Buy a bargain, or sell to Refash or ebay: variety, bundle, lot, mystery (Post 375b)

How To Buy From Refash

 I came across a Refash an open top, walk in 'kiosk' (I can't think what else to call it) at Bishan. I bought two items, from well-known brands, Zalora and Love Bonita. That was not chance. 

How to Buy From Rehash

The Seller - Refash

The seller is solely for second-hand clothes. They have 12 branches in Singapore.

The Bishan branch is on the balcony overlooking the atrium in Junction 8, a multi-storey mall above Bishan MRT underground railway station. Bishan is a busy junction where two train lines meet. The blue downtown line, and the yellow Circle line.

How to Sell to Rehash

You can earn from 50 cents to 5 dollars by selling a garment to them. Minimum ten garments. Within 14 days they contact you with the price (which varies according to fabric and popularity). (You don't have to wait for the item to be sold.)

If you want to sell second-hand items to them, you can read their information page for sellers. They look for brand names. The clothes come in two price bands, standard and premium. The same applies to the price you get when selling to them.

You might get more selling through ebay. On ebay you can set the time you are prepared to wait and if the item does not sell you just re-list. 

My Refash purchases:

I saw one seller said an item was from a Grab Bag, which was a new term for me. 

I looked it up. I was referred to Carousell, which is another second hand clothes system. On Carousesl many people offer to meet you at a mall or MRT station near where they live to save postage. That is fine if you have the time and energy to travel. In theory you could stay without the station and not exit to save money. Or they could enter and pay just the small minimum charge. 

Others I saw charged $1.50 to post a cotton pink shirt with long sleeves and two pockets at $7. Instead of me or my family travelling all the way to Tampines from the other side of Singapore.

The system seems to be that what you get is a mystery.

Ebay - Bundle

On ebay the term for multiple items is bundle. You usually see the three to ten items laid out on the floor so you know exactly what you are buying, the colours fabrics and sizes. 

When you have several identical items, this is called a lot. (A bit like the term wholesale, where you get discounts if you buy 10 items from a wholesaler to sell in a retail shop. I often see listings of clothes and other items where you get discounts if you buy two or more. If you want to wash one and wear one, identical items such as a school uniform, work uniform, restaurant uniform, that works. However, I mostly want more than one item in assorted colours so that I can ring the changes. 

Uniform Or New Clothes Every Day?

When I wore a black skirt and a white blouse every day as an English teacher in Singapore, even though I changed the blouse every day,  this was not popular with the pupils.

I thought it was more professional to not be distracting. I thought I was recognizable by sticking to a standard colour scheme. A glance through the door would tell a latecomer that they were in the right room. 

Dressing in a quasi-uniform was quick for me every day to be on time. No messing about trying to match up separates.

However, the head of the school called me in. She said: "The pupils have complained you look the same every day which is boring. They want you to wear brighter colours, and changing colours every day. For example, red on Monday, blue on Tuesday, purple on Wednesday, pink on Thursday, green on Friday, multi-colour on Saturday."

Variety is the spice of life. So said William Cowper in his poem, The Task, way back in 1785, still quoted more than two hundred years later.

Useful Websites

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-to-create-an-eBay-bundle-listing/td-p/27184271

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ebay-hacks-2nd/059610068X/ch04s04.html