ThredUp Sellers Needled by Inventory Backlog

Sellers on fashion resale site ThredUp are reportedly fed up with long processing waits.

The online consignment shop has for years offered customers Clean Out Kits, which lets them send in old clothing and accessories for ThredUp to resell.

But a report Monday (April 3) by Modern Retail said the company has run into a backlog that stretches back to 2020. One Instagram comment said ThredUp is now processing Clean Out Kits from September 2022. Multiple sellers told the news outlet this process used to take about a month.

Others said they were so put off by the delays they won’t use the platform again, according to the report.

“It’s been eight months and you’re just now processing my bag and basically giving me $1 payout for everything…ummm no!” one user said on Instagram, per the report.

“[ThredUp] will not respond to messages I have sent regarding my kit that I sent in LAST AUGUST that they just processed but what’s listed isn’t even my items!” said another, the report stated.

PYMNTS has contacted ThredUp for comment but has not yet received a reply. The Modern Retail article included comments from Chris Homer, the company’s chief operating officer, who acknowledged the backlog.

He said the company recently opened a facility that will up its storage capacity nationwide from 6.5 million items to 9 million, according to the report.

“Customers who order a Clean Out Kit today can expect their bags to be processed within seven weeks, and we are pacing to hit a four-week backlog processing target by mid-summer,” Homer said, per the report.

ThredUp is dealing with this issue at a time when the resale industry has met its “mainstream moment.”

“The resale trend has been steadily growing for years, with preconceived notions about buying used first tempered with eBay’s early internet popularity,” PYMNTS wrote last month. “It continued as more targeted reCommerce retail sites, such as consignment platform ThredUP and peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace Poshmark, refined the digital resale sector.”

These and similar third-party sites had long dominated the market until recently, as branded resale has become more popular with higher-end retailers.

Meanwhile reselling clothes, accessories and other items has become a popular method for consumers to make some extra cash while cleaning out their closets in the process.

“New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report,” a PYMNTS and LendingClub collaboration, found that reselling clothing accounts for the top share of non-job supplemental income received by consumers living paycheck to paycheck without issues paying bills.

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