This app is said to provide you with a “simple way to buy and sell designer fashion.” But can you really make money with the Tradesy App?
This is what I wanted to discover as I set out to figure out how to use it. I’m not much of a designer clothes-type of person. To be honest, I’m kind of a clothing minimalist.
I own like 5 shirts and two pairs of jeans. But I do know that there are a lot of people out there who do wear fashionable and designer-brand clothing—and I also know that it isn’t cheap to buy it.
So an app that would let you buy and sell it second-hand sounds like it could be quite useful. If you are interested in fashion, then I highly recommend you see how much fashion bloggers are making!
Making Money With The Tradesy App
Here’s the basic information for the app from the Google Play Store.
It has about 100,000 downloads, has a 4.2 star rating, and has been reviewed by just over 1,000 people. That’s a pretty big audience, and that is a pretty good rating—so I was feeling pretty optimistic about it at this point.
But you can only learn so much about an app by hanging around outside. I wanted to get into it and see what it had to offer, so that’s what I did next.
Opening Up The Tradesy App For The First Time
Opening up Tradesy for the first time revealed this screen.
I just skipped for the time being, and went ahead and entered the app. Here is the next page I was greeted with.
As you can see, there were two basic screens—the home screen, and the departments screen. The home screen had some sliding screens that basically advertised different sales, collections, and types of clothing—and the department section let you shop for items by category.
You could browse by clothing, bags, shoes, accessories, and weddings… but also by a number of other criteria.
You could also shop by editor’s picks… which was pretty cool.
I went into the clothing section, and was greeted with a wide range of options within this category.
I chose Activewear, and proceeded to look at how the listings were set up.
Browsing Actual Listings In The Tradesy App
This is what the actual listings looked like in Tradesy.
It was very much like a storefront, and I was impressed by the quality of the photography. These images did not look amateur at all, so at this point, I kind of figured that they were obtained by scanning the bar-code on the item, or through some other means… I wasn’t quite sure.
Once I got into one of the listings, however, I realized that there were other photos as well… and that some of them seemed to be more amateur.
Here is the type of information that was provided when I looked at the listing.
So, all in all, I was pretty impressed by this part of the app. Shopping on Tradesy would be a very easy and enjoyable experience… but I was also really interested in the other side of the app.
After all, to make money on it, you would need to be able to sell your fashion/designer clothing, so how difficult was it to do that on Tradesy, and how did it work?
These were my next questions, and the next part of the process was to find answers for them.
Figuring Out How To Sell Things On Tradesy
To figure this out, I went back to the first page and created an account. I did this using my Facebook login, which was super easy.
Next, I clicked on the tag icon at the top of the main app screen, and it brought me to this page.
I clicked on one of the options, and was taken to a list of sub-categories. Then, when I chose one of those, I was taken to a list of more sub-sub-categories.
After choosing the categories, I was taken to this screen—which was where I’m supposed to take photos of whatever I’m selling.
After taking the pictures, I was taken to a screen where I could complete my listing. The first part of this screen was pretty much all about ordering the photos and getting them laid out right—but when I scrolled down, I found a wealth of other information that needed to be filled out to complete the listing.
I also realized that all of the photography was, indeed, seemingly amateur—that, or it was sourced from somewhere professional because there really wasn’t an option here to find photos of the products based on any specific information.
It looked like the only photos I could use were photos that I either found or took myself. After completing all of this, I could view a sample listing—and if I liked it, I could publish it… and that was that.
But now I was curious about what fees the app charged on sales, so I decided to look into the money aspect of the app at this point.
How Much Money Can You Really Make On Tradesy?
To figure this out, the first place I visited was the ‘Help And Support’ section of the site… which actually seemed quite helpful (They aren’t always helpful. You would be surprised). It was here that I found out that Tradesy basically makes their money by taking a commission on each sale.
They take a flat $7.50 for items sold for less than $50, or they charge a 14.9% commission on items that cost more than this.
This seemed like a pretty hefty commission, to be honest—but then again, this is a pretty specialized app. It caters exclusively to women who are looking for designer clothing, so you can tap right into the ideal market just by using it. It is super-focused on one specific niche, so that gives it an upside.
It is much more expensive to use than, say, Ebay—but it also seems to have very relevant mobile traffic from shoppers who are looking for the exact types of items that you would be selling.
The question is, does the site give you enough benefits for the extra money?
Obviously, the amount of money that you could possibly earn on Tradesy is directly related to the items that you have to sell.
They have to be fashion/designer items to be sold on the app, and you have to be at least reasonably good at taking photos of the products if you want them to compete, as the photography on the site is actually impressively good.
Shipping is paid by the buyer, and is added to the overall price of the product—so there is no extra shipping cost. This means that the only thing you need to pay to use the app is the fee—which is, admittedly, a bit high.
Are The Higher Fees On Tradesy Worth It?
I was a bit torn about this. On one hand, this is a really nice app. It works well, it’s easy to use, it offers a lot of awesome features, and it seems quite safe and legitimate.
But, in exchange for those things, you also need to pay a higher price—as the fees are quite a bit higher here than they are on other similar sites.
Since this is an app designed for fashion and designer/type clothing, it is understandable that some of the items may be pricier—and that makes the fees seem even higher, because 14.9% skimmed right off of the top is quite a big bit.
But, with that being said, you would probably fair quite well if you used this app and did it semi-professionally, with quality photos and accurate item information.
As long as you make the listing attractive and easy to understand, you would likely sell what you wanted to sell. It has quite a large user base, and there seem to be a lot of items for sale on it—so that’s a good thing.
Personally, if I were going to be selling women’s designer clothing out of my closet, I would use it. Or at least, I would try it. Seeing as how this is not my forte, I will probably not be keeping it on my phone—but it is a good idea (if an expensive one for the seller).
I give this app two thumbs up… though it might not work or be useful for everyone, for obvious reasons.
Still, not a bad little marketplace, especially if you’re into designer clothing.
Thankfully, Tradesy isn’t the only app that focuses on clothing. Poshmark is another option to consider and this app has some unusual approaches that may work well. You can check out Vinted too.
Our Final Thoughts About The Tradesy App
Should you download it and use it on your phone?
The Tradesy App Review
Honestly, when you calculate the time spent trying to make money with apps, it rarely works out to be more than a few dollars per hour. Most of the time, you’ll only make a few dollars per month. Personally, I think my time is worth more than that!
I learned how to make my own affiliate website and earn money through online advertising. Now I do it full time, and I can show you the exact steps I took to do it.
The same training I used is currently open to new members. My advice is to invest your time into build a long term online business with income you can rely on, rather than playing with mobile apps in your free time.
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