How I Sold Mother Jeans Online
Earlier this summer, I came across a huge lot of MOTHER jeans and pants while thrift shopping. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I guess you could say that hit the motherload!
I’m always on the lookout for top brands when I shop at thrift stores. Mother jeans had been on my BOLO (be on the lookout) list for a long time, but I’d never found a pair in good enough condition to resell until this past summer.
When I saw this lot of Mother jeans in the store, I jumped at the chance to purchase them because I knew they were money-makers. I also wanted to share my experience of selling them with you.
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Why is Mother popular?
Mother was founded in 2010 and has grown a loyal following of people who swear by their jeans. From reading reviews online and talking to my own buyers, I’ve learned that Mother jeans
Fit well with just the right amount of stretch and hold their shape
Make your behind and legs look great
Are comfortable for long wear
Can be dressed up or down
Come in lots of different styles and washes that appeal to many people
Why is Mother a good brand to resell?
Mother is on-trend right now. It’s in demand, which translates to quick sales. It’s expensive at retail too. Check out this recent search I did for Mother jeans at Nordstrom, which came back with prices often close to $200 or more a pair.
At those prices, many people are going to look elsewhere including online to see where they can get them cheaper. If you can acquire the jeans at low enough prices, you’ll make a profit reselling them.
How do I get Mother clothing to resell?
The most difficult part of the selling process is acquiring Mother clothing cheap enough to sell. If it were easy to obtain, everyone would be doing it. There are a few places I can think of:
Your own closet
From people you know like friends and other people who like premium denim
Curated second-hand clothing shops and thrift stores
Mother sample sales
You might be surprised to hear that Mother has sample sales. While researching Mother jeans, I found that there was one last June in the Los Angeles area. If you live in the LA area or visit there, keep an eye out online for word of sample sales.
What did I buy?
Some of the Mother jeans I sold on Poshmark
I ended up purchasing 22 pairs of jeans and pants for $288. They were between $8-20 each, averaging out to about $13 a pair. That’s not bad considering their prices at retail and at the sample sale (about $80 a pair).
These jeans and pants were a mix of samples and new clothing with tags like you’d find at retail. Sample items are those that were made at any point during the production process.
Companies go through rounds of design and production making items just right. Sample items may have different stitching, cut, and material than a final product. Samples may not have extra like lining or even sizes associated with them.
In the following days, I found more Mother clothing including shorts and skirts for sale, but I held off on buying much more for the sake of space and wanting to test the reselling waters with what I already had. I think jeans and pants sell better than shorts or skirts too, so I wanted to stick to those.
How did I organize the jeans and pants?
I created an inventory system to keep track of the jeans and pants as many of them were very similar. I didn’t want to package and ship the wrong one to someone, so I gave each one a number from 01 to 22. I wrote each number down on a small piece of paper and bagged it with each item.
Then I batched my work to make listing go faster. First I spend time researching the styles and their current and previous prices. Mother jeans have their style names on the inside of jeans. If they weren’t there, I searched their style number online to determine the style name.
Then I took measurements of each of the jeans and wrote them down on the small pieces of paper I gave them. I also checked for any flaws at that time and wrote them down as well.
The last thing I did was take pictures and write the descriptions using the information I already had written down. I listed most of the items to Poshmark, Mercari, and eBay at some point over the next few months.
How did I do selling?
I earned approximately $327 in total after the cost of the jeans and commission were taken out. That’s $14+ profit per pair of jeans. It took me about three months from August until November to sell all the jeans.
Through this selling process, I learned a few things that I mention below.
Notes on selling
1 | Mother jeans are profitable
As long as you source Mother jeans at a low enough price, they’re profitable to resell. I sold all the jeans and even some shorts within the three months for as much as $99 and as low as $10.
They were all profitable, even though most of these jeans were older styles.
I didn’t know that at first glance. It was only after I purchased them and did additional research at home that I found most of these jeans were from around 2016. I imagined that if I had the latest styles, they probably would have sold for more.
Nonetheless, I chose the jeans and pants that I knew were in popular styles:
frayed
distressed
high waisted
had a button versus zip fly
came in darker colors
I added a few other styles and colors to the mix on the hope that they would sell. Everything sold in the end.
2 | Sample and sizeless items can be difficult to sell
I love sample sales for sourcing items, but they come with their own difficulty when reselling. Most of the jeans I sold did not have size tags on them because they were samples.
This made them riskier to sell.
People had to rely on the measurements I gave and my guesstimate at the size.
I measured everything twice to provide the most accurate measurements I could. Even then, I stated that the measurements were approximate and I could not guarantee the size.
Many people won’t buy an item without knowing its real size. Many people won’t buy a sample item at all. To sell these samples, I had to price them lower than other Mother jeans where the size was known.
Selling sample sizeless jeans also increased the risk of buyer dissatisfaction, low ratings, and open cases or requests for returns. I had my share of those, although they ended favorably.
After this experience, I’m hesitant to sell sizeless or sample items again unless it’s a guaranteed sale with a sizeable profit.
3 | Weigh sales versus profit
I sold all the jeans within three months. By the end, I discounted the jeans fairly low to sell the last ones off. I think that if I had been willing to wait longer, I could have held out for better offers and sold them for more.
The tradeoff is having lots of jeans at home waiting to be sold. Storing 22 pairs of jeans in addition to other clothes isn’t easy when you live in a small place.
I wanted as quick a turnaround as possible.
That made me more active about selling them and more willing to take lower offers. I shared my items frequently on Poshmark, lowered their prices every 1-2 weeks, and relisted them on occasion on Poshmark and Mercari to get them seen.
I’m sold on selling Mother jeans. It’s not every day that I come across a pair of them, much less one that’s in style and in great condition. But I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more of these jeans and encourage you to look for them too.
Do you wear like to wear Mother jeans? What has your experience been selling them?
