up to 500 items per order).
Decluttr doesn’t charge any fees for listings or selling. They will simply offer you a price for the items you wish to sell, and you can decide whether you want to accept it.
Swappa is an online community market for buying and selling phones, video games, tablets, laptops, watches, shoes, sneakers, home tech, and more.
You can also swap items with the Swappa trade-in program. This allows you to sell old devices and get credits toward a new purchase. Even broken phones may be eligible for this program.
When it comes to the payment methods they accept, Swappa is less flexible than Decluttr. You can only get paid through PayPal.
There are also some additional steps involved in the selling process, as Swappa is one of few platforms that ask for “verification photos” of your device. They must be accompanied by unique codes that Swappa will provide to confirm your ownership, as well as the condition and authenticity of the item.
Swappa allows local pickups, although they don’t recommend them. If you ship something, you have to pay the postage fees (with various shipping options permitted, depending on the proximity of the buyer).
Listing fees: None
Selling fees: 3%
If you’re giving your home a makeover or moving house, try these platforms that specialize in old furniture:
Chairish is an online marketplace for furniture, decor, and art. They sell contemporary, vintage, and antique items from various periods in a range of styles (although 85% of their inventory is vintage). 2
They mostly sell designer brands and say that they will accept most marked designer items. They have a focus on unique and distinctive pieces. They apparently don’t usually accept “contemporary mass-market brands” (e.g., IKEA or Wayfair).
As a Chairish seller, you can get paid either through PayPal or with automatic bank deposits (via Stripe). Chairish also provides its own shipping and delivery services for many types of items.
You can personally deliver items to local buyers or give them the option to pick them up from you. For nonlocal buyers, there are various shipping options, depending on the size of the product. As mentioned, Chairish has its own shipping services (which costs $149+). They’ll send professional shippers to wrap, load, and deliver large and fragile items for you.
Listing fee: None
Commission: Usually 20%–40% (depending on the item you’re selling and the seller plan you have)
AptDeco is another online furniture resale marketplace for buying and selling all types of furniture—new, used, and vintage. Unlike Chairish, it accepts contemporary mass-market brands such as IKEA and Wayfair, so it’s a good alternative for items that aren’t eligible to list on Chairish.
They even provide a guide to help you predict how many days your item will take to sell.
However, compared with Chairish, AptDeco has more limited delivery services (in terms of the areas covered). You’ll have to arrange your own shipping if you’re located somewhere else.
The AptDeco shipping service is available for sellers located in their standard service zones. Buyers can also pick up their items in person if they live close enough (and if you offer that option).
Listing fee: None
Commission: Up to 48% (although many online reports say it’s usually around 19%–38%)
Note: AptDeco doesn’t have an app; to start listing items, visit the selling page on their website.
If you’re the crafty type, you can sell your creations on these online platforms:
Etsy is another very popular website, and one you’ve probably already heard of. It’s meant for buying and selling items you’ve made yourself, vintage items (i.e., that are 20+ years old), and craft supplies and tools. Only items in these categories are eligible for listing.
The products that people sell on the site include:
You can also sell digital products, which can be anything from custom website themes to sewing patterns to resume templates.
The largest market on Etsy consists of young women. There are other people on the site as well, of course, but it’s particularly good for selling products that are popular with that demographic.
Etsy allows you to offer various shipping options, including in-person pick-ups. You can also buy discounted shipping labels (as long as you accept Etsy Payments or PayPal as a payment method) to mail your items, or you can choose your own shipping services.
Listing fee: $0.20
Transaction fee: 6.5% (including shipping and gift wrapping)
Amazon Handmade is a marketplace created by the online shopping behemoth Amazon.com. It’s a place where artisans, artists, and crafters can sell their handmade products worldwide.
When you list your handmade products here, they’ll also appear on the main Amazon website, so you’ll be able to reach an extremely broad audience.
One downside of Amazon Handmade is that prospective sellers must apply for an account and then wait to find out whether they’ve been approved, which can take weeks. In general, Amazon’s sign-up process is more complicated than that of many of the other sites we’ve mentioned, which allow you to register fast and start listing products that same day.
You can ship your own Amazon Handmade products from anywhere you want, or you can use Amazon’s “FBA” (Fulfilled by Amazon) service. When you use this, you send your products to Amazon and they store and ship them for you. This allows Amazon Prime customers to get free shipping when they order your products, which can help you sell more items.
Handmade has no fees for creating a shop, listing products, or processing your payments. However, there’s a 15% “referral fee” (or commission) on everything you sell.
If you decide to use Amazon’s FBA service, there will be additional fees for storing and shipping your items.
If you’re interested in doing business online but you’d rather sell services than products, that’s also possible. Many websites and apps help freelancers find all kinds of gigs, from proofreading and graphic design to tutoring and counseling.
The sites that you can use to start freelancing include:
To use these sites, sign up, create a profile (if you have prior experience, this will involve uploading a portfolio of your work), and start applying for jobs.
If you’d rather do physical labor than white-collar freelance work, there are several other apps and platforms you can use to find gigs. You can find platforms for:
Note that, in contrast to the selling platforms and marketplaces we listed above, many of these gig apps will require you to undergo a background check before they’ll allow you to apply for work.
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