Monday, May 13, 2019

Thredup! To Canada? Duties, Taxes & Everything a Canadian Needs to Know.

I have thought long and hard about how I wanted to write this post. And while breaking down the positives and negatives seems logical, I feel like this leans very negative. So I will start by saying I really like Thredup and will order from them again. There are a lot of issues I have with the site. But please do not take that for this being a negative review. I will break this guide so to speak in to the following catagories; shopping the site, shipping options, customs, duty and taxes, and finally if I think the items received matched descriptions as well as condition.

SHOPPING THE SITE

So Thredup has A TON of selection. Which is great. But when I say a ton, I really mean it. You can be sucked in to the vortex of shopping their site for hours. For me this is great. But it can be overwhelming to many.

PROS:

  1. As stated, very large selection
  2. The ability to favourite or like the items you are interested in to be saved. This is super helpful when you are looking through pages and pages of items.
  3. Ability to both save your favourite searches, as well as save your sizes to your profile. If you save your sizes to your profile, it will automatically show only the sizes that "fit you".
  4. You can keep something in your shopping cart for up to 24 hours (12 hours until you make your first purchase, but after that, 24 hours!). Its a virtual hold of sorts that ensures no one buys it out from under you while deciding. 
CONS

  1. The search options are very limited. You can search by blouse or button up tops within the blouses, but things that come up do not always make sense and things that should come up are often excluded. Multiple ballgown skirts, cocktail dresses and an amazing sequin pencil skirt I fell in love with (and bought) all come up listed as casual??? Aside from very illogical and often simply wrong labeling, its (at least for me) super frustrating that I cant search for long sleeves separately, or short sleeves.
  2. No measurements given. No skirt has a waist size. It has a length (usually), though of the 2 dresses I purchased, one was 2 inches shorter than listed. 2 inches can make a BIG difference if you are like me and do not wear things that go above the knee. Also, of the 6 shirts I bought, 3 had incorrect sizing. Which only gives one measurement: the bust.
     
  3. Very limited levels or options supplied for condition. They give new with tags (great! sign me up!!), This item is in excellent condition. You might mistake it for brand new! (also great. No false advertisement in that department yet), This item is gently used with minor signs of wear (minor{either fading, or piling}) and the last option is that the item is majorly discounted due to a stain, or piling, or wear, etc.

    The truth is my experience is that the few items I got that say gently worn with minor fading (only times I have ever bought the gently  used is minor fading. Wont buy piling, etc.) is that the fading was 100% not noticeable and could have easily been marked Excellent Condition.
  4. The pricing is very often VERY OFF. Take this dress for example. Its not a Sachin + Babi, its a Sachin + Babi for Anthropologie and the retail on it was only $98. 

 
Now that being said, I actually really like Thredup. I say that with 100% sincerity. I have gotten some AMAZING deals. Take this Noir Sachin & Babi Hanabi skirt for example. The retail on it was $595. I managed to score this piece for just under $80. 


This $248 silk Trina Turk blouse I managed to grab for just $24.50! The Club Monaco skirt I paired it with was new with the $198 price tag still attached and I managed to grab it for $23.99. 


This Maeve Garden Glitz solid sequin skirt also had its $148 price tag still attached and was mine for the price of $21.99. 


And while used shoes creep me out (just a personal thing, no judgement on those who score amazing used shoe deals), if they are brand new and never worn you can sign me up ANY day. And these Loeffler Randall espadrilles for $33.15 were fantastic! Far better than the original $195 pricetag still attached to the sole of the shoe. 


But I guess if I were to discuss the best find, it would not be the most expensive piece I got for best price, but this. My winter jacket I wore literally all winter. And am still wearing today because apparently winter will never end here in Toronto this season. The retail on it is around the $400 price. Its DKNY and for only $34.99 it was my go to winter coat. Fully lined, in pristine condition, and while the picture is terrible, its a gorgeous green colour that gets me regularly stopped on the streets and asked about it. 



Now the question I desperately wanted to know before ordering the first time was the question we Canadians ALWAYS ask ourselves. "Will I get hit with duty and customs?" The answer is yes. And the answer is no. If your bill stays under the $35 mark before shipping you are 100% good to go and no duties. But if after converted to Canadian funds the total tops the $50 mark, assume yes. Not terrible though. I have an order that will be arriving today, that before shipping was $198 (don't worry, its more than 10 pieces with a retail price of over $2200) and the customs fees were $36.00. 

I have had parcels shipped both FEDEX and the standard USPS. The faster shipping is usually the cheaper option once you get more than 4 or 5 pieces, so always try to change the shipping to see if your total goes down. The duties owed have been the same with both methods and having gotten about 9 orders now, I can safely say the method makes no difference, though FEDEX is for sure the more reliable and faster option. So yes, you will get hit with duties most likely. But yes, its absolutely worth it still and I still highly recommend it. 

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