Shopaholic? I like Twice and so should you

I don't know about you, but I have a love/hate relationship with clothes. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to shop, but I never quite know what to splurge on versus where to take advantage of deals. And even though I'm almost 30, I'm still not quite sure what my personal style is or how to dress my body. These things ultimately result in me a) buying something because it's trendy and I want to look cool, b) buying something because I'm trying to figure out if I'm a prep/skater/punk/hipster/southern belle this month or c) because it's an amazing brand and it's on sale. Nine times out of ten these items a) never get worn, b) get worn once and then I feel like a fool in it or c) fall out of fashion as quickly as they came into fashion. Now, if I were a millionaire, maybe these things wouldn't be troubling, but I'm most definitely on a budget and therefore feel guilty every time an item with a tag hangs in my closet unworn or when I put on a dress that looked great in the store, but shows all my lumps and bumps in my mirror at home. Up until now I've been salvaging what I can by selling on eBay, and then donating the rest, but both of those things take up time that I don't always have.

About a month ago, I saw an ad for a company called Twice in my Facebook News Feed. Now before I go any further, NO this company isn't paying me to write this post. Believe it or not, some of us just like helping spread the word about good products and services to others. So I see this ad and it's got a video, which I watch and it shows a girl sorting through her closet and magically sending off the items she doesn't wear any longer for cash. Huh, I think, and then I click.

If you haven't heard of this company yet, it's basically an online consignment shop, except you get paid for your items up front. Like most re-sellers, they only take clothes that are in great, like-new condition, and they don't pay you a ton for each item (the price they pay depends on the brand, of course, as well as seasonality and demand), but they do make the process of turning your unloved wardrobe pieces into cash really easy. All you have to do is:

1. Request a bag. They'll send you a free bag in the mail that has pre-paid postage, so you're not laying out any costs. You can stuff that bag with as many items as you can (on average about 15-20 fit) and just send it off with the regular mail. And you can request as many bags as you want, so if you have lots of stuff, request a couple!
2. Wait for an offer. They examine your clothes, determine what they are interested in buying and publish an offer to you via email within about a week of receiving your bag. Any items that they can't buy, they offer to donate on your behalf (and you can even request a donation receipt for tax purposes if you'd like or if you're nervous they aren't really donating them).
3. Decide whether to accept/reject. You can choose to accept your cash offer, and in a touch of a button, have it dispersed to your PayPal account. You can also choose to accept a store credit offer, which will be 25% higher than your cash offer. OR if you decide that the offer is too low, you can pay a flat fee of $5 and they will send your entire bag of clothes back to you.

The site publishes a list of around 200 brands that they accept, so it's wise for you to check that list before sending off your stuff. For my first bag, I shipped 17 items off (mostly brands like Limited, Express and INC) and Twice bought all but three of them and offered me $46 -- score! I didn't have to spend time individually listing items on eBay, I didn't have to incur ANY fees and I didn't even need to make a trip to the Goodwill.

Along the way, I had a few questions, so I emailed their Customer Service inbox and low and behold a REAL human named Lauren actually responded to me, and did so quickly and with helpful details. No form responses or robots here, but a real person with a personality who actually seemed like she cared. I was so impressed with the ease and simplicity of the experience, along with the number of items that they took and how much they offered me, that I just requested my second bag yesterday. 

Ultimately, I should probably try to fix the root of the problem and just stop buying clothes that I won't get proper use out of, but until that happens, Twice is a great way to make back some cash from things that just don't suit me anymore.

If you'd like to check out Twice and sign up, I'm going to shamelessly include a referral link here. Yes, I will get a $10 store credit if you sign up with my link, but you will too (and this is the standard for all referrals, nothing special for me)! And this way if you see a cute item that you'd like to purchase instead of sending them a bag of clothes to sell, you'll get a nice little discount. 

If you use Twice and have a good experience (or a bad one!) I'd love to hear about it in the comments below. Have fun selling and shopping!