Being someone who is obsessed with clothes and simultaneously a lowkey hoarder are two things that don’t mesh well. I have the hardest time getting rid of my old clothes, especially the ones where I dropped $60 of my middle school allowance to buy ugly bootcut yoga pants that I never wore. Moral of the story — my closet is bursting at the seam with clothes I don’t wear anymore. I first turned to the typical used clothing site options: Depop, Poshmark, Mercari, the list goes on. After little to no success, and websites taking deep cuts into sales on top of shipping fees, I turned to Instagram closet accounts.
I have a few friends in my town who started Instagram shops, and they were all selling their clothes like crazy. After seeing how successful our friends had been, my best friends and I created a joint clothing account to see if we could get rid of our unwanted items. After three months of posting clothes and running our small business, I was able to rack in about $300, which is $300 more than I had before. I was so impressed with not only how successful the shop was, but how amazing and kind the community of other girls in our town were. So if you are like me and want an easy way to sustainably clear your closet while making a profit, follow these tips:
#1: Create a sick username
Spend hours, days, weeks, or as long as it takes to come up with the sickest username of all time. You can make it simple, like @(insert your name here)_closet, or you can get more creative, but have fun with it.
#2: Create a story highlight for your policy
Having a policy is super important. You are technically creating a small business, so you want to be transparent about your policies and avoid any miscommunication. Be sure to include drop off/pick up policy, delivery fee cost, radius of operation, refund policy, price negotiability, Venmo handles, and anything else you can think of.
#3: Follow other pages in your area
To get a following, you have to follow others. Go down the rabbit hole of other Insta sellers in your area and follow as many accounts as you can. Once you get a hefty following, you can do giveaways and shoutouts to gain larger audiences.
#4: Uniformity in posts
When you are posting your clothes, you want to have a clean feed that looks professional and gives your account more credibility. When you are taking pictures of or wearing your clothes, try to use the same location and have good lighting.
#5: Post sales to your story
When you make a sale, add the item to your story. It shows your followers that your items go fast and reminds them to click on your account if they haven’t checked it in a while.
#6: Packaging
The packaging and presentation of your product is just as important as the product itself. Use a cute bag, maybe add some tissue paper, and always write a personalized thank-you note to show them you care!
Once you do all these steps, you should be on your way to becoming a small business owner and joining the beautiful community that is Instagram closet accounts.