Helpsy Review: Deluxe & Designer Brands Women’s Clothes
I recently learned about Helpsy, a company that sells new and second-hand wholesale inventory for resellers. I don’t have much time to go thrift shopping, so I like it when I can order inventory online and have it shipped right to me.
After hearing about other resellers being happy with their Helpsy purchases, I decided to order a few boxes to try it out for myself. This is my review of the Helpsy Deluxe & Designer Brands Women’s Secondhand Wholesale Clothes - 20 pack.
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** On Poshmark, you can receive a free $10 bonus when you sign up with the code SFGIRL2015.
** On Mercari, you can get $10 when you sign up with the code JENMHM.
Update 1/1/24: I added information below about my sales after having items listed for sale for 3+ months.
What did I purchase from Helpsy?
I purchased three boxes (reviews linked below):
Deluxe & Designer Brands 20 pack - Women’s Clothes Secondhand Wholesale - 20 pieces
Tahari Women's Clothes Secondhand Wholesale - 40 pieces
Vintage Variety Wholesale Men's & Women's Clothes Secondhand Wholesale - 40 pieces
I purchased them all at once. The Deluxe & Designer Brands box and the Tahari box arrived at my doorstep 20 days later.
How much did the Deluxe & Designer Brands box cost?
The box normally costs $320 for 16 items. I purchased it during a 10% of site-wide sale so it was $288.
Shipping was free. There was no sales tax at the time I purchased it. Since then, I think Helpsy has started charging sales tax unless you show you have a seller’s permit.
$288/20 = $14.40 per item
Now normally I wouldn’t pay $16 or $14.40 for most items I find at the thrift store. I would if it’s an item that’s some combination of the following:
guaranteed to sell well
new with tag or looks new
by a popular brand
has high resale value
Why did I purchase the Deluxe & Designer Brands box?
I purchased the Deluxe & Designer Brand box for a few reasons:
I want to try Helpsy’s best boxes. I’ve been looking for an online source that I can count on to repeatedly send me profitable resellable clothes. If I was happy with this box, I would buy it regularly, even at the high price.
I want the largest profit margin per sale, which usually comes from selling higher-end clothing if you source it at a low enough cost.
I want to sell designer brands in my closet.
The box had good enough reviews that I was willing to take a chance on it.
I could accept it if I didn’t make my money back or make a profit from this box.
What did I receive in the Deluxe & Designer Brands box?
1 ) Gentle Fawn dress M - okay condition. Didn’t sell.
2) Ganni purple floral maxi dress 40 - damaged with large holes. Sold for $12 on eBay.
3) Tibi New York print dress - good condition. Didn’t sell.
4) Rebecca Taylor floral blouse M - good condition. Sold for $30 on Poshmark.
5) Veda lamb leather midi skirt S - light wear and creases. Didn’t sell.
6) Frame Le High Straight denim jeans 31 - okay condition, light wear. Sold for $25 on eBay.
7) Acne Studios black jeans 26 - okay condition, light wear. Sold for $13 on Poshmark.
8) Reiss blouse 6 - good condition, no flaws except the inventory sticker. Sold for $44 on Poshmark.
9) Spyder athletic shirt - men’s shirt, okay condition. Didn’t sell.
10) Zadig & Voltaire white sequin tank L - two faint dark colored marks across the front. Sold for $16 on Poshmark.
11) Zadig & Voltaire Mili Bis Death's-head hawkmoth tank top XS - no flaw, possibly new? Didn’t sell.
12) Flynn Skye blue romper - damaged, broken zipper. Trashed.
13) See by Chloe print dress 2 - good condition. Didn’t sell.
14) 360cashmere black sleeveless cashmere sweater S - moderate wear. Sold for $8.50 on eBay.
15) Diane von Furstenberg wrap sweater L (not pictured) - heavily worn. Trashed.
16) Calypso blue silk wrap dress XS - old, worn. Sold as part of a bundle for about $8 on Mercari.
17) Comptoir Des Cotonniers mixed media blouse S (not pictured) - mild wear. Didn’t sell.
18) Ultracor black star leggings S - damaged with 4 holes. Sold for $13 on eBay.
19) All Saints Bernt jumper/sweater 6 - good condition. Didn’t sell.
20) Nila Lotan East Hampton Tape Pant 8 - mild wear. Didn’t sell.
Overall I received
6 tops
5 dresses
4 jeans or pants
3 sweaters
1 skirt
1 romper
Things I liked about this box
1 | New and decent brands
I would consider several of the brands I received deluxe or designer. When I thrift shop, I like to pick up Reiss, See by Chloe, Diane von Furstenburg, Calypso, and All Saints if the items are in good condition.
I hadn’t heard of the brands Ganni, Ultracor, and Nila Lotan. I’m always interested in learning new brands that resell well.
These brands have good resale value from what I saw sold online. It’s unfortunate two of these items (the Ganni dress and Ultracor leggings) were heavily damaged.
2 | Decent condition
Most of the items I received are in resellable condition.
Every company that sells second-hand items will tell you to accept some items with flaws. Flaws are significant damage or issues with the items. Flaws could be large rips or holes and large stains.
Helpsy says that a 15% flaw rate is expected in its boxes. That’s 3 items in a 20-item box, which is exactly how many damaged items I received.
Then there’s expected wear on items. This is not included in the 15% flaw rate.
These could be pilling, missing buttons, pulls and minor runs on fabric, small holes at seams, dust marks, etc.
