I make up to £12,000 a MONTH selling high street clothes on Vinted...and I'm sharing all my insider secrets so you can cash in too

There’s a lot of money to be made from the graveyard of unwanted clothes at the back of our wardrobes.

Jess Morton, from Selby in North Yorkshire, discovered this when in October 2023, she started selling clothes that no longer fitted after she lost weight.

The 37-year-old mum of three made £600 in one weekend, selling items across second-hand platforms Vinted, Depop and eBay.

She has been so successful that last summer she quit her job as a primary school teacher to focus on reselling vintage clothes full time. She’s moved beyond selling her own clothes and now orders vintage clothing from wholesalers who sell in bulk for cheap.

Last month alone, Jess says she made £12,000 from reselling clothes, mainly on Vinted.

Since May, she’s been one of the frontrunners in Money Mail’s Race to £10,000 challenge where five experts in their fields have gone head-to-head in a bid to turn £500 into £10,000. So far, Jess has made £437.50, placing her ahead of the pack, which included a shares investor, antiques dealer, crypto trader and sports bettor. Millions of people now sell their old clothes online but there are a number of unwritten insider rules that can boost your success – and make you a juicy profit.

Here, Jess shares the tricks that help her make thousands of pounds each month. So rifle through your wardrobe, create a Vinted account and follow her definitive guide to selling second-hand.

Images are the best way to showcase the item to potential buyers so after you’ve sorted out your wardrobe and chosen the items you want to sell, the first step to flogging them is taking great photographs.

Jess says: ‘The more pictures, the better. You need images of the front, back and labels, as some buyers are funny with cotton, for example.’ Include the material label but also one of the size and brand label too.

Jess likes to lay her items out flat on the kitchen floor to take the photographs. However, some sellers prefer to hang the items up so buyers can see how the fabric falls. There’s no right or wrong way, so experiment.

The background of the images, however, does matter. Jess says: ‘I would recommend a plain white wall or grey. We want the item to jump out at the buyer.

‘If you have access to natural light that is probably the best option. If you don’t, buy a ring light.’

These are circular lights made up of bright LED bulbs. You can pick one up on Amazon for £15.99.

For simple items such as a T-shirt, Jess uploads around six or seven images. For items such as jeans, she tends to use around 15 because she includes ones of tape measures next to the inside leg, waist, rise, thigh and hem.

If you choose to lay the clothes out on a surface, make sure they are flat so the buyer can see the item fully. The only exception is for fitted women’s clothes, Jess says, such as a tight dress. This is where you can move or cinch the fabric in at the waist to show how it would fit on the body. The practice has become so well-known it’s been coined the ‘Depop scrunch’, after the clothes selling platform.

However, make sure you only do this for genuinely fitted clothes so buyers don’t expect a tight top when it is actually a boxy shape.

When it comes to uploading your images and creating the listing, you’ll need to write a short description of the item. Write down all of the key details such as size, brand, material and colour.

‘Include anything on the front of the item, such as “blue graphic T-shirt”. Keep it short and sweet. It doesn’t need to be very detailed – a lot of people don’t read the description.’

While swathes of buyers may ignore the description entirely, the words you use will determine if it is shown to Vinted users.

You might be inclined to write ‘really gorgeous top’ in the description but you need to think about what a buyer might be typing into the search bar when they are trying to find a specific item.

Jess says: ‘Include as many words as you can think your buyer will be searching for.’

Think about the seasons too and what events the clothes might be useful for, and include these in the description. She adds: ‘I put summer holiday in the description, because people might be looking for their holiday clothes right now.’

Other key words that do really well include ‘Y2K’, a moniker used to describe clothes from the 2000s, and ‘cottagecore’ which describes vintage rural-inspired clothing.

Research the item you are selling online to see if there are any trendy keywords you can add to the description. Look at other listings online and see what words they use. It is the title of the piece that is the main driver of whether it is shown to users when they search for clothes – so be specific about the item.

One T-shirt that Jess is selling has the title ‘Harley Davidson sequin logo baby tee dark grey Y2K UK8-10’.

Also include any defects in the description. Include any stains, rips or signs of wear. It is also helpful to take a photo specifically of the area to be transparent with buyers. For example, a hoodie that Jess is selling has a small stain on one of the sleeves. She has included a photograph and added ‘light colour transfer on one sleeve as pictured’ to the description.

