What's the best place to buy/sell 2nd hand baby items?

[dmitrisleonov]

My daughter outgrows stuff every day, so we decided to buy as much 2nd hand items as we can.  

I've bought and sold stuff on Craigslist before, but it's so clumsy and unorganized.  What's everyone using?  I've heard of threadUP.com, but it's only for clothes.  What about heavier items like cribs and car seats?

Thank you!

[GuavaGirl]

I do consignment for clothes and shoes.  It helps if you have a place with a decent selection of kids stuff.  It's pretty easy to drop off our used stuff and I like that I can usually find the clothes that i'm looking for without having to drive all over town (garage sales).  For higher priced, non-clothes items, I check craigslist.  I also check Ebay for good quality shoes.  My consignment store has shoes, but I usually can find the type/brand/size that I'm looking for at the time.  On Ebay, I just got my boy a pair of Keen sandals for the summer and I'll resale them for the same price, on ebay, when he grows out of them in a month.

[tbone_kneegrabber]

for buying clothes I just hit up our local thrift store.  They have 50% off days occasionally and I stock up then.  I love flea markets and garage sales because they are fun and I get a bunch of stuff that way.

craigslist is good for big stuff, beds, bikes, trikes etc

[dmitrisleonov]

Thank you GuavaGirl and tbone_kneegrabber!

This is very helpful, we haven't used consignments before.  Have you had much luck buying/selling large items on Craigslist?  I've found it difficult to know which seller is for real (a lot of flakes!)  It's also a pain to check for updates daily.  I wish there was a notification system of some kind, and a way to sort by children's age.  There has to be a better service out there, no?
 

[carmel23]

I think that craiglist is the best way to go for larger things, although the flakiness is no fun.  You just have to persevere.  I find it easier to put my phone number and have people call me to sell something-- it is easy to send a quick email and then flake out and not really want to buy the item, but to pick up the phone and call is a bigger commitment in my very humble opinion.  Plus then I can screen then based on their voice and see if I want them coming to my house, or if I want to pick another place to sell the item. 

Diaperswappers.com is a great place for selling cloth diapers and clothing.

I didn't care for threadup.  I don't like not being able to pick each item, and it is kind of expensive for second hand stuff.  I like being able to go in to a consignment store.  Many of them here in our city I have a lot of credit... so I can a child and shop, and if we find something, great, if not, well, no biggie. 

I guess Amazon might be an option now as well.  But I've never sold stuff on Amazon.  Ebay is great--I find that offering free shipping is helpful to attract attention since so many people pad the shipping like crazy.  Although it is good to put the shipping cost into the price (start a bit higher). Unless it is a really heavy thing, then I will have exact shipping. 

Offer to ship to Canada is good, too. 

I would never, personally, but a used car seat, but know people who do. 

[dmitrisleonov]

Thank you Carmel23.  I love the screening by voice idea.  You can totally tell :) I thought the concept of thredup is kind of weird too.  No need to bundle everything in a box.  What I like about Craigslist is that it's local, and we actually made a couple friends through it.  It's good to meet other parents in your area.

Someone should build a better Craigslist for parents - where you can see seller's reputation, sort by age, boy/girl, and in general make it easier for parents to buy/sell stuff!  For example, I bought a playpen on Craigslist last week, and my daughter will grow out of it in a couple of months, so I'll put it right back on Craigslist.  Would be nice to automate this...  What do you think?

I actually got a car seat from Craigslist, and was worried too, but I checked, and everything was intact, so I bought it :)

[carmel23]

Yeah, its funny because we've given car seats away via craigslist, and tons of stuff, but I get nervous about using one myself...

I do like the local factor of craigslist.  Another fun thing that is huge in our area is "swap and play" like a community where you leave stuff you no longer need, and people pick stuff up, and you of course can take as much stuff as you want.  There are a few here in our city. 

And look for "clothing swaps" or naked lady parties--where ladies will clean out their closets and bring stuff and everyone dumps their stuff out together and just trades.  It is really fun, and a nice way to meet other people.  I've gone to clothing swaps for all of my kids-- especially my youngest when he was born.  We were very, very broke and getting nice baby clothing for free was a relief! 

I guess the draw of craiglist is that there is one place where everything is... if it were just parenting stuff, it might not get enough traffic.  Do you have a freecycle list in your area?  That is another great resource. 

There is a trading post here at MDC, too, but you need to have like 1,000 posts before you have access.  I've gotten some great items here as well.

[dmitrisleonov]

Aaah, that's why I couldn't get access to the trading posts yet!   We don't have a freecycle here but  sounds like a great idea.

I hear you about the craigslist being a one stop shop for everything.  But I think that's also its problem.  I came across a great site that pulls apartment listings from craigslist (www.padmapper.com) and puts them on a map.  It would be nice to do something similar for parents to buy/sell bigger kids stuff, don't you think?