Should I consign my clothes or sell them to a thrift store?
Consign if you have a handful of premium, in-season, near-new brand-name pieces and can wait months for payment. Sell to a thrift store if you have volume, mixed quality, and want cash the same day. That is the whole decision in one sentence, and most people already know which side they are on before they finish reading it. The confusion usually comes from a mismatch of expectations: people bring three garbage bags of ordinary clothing to a consignment boutique expecting a cheque, and leave with two bags rejected and one item on the floor at 50% commission that may or may not sell by October. Consignment is a curation business. The store is renting you floor space in exchange for a share of a sale that has not happened yet. That model only works for them if the item is desirable enough to move at a decent price, so they filter hard on brand, age, season, and condition. Selling outright to a thrift store is a wholesale transaction. Raba Thrift Store buys the lot, takes on the risk that some of it never sells, and pays you on the spot for the whole bag rather than per item that eventually finds a buyer. The practical test: count your items and look at the labels. If you have fewer than about ten pieces and they are recognisable contemporary or designer brands bought in the last two or three years, consignment is genuinely your best shot at the highest number. If you have more than a couple of bags, or the labels are ordinary mall and box-store brands, or you are moving house on Saturday, consignment will not take most of it and you are better served by an outright sale or a donation. Raba Thrift Store at 46191 Yale Rd is built for that second case — volume, mixed quality, and a deadline.
How does clothing consignment actually work in BC?
BC consignment stores take your items on a revenue split, sell them over a set season, and pay you only after each piece sells. Published consignor shares in BC commonly range from about 40% to 80%, depending on the item's selling price. Two real BC examples make this concrete. Turnabout Luxury Resale, which operates multiple locations across Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria, publishes a consignor share of 40–80% depending on the price of the item, and also offers an immediate buyout option at 25–60% with a minimum payout of C$300. Turnabout requires consignors to earn a minimum of C$500 per season to stay on consignment, accepts drop-offs Tuesday to Saturday without an appointment, and states that items must be in like-new condition with no stains, wear or pilling, and generally no more than three years old. Their site is explicit that they do not accept mass-market labels like Gap, H&M or Reitmans. Closer to home, Emerson Park Resale in Chilliwack's District 1881 publishes consignment commissions from 40% to 70%, or cash buyouts at 30% to 40%. They ask for current, on-trend, seasonal pieces in like-new condition, preferably purchased within the last two years, and focus on labels like Aritzia, Lululemon, Free People and designer names. No appointment is necessary and their stated hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm. Read those terms carefully and the trade-off becomes obvious. The ceiling is high — 70% of a well-priced Aritzia coat is real money, far more than any outright buyer will hand you. But three things are true at the same time: most of what an ordinary closet contains will be rejected at the counter, you do not get paid until a stranger buys the item, and there is usually a seasonal cut-off after which unsold pieces come back to you or get donated. If you are consigning, plan on a multi-month horizon and a second trip to collect what did not sell. Raba Thrift Store is not a consignment shop and does not compete on that ceiling — if your pieces genuinely clear a consignment store's bar, take them there first.
How much do you actually make selling used clothes online?
Selling online yourself returns the most money per item and costs the most time. Expect to lose roughly 10% to 20% of each sale to platform fees, plus shipping, plus an hour or more of your own labour per listing. On Poshmark Canada, the platform provides a prepaid Canada Post label and states on its own blog that it works with Canada Post to offer C$12.49 shipping on all packages under 2.5 kg, with an upgrade fee for heavier parcels. Poshmark's Canadian seller commission is widely reported as a flat fee on small sales and 20% on sales above roughly C$20 — check the current rate in the app before you list, since these change. On eBay Canada, the final value fee for most categories including clothing is commonly reported at around 13.6% of the total the buyer pays — item price plus shipping plus tax — with a small per-order fee on top. Confirm the current schedule on eBay's own fees page before you commit, as category rates vary. Facebook Marketplace is the outlier: local pickup sales carry no platform fee at all. You list free, the buyer meets you, you get paid directly. The cost is not money, it is friction — no-shows, lowball messages, people who say they are on their way and are not, and no buyer protection if something goes wrong. For furniture and bulky items in Chilliwack, Marketplace is genuinely excellent. For a bag of ordinary tops worth a few dollars each, the hourly rate is brutal. One fact worth knowing before you go looking: Vinted, the European resale app, launched in Canada in 2021 but closed its Canadian platform on February 12, 2024. It is not an option here. The honest math on online selling is that it wins decisively on a per-item basis and loses decisively on volume. Photographing, measuring, writing, listing, answering questions, packing and shipping one garment takes most people 30 to 60 minutes. Do that forty times and you have spent a working week. Raba Thrift Store exists for the part of your pile where that arithmetic does not work.
What happens when you sell clothes to a thrift store like Raba?