Alongside using trendy words in the description, Jess’s top tip is to include the exact measurements of the piece.

It may seem like including the size or photographing the label may be enough – but sizes can vary significantly between brands and different items, such as jeans and jackets.

Unlike when buying an item in a shop, buyers can’t simply return a top or pair of trousers if it doesn’t fit after buying from a second-hand platform. This means shoppers often want extra security, for example knowing the sizing will fit their measurements.

Writing the measurements in the description means keen prospective buyers won’t need to message you before clicking purchase – and it can add value. ‘It speeds up the sale,’ says Jess. ‘People are willing to accept a premium price because they have got the measurements and they know it will fit.’

It sounds like a given but it is vital to research the item you are selling before you list it. Not doing so could be an expensive mistake. Take a T-shirt that Jess has sold, which had a graphic of two dogs on the front.

Jess was planning to list it for £10 but she did a Google Image Search before she listed it. This is a tool that allows you to search the internet using a photo to find mentions of this or similar images.

She found out it was far more expensive than she thought and she went on to sell it for £65.

Look at other listings to see if there are similar items up for sale or use platforms, such as eBay, to see previously sold items.

Use the sale prices as a base for your own item. For example, Jess says graphic T-shirts tend to go for around £20 to £25.

It is a classic car-booting trick but when it comes to pricing your items, always choose a price that is higher than the amount you would be happy to part with the item for. This is because, like at in-person vintage sales, buyers on Vinted and other platforms such as Depop can try to haggle to get a discount.

They do this by making an offer to the seller and requesting to buy the clothes for a specific price. Shoppers can make an offer up to 40 pc below asking price on Vinted.

Below asking price offers are common practice on these platforms, so Jess advises to price your items in anticipation of this.

‘It depends on the item but I have sometimes priced clothes £10 higher than I would really want to get.’

For example, Jess recently sold a pair of jeans with butterflies embroidered on the back pockets. She listed them for £69.95 but accepted an offer of £60.

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Even if you take clear photos and use all the right language, sometimes clothes just don’t sell. But there are several techniques you can use to revive a listing that has gone stale.

When this happens, Jess says her secret weapon is making something known as ‘bundles’. This is grouping several items together to sell them in one go.

Jess says there are a few helpful rules to follow here, though. The first is to group items that are the same size together, for example a ‘size small bundle’.

Where she has clothes of different sizes, Jess creates a random assortment that she frames as a ‘reseller bundle’, appealing to other resellers who may want to flog the items.

‘They go for cheaper but these items haven’t sold so it’s still a win. People will be looking for a bargain,’ she says.

If you want to push a sale over the line, you can also send out offers to people who have ‘favourited’ the item. Sellers can save an item they like to view later, known as ‘favourite-ing’.

For example, you may be selling a shirt for £10 and 15 people have pressed a ‘heart’ on the listing. This means they have added your shirt to their ‘liked’ items.

Sellers can see who has done this. So, if your shirt isn’t selling, you can send out an offer to a few of the people who have ‘liked’ your shirt. This is typically a reduction of a few pounds – a cut from £10 to £8, perhaps. You can offer up to 40 pc off the original listing price.

Often, this will entice those who have been sitting on their hands into snapping up the deal. You can also reduce the price of the item on the listing, which will send out a notification to everyone who has favourited your item.

If you don’t want to reduce the price, you can take fresh photos. Maybe think about how to make the lighting even better, or place the item on a plain tablecloth instead of a patterned, busy print.

‘I took fresh photos with a pair of jeans that weren’t selling and they have since sold. It freshens it up,’ she says.

If you’re having success selling your own clothes but want to make more money, Jess suggests picking your own niche.

In her case, she specialises in Y2K jeans, flirty skirts, jean shorts, ladies’ high street fashion items from brands such as Zara, M&S and Monsoon and a few men’s hoodies. ‘Find something that you enjoy photographing and that sells well for you. It adds to the feeling that it’s not a job. I focused on jeans because I adore taking photographs of the sparkles on the back pocket.

‘When you’re getting started, try different things.

‘A lot of wholesalers will do a ‘reseller’ box that will have a mix of things that you can practice picturing and selling those.’