Some of the items I received have pilling or makeup stains. Some of the items need washing, steaming, or some general touching up.
I probably wouldn’t purchase several of the items I got if I were shopping on my own for things to resell. I don’t like to do too much cleaning and repair of things I buy to resell.
I pass on items with missing buttons, small holes, and even pilling because I don’t want to deal with them. That means I buy fewer items to resell, and I’m okay with that.
In this case, I knew what I was getting with this box, so I’m not surprised that I got items that have wear and need some attention.
3 | Decent styles
Most of the items I received were modern in style.
Most of the items were plain such as the All Saints gray ribbed sweater or the blue/gray blouse from Reiss. You won’t be outdated with solid color staples like those.
I could tell one or two of the items were older. They had an odor, or in the case of the Calypso dress, the silk was very wrinkled and had white streaks that sometimes happens to older silk.
4 | Box shipped to my door
The best thing about this box is that the items were shipped right to me, so I didn’t spend any time out of the house sourcing.
I don’t have much time to thrift shop anymore. I might go to the thrift store if I get off early from work one day, but most of the time I have other errands to run or I want to do something else with my time.
It would take me a long time to find 20 items that I want to sell by deluxe and designer brands.
Things I didn’t like about this box
1 | Damaged items
I know that damaged items are a part of purchasing second-hand items wholesale. It’s expected to receive some items with flaws. But receiving damaged items still stinks.
Three of the items (the Ganna dress, Flynn Skye romper, and Ultracor leggings) had obvious large or multiple holes. These items aren’t wearable without repair or repurposing.
The cost per item is not really what is stated. Here the cost per item was $16, but it’s actually more if you remove the damaged items.
2 | Sticker residue
Helpsy uses large stickers with barcodes to track its inventory. The stickers are placed anywhere inside an item.
The problem is these stickers leave residue on the clothes. Some of the clothes were resistant to residue so the stickers came off without issue.
For the other items, I used a steamer and hair dryer to attempt to remove some of the stickers, but the residue remained.
One was the Reiss silk blouse, where the sticker was on the inside front right under the collar. The residue causes the blouse to pucker and stick together, which is disappointing because the blouse has no other issues.
I didn’t want to try to treat it more like using vinegar on it because I might stain and ruin the delicate fabric.
The adhesive stuck hard to the Comptoir Des Cotonniers blouse, I guess because of the type of fabric. The sticker also left adhesive and removed black coloring on the lamb leather skirt.
I wish they used another method for inventory management such as mini stickers on the size tags or placed hang tags through the size tags or at least put the larger stickers on the inside bottom hem where sticker residue is least likely to be an issue.
Asking for a refund
I requested a refund for 4 of the items: the Spyder men’s shirt and the 3 items affected by inventory sticker adhesive.
I asked because I purchased women’s clothes, not men’s clothes, and Helpsy damaged the other items. The resale value of those items is less now because I have to list them with those flaws.
I emailed twice and eventually got ahold of someone by direct messaging on Instagram. They requested pictures of the items. I sent a video of the items because the issues were difficult to show in pictures.
I received a refund for the 3 items with sticker adhesive and eventually for the men’s shirt as well.
Is the Deluxe & Designer Brands box worth purchasing?
It’s too early for me to say if the Deluxe & Designer Brands box is worth purchasing, but I’m leaning toward no. I’m lukewarm about the items I received and cautiously optimistic about making a profit from them.
When I looked up the sold items from some of the brands, some of the items showed a high resale value of over $50 and even over $100.
It’s possible I will make a profit, but I won’t be surprised if I break even or even if I take a loss. I think these items will take time to sell and may go for less than the comps.
I’ll update this post in a few months to let you know how the items from this box sell and whether I decide to purchase another one or not.
As for other sellers who have resold well with Helpsy, I think they mostly purchased boxes with NWT/NWOT or returned items by nice brand names, whereas I purchased second-hand goods.
If I decide to shop from Helpsy again, I would lean toward purchasing those NWT/NWOT brand boxes or manifested boxes.
How to get Helpsy items cheaper
There are a few ways to purchase Helpsy cheaper than the listed prices on the website:
Check regularly for sales
Use a referral code for a discount on your first purchase
Work directly with a sales associate.
Sales associates can sometimes offer better prices on certain listings or items. I’d try contacting the company directly to talk to a sales associate and see what he/she can offer you, especially if you are already or are likely to become a repeat buyer.
Wrap Up
I was happy to learn about Helpsy, a new place to source inventory online. The Deluxe & Designer Brands box came with brands and items I wouldn’t have found thrift shopping locally on my own, but they had more issues than I had hoped.
Time will tell whether the box is profitable and worth ordering again. I’ll let you know in a few months, so stay tuned to see how these items sell!
Update 1/1/24:
How did this Helpsy box sell
As you can see in my listings above, many of the items did not sell and the ones that did mostly sold for fairly low prices. This is after listing and relisting items, sharing items, and sending offers to people who watched and liked items.
After having the items listed for 3+ months, I sold the items for approximately $169.50. That does not include seller fees and shipping fees where I covered some of it.
I estimate that I made about $100-$125 on this box after over 3 months of trying to sell it. That’s a far cry from the $288 I spent on the box.
I won’t make back the cost of the box much less make a profit from it. I don’t think this box was worth purchasing and wouldn’t recommend it to other resellers.
Have you tried Helpsy? What did you purchase? What did you think about the experience and the box you received?