Raba Thrift Store buys used clothing outright for cash, paid by weight. The rate depends on quality, so we cannot quote a number before we see the items. Walk in during open hours — no appointment needed. Here is exactly how it goes. You bring your bags or boxes to 46191 Yale Rd in Chilliwack. Park out front or around back — either entrance works, and staff will help you unload. Someone looks through what you have brought, right there while you wait. Because we pay by weight and the rate moves with condition and quality, there is no fixed number to publish and no way to quote you over the phone; a bag of clean, wearable, in-demand clothing and a bag of worn-out basics are not the same transaction, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. Really good pieces get treated differently. Brand-name, designer or genuinely like-new items can be bought per piece rather than by weight, negotiated on condition. If you have a few strong pieces mixed into a larger load, point them out — they are worth pulling aside rather than burying in the weight. The things Raba Thrift Store is actually good at are speed and volume. There is no minimum, no appointment, no season, no waiting for a buyer, and no return trip to collect rejects. You walk in with a car full and walk out with cash. We are open 10 AM to 7 PM, seven days a week, so this works around a real schedule. What you give up is the ceiling. An outright buyer cannot pay you what a consignment boutique's 70% share on a well-priced designer coat would eventually pay, because we are taking on all the risk that the item never sells and all the cost of sorting, cleaning, pricing and displaying it. That is the trade. If one specific piece is genuinely valuable and you have patience, consign it or list it yourself. Bring us the other thirty things.
Is it worth donating clothes instead, and can I get a tax receipt?
Donating is the fastest option and pays nothing in cash. Raba Thrift Store is a for-profit business, not a registered charity, so we cannot issue charitable tax receipts — what donors get instead is a 30% off coupon and a genuinely easy drop-off. That needs saying plainly because a lot of people assume every thrift store is a charity. Raba Thrift Store is for-profit. We support Archway Community Services and Ruth & Naomi's Mission, and both are real registered Canadian charities doing real work in the Fraser Valley — Archway has operated since 1969 and runs over 90 programs across Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission and Langley, and Ruth & Naomi's Mission in Chilliwack runs shelter, housing and addiction recovery services with a CRA charitable registration number. But supporting them does not make Raba a charity, and we will not hand you a receipt we are not entitled to issue. If a tax receipt is what you actually want, the honest answer is to go to a registered charity — and to check the fine print first, because most charity thrift operations do not issue receipts for ordinary clothing. The Salvation Army's Canadian thrift store policy, for example, states that donations may qualify for a charitable tax receipt only when the combined fair market value is $500 or more, that not all donations automatically qualify, and that a third-party appraisal may be required for certain items. In practice that means a bag of used shirts will not generate a receipt anywhere. In Chilliwack, Thrifty Boutique at 101-7955 Evans Road supports the Chilliwack Hospice Society and takes donation drop-offs Monday to Saturday, 10:00am to 3:00pm — worth a call if you want your items funding local hospice and grief support. What donating to Raba Thrift Store does get you: a 30% off coupon to use in store, drop-off seven days a week from 10 AM to 7 PM, free pickup if you cannot get here, and — the underrated one — we take a lot of things charity shops routinely turn away. If your goal is simply for the stuff to be gone today and to be useful to someone, that is a fair deal, and we would rather you understood it clearly than be surprised at the counter.
Effort vs payout vs speed: how the four options really compare
Ranked by money, it is online selling, then consignment, then outright sale, then donation. Ranked by speed and effort, that order reverses almost exactly. There is no option that wins both. Selling online yourself: highest payout, highest effort, slowest per item. You keep everything except platform fees of roughly 10–20% and shipping. You control pricing and can hold out for the right buyer. You also do all the photography, listing, messaging, packing and shipping, and you absorb the no-shows and the returns. Realistic timeline: days to months per item, and weeks of your evenings for a full closet. Best hourly rate only on genuinely valuable pieces. Consignment: high payout ceiling on the right pieces, low effort after drop-off, slow and uncertain. Published BC consignor shares run roughly 40–80%. You do almost nothing after the counter — but most of what you bring gets rejected on the spot, you are paid only when an item sells, and the season eventually ends with a decision about the unsold remainder. Realistic timeline: weeks to a full season. Selling outright to a thrift store: moderate payout, minimal effort, immediate. Raba Thrift Store pays cash by weight, with strong individual pieces bought per piece. You are paid before you leave. Nothing comes home with you. Realistic timeline: the length of one visit. This is the only option that scales cleanly to volume. Donating: no payout, near-zero effort, instant. Drop the bags, take the 30% coupon, done. Or book a free pickup and do not even leave the house. Realistic timeline: minutes. The useful way to read that list is per hour, not per item. A designer handbag is worth the two hours a good online listing takes. Eleven pairs of jeans are not. Most people's closets contain both, which is why the smartest approach is usually to split the pile rather than to pick one channel for all of it.
