Not another instagram thrift shop

If you a frequent Instagram user then you must have come across at least 3-4 different online thrift pages; individuals going to lunda/sunday bazaar, buying in bulk and then selling on margins through Instagram.

The word 'thrifting' seems to be trending these days and a couple of our customers have used the same word to explain their experience with us. But it's important that we draw a clear line between the other online thrift pages and our 'buy and sell' model. For starters, we are NOT a thrift store. Yes, we sell preloved items but that doesn't make us a thrift store. Our items are not meant to be sold or purchased for pennies. Your experience of buying through online thrift page will be entirely different than buying from us. Likewise, the quality of the product you will be getting from an online thrift store will differ greatly than a product you buy from us.

So let's discuss how our 'buy and sell' model differs from other thrift pages on instagram.

Sourcing

Online Thrift pages source their products from Sunday Bazars, also known as 'Landa', who in return source their clothes from Thrift shops meant for charities and good will organizations abroad.

Sisterhood.pk sources items from individuals like yourself; girls who wish to sell items from their own closets. These clothes aa not meant for charity, they are meant to be worn, styled and enjoyed.

We DONOT buy from the Landa bazaar or any other page/business. Sisterhood.pk is specifically for everyday women.

Quality

While you may come across branded stuff on these thrift pages but most of these clothes are worn and washed multiple times, to an extent of being completely worn out as they are hand me downs meant for charity. And since these products are photographed fancily, quality can be very hard to gauge through pictures.

However, all the clothes sold on sisterhood.pk are either brand new tagged or very lightly used with care. To ensure that our buyers get the same product as the seller claimed, we call all items to ourselves for quality checks. Any item that looks stained or worn out, is returned to the seller and the sale is cancelled.

Margins

Online thrift pages pick up items in few hundred rupees and then sell them at 2x to 3x times profit. Their profits are variable as it is up to their discretion how much they would want to charge for a certain product picked from Landa Bazar.

Sisterhood.pk, on the other hand, with its buy and sell model has a fixed margin. Since we charge 20% of the list price, our profits vary according to the list price of the product. So yes, when a thrift shop sells an item for 2000 PKR, it could be making anything from 500 PKR - 1800 PKR where as we would be making 400 PKR regardless of the type of product as the remaining 80% is given to the seller

Hygiene/Cleanliness

Ever wondered where do these clothes in thrift stores come from? In developed countries, people donate their clothes for charity. Some sell to the thrift stores for penny or give them completely free of cost. Then these clothes keep lying in thrift stores abroad for some time. The items that remain unsold are then sold in bulk to third world countries. They come in containers, get dumped at ports and then are transported to the bazaars where they remain lying. No one washes, dry cleans their clothes before donating so chances are that an item purchased through a thrift store has remained uncleaned, accumulating dirty for a long period of time, most likely more than a year. Thus, one must worry about deep cleaning with these products.

Since clothes sold at sisterhood.pk are directly supplied by the users themselves, they are exchanged only twice; Once when the seller buys the brand new product from the shop for herself and second, when she sells it through our page. In between, the clothes remain in the sellers closet, kept with care and love.

Trends/ Styles

Since thrifts stores host clothes that people have discarded for donations or charity purpose and they take months to travel to Pakistan, chances of finding a currently trendy item are unlikely.

But at sistehood.pk, we don't host clothes that women want to discard, in fact, these are the high quality clothes that are too good to be discarded or be sent for charity. Furthermore, a lot of the clothes on our page are brand new with tags, being sold at discounted prices. So if you're favorite item in store is sold out, chances are that someone else might be selling that same item on our page for much lesser price.

Sister to Sister

When you buy from online thrift pages then your money is going to that one specific individual, no matter what and when you buy.

Since sistehood.pk lists items from a lot of different girls', 80% of the amount you pay for an item goes to the respective original owner of the item. Through sisterhood.pk multiple girls have multiple options to make money.

We love preloveds in all forms and shapes. However, it is important that consumers are aware of the differences in the two model and make a conscious, educated decision.

Exhibits