I Love This App That Allows You to Rent Clothes
Your clothes and accessories can either fill up your closet for free, or you can go out there, get a job, and earn a living: I recently found an app that helps you rent out your clothes and accessories (as well as borrow from other people) and maybe even help you declutter in the long run. Let me explain why I love Pickle .
What does Pickle do?
As I’ve already explained, I have a low threshold for what will inspire me to download an app. Usually I see an ad, click on the App Store link and install immediately. The other day I saw an ad for Pickle, a peer-to-peer rental service for clothing and accessories—kind of like the DoorDash of fashion. I tried to download it, only to find that it was already on my phone due to what must have been a previous encounter with an ad that I never followed up on. Incredible! (However, keep in mind that it is currently only available for iOS.)
Over the past year, I ‘ve started selling my clothes through an app , but it’s been limited because I have a lot of items that I don’t want to get rid of—yet. But I can’t wear them all at the same time, can I? So they just sit in my closet, waiting for their turn to shine. Pickle seemed like he might give me a chance to make them work. I listed a bunch of things, checked what others were charging for a week’s rental of similar items, and competitively priced my items. Then I waited, but not for long. The next day I received a rental application.
The app functions the same way as resale platforms like Poshmark or Vestiaire Collective : you take a photo of your shoes, bag, dress or whatever, fill out information about it, like size and brand, and set a price. However, here the price is equal to the amount you want to charge for a week’s rent. You also specify in the drop-down menu whether you want someone to show up at your home to pick it up, courier it, or even mail it somewhere. This last option really broadens your horizons since Pickle primarily operates in New York (where I live) and Los Angeles. While it’s much easier to contact a local person and drop off your item, the mail-in option expands your money-making opportunities to a much wider base of potential consumers.
When someone rents an item from you, they first submit a request indicating how they will receive it and how long they want to have it. From there, you can enter a chat with them to clarify details or simply accept their request. I accepted the offer sent to me and chose the day and time when I would be at home to deliver the package to the courier. This morning a courier arrived, picked it up and brought it to the borrower with whom I agreed on a four-day rental. I listed this thing for $30 a week, Pickle took 20%, and I made $24 even though it wouldn’t go away all week. The process was smooth and surprisingly easy, and I received detailed notifications throughout the event.
Why I like this app as a way to get organized
The benefits of using a cabinet rental app are clear. First, you can make your extra stuff work for you and make some money doing it. Secondly, you can rent clothing and accessories for special occasions at a deep discount without creating any consumer clutter you may have – but that brings me to the hidden benefit I discovered here. I think of Pickle as being like “purgatory” – a method of tidying up that doesn’t require you to make immediate decisions about what stays and what goes. Most decluttering methods are pretty harsh. They encourage you to walk through your home and quickly make choices: what to keep, what to throw away, what to donate, and what to sell. If you do this enough times, it will form a habit and you will learn to be less sentimental; but it’s still hard. Personally, I’m terrible at doing this with clothes and accessories because I can fool myself into thinking I might need something for a certain outfit in the future. Of course, this is not true; I never miss anything after selling it. But I still find it difficult to bring myself to get rid of things, so they sit in my closet. With Pickle, I can send them out for days or weeks at a time, which replicates the experience of having a purgatory box where you keep your stuff for a month so you can see what it’s like to not have access to it.
Conversely, Pickle can also help you declutter by providing a backup plan for when you do decide to get rid of something. Consider the 20/20 rule of thumb , which asks you to consider whether you can replace something for less than $20 and in less than 20 minutes if you got rid of it, and then encourages you to get rid of it if the answer is yes. Obviously, if you decide to sell or give away, say, a black handbag that’s just sitting in your closet, you won’t get a similar one from Pickle in less than 20 minutes, or probably for less than $20—but it’s nice to know that if you got rid of something you ended up needing for a specific occasion, you can rent a replacement without cluttering up your space.