Which should I pick? A decision framework
Pick consignment for a few premium in-season pieces you can wait on. Pick online for individually valuable items you enjoy listing. Pick an outright sale to Raba Thrift Store for volume and speed. Pick donation when the money does not matter. Pick consignment if: you have roughly ten items or fewer, the labels are contemporary or designer, the pieces were bought in the last two or three years, they are in like-new condition with no stains or pilling, they are right for the current season, and you are genuinely fine waiting weeks or months and making a return trip for whatever does not sell. Check the store's minimum before you go — some require a certain earnings threshold per season to keep you on the books. Pick selling online yourself if: individual items are worth enough to justify 30 to 60 minutes each, you already have an account and a rhythm, you are comfortable with shipping and buyer messages, and you would rather have the higher number than the free evening. For bulky furniture in Chilliwack, local-pickup Facebook Marketplace is especially strong because there is no platform fee and no shipping problem to solve. Pick selling outright to Raba Thrift Store if: you have more than a bag or two, the quality is mixed, you want a single cash transaction today, you are moving or downsizing on a deadline, or you have already been turned away by a consignment shop for brand or season reasons. Walk in at 46191 Yale Rd, Chilliwack, any day between 10 AM and 7 PM — no appointment, no minimum. Pick donating if: the items are wearable but not worth much individually, you value the ten minutes more than the dollars, or you simply want the space back. Raba Thrift Store gives donors a 30% off coupon and takes drop-offs seven days a week; if you want a charitable tax receipt instead, go to a registered charity and confirm their receipt threshold first. Most people land on two of these, not one. That is the correct answer, not a cop-out.
What if I have a mix of designer and ordinary clothes?
Split the pile. Send the top few pieces to consignment or an online listing where the high per-item return is worth the wait, and clear everything else in one outright sale or donation the same week. This is what actually maximises both money and sanity. A practical sequence: first, pull out anything that is a recognisable contemporary or designer label, bought in the last two or three years, in season, and genuinely like-new. That is your consignment pile. Realistically it will be a small fraction of the total — BC consignment stores publish condition and age standards precisely because their floor space is scarce. Take that pile to a consignment store and let it sit. Second, look for individually valuable outliers that consignment might not want but an online buyer will hunt for: vintage pieces, band tees, workwear, out-of-season specialty gear, anything with a collector following. Those are worth listing yourself, because the buyer who wants them specifically will pay for them and is not walking past a rack in Chilliwack. Third, everything else goes in one load. Bring it to Raba Thrift Store, get paid cash by weight, and flag any strong individual pieces at the counter so they can be looked at per piece rather than by weight. This is where the volume problem gets solved in a single visit rather than forty listings. One caveat worth stating: if you are handling a full house rather than a closet, furniture is a separate conversation. Raba Thrift Store assesses furniture case by case. There are hard no's — no mattresses, no box springs, no sofas or couches, no beds. Everything else is selected items only, so send a photo on WhatsApp to +1 778-551-2023 before you load it into a truck. That thirty-second message saves everyone a wasted trip. For furniture we cannot take, local-pickup Facebook Marketplace is usually the better route, and for larger items it costs you nothing in fees.
Do I have to pay tax on money from selling my used clothes in Canada?
Generally no, if you are simply clearing out your own closet. Under CRA rules on personal-use property, both the cost and the sale proceeds are deemed to be at least $1,000, so ordinary used clothing sold for less than that produces no capital gain. The mechanic is straightforward. Personal-use property — the things you owned for your own enjoyment rather than as an investment — is subject to what is often called the $1,000 rule. If the adjusted cost base is under $1,000 it is treated as $1,000, and if the proceeds of disposition are under $1,000 they are treated as $1,000. When both sit at or below that floor, there is no capital gain and no capital loss to report. A jacket you paid $180 for and sold for $40 falls comfortably inside that, as does essentially every ordinary garment. Two situations change the picture. The first is genuinely valuable individual items — a rare handbag, a collectible piece — where proceeds exceed $1,000 on a single item. The second, and more common, is when you stop clearing your own closet and start buying inventory to resell at a profit. At that point you are running a business in the CRA's eyes and the income is business income, not a capital transaction, regardless of how casual the operation feels. Some online platforms also report seller information to tax authorities once you cross certain volume thresholds. Selling your own used clothing outright to Raba Thrift Store, or donating it, sits firmly in the ordinary personal-use category for the overwhelming majority of people. Because Raba Thrift Store is a for-profit business rather than a registered charity, a donation to us produces no charitable tax credit either — the benefit is the 30% off coupon, the seven-day drop-off, and the free pickup, not a deduction. This is general information rather than tax advice. If you are selling something unusually valuable, or you have started buying to resell, talk to an accountant and confirm the current rules with the CRA directly.
Got a closet or a whole house to clear? Bring it to Raba Thrift Store at 46191 Yale Rd, Chilliwack — open 10 AM to 7 PM, seven days a week, no appointment needed. We pay cash by weight for clothing, look at strong individual pieces per piece, and give donors a 30% off coupon. Can't get here? Free pickup, seven days a week, no minimum. For furniture, send a photo on WhatsApp to +1 778-551-2023 first and we'll tell you straight away whether we can take it.