Quick guide to pre-loved uniform sales
Image: Primary school-aged girl wearing school uniform running towards the camera, an adult holding a toddler in the background.
What’s involved?
- Collecting and sorting donations
- Washing donations
- Mending broken donations
- Recycling or responsibly disposing of unsellable donations
- Finding and maintaining storage for donations
- Advertising pre-loved uniform via social media, posters, emails, WhatsApp groups and in-person
- Organising pre-loved uniform stalls at the school and at events
- Pricing items
- Collecting payments
- Delivering purchases
- Creating and maintaining an online platform for digital sale
Struggling to sell certain items? Or perhaps parents are in need of things you’ve sold out of? If you’re looking to donate and purchase pre-loved uniform, check out approved suppliers in our supplier directory.
Learn more
What skills are required?
To be the Pre-loved Uniform Coordinator for your PTA, you’ll need to:
- Be organised
- Be a clear and friendly communicator
- Have basic maths skills
- Have sewing skills (optional)
- Have web skills (optional)
- Have design skills (optional)
Coordinating pre-loved uniform doesn’t have to be one person’s job – several members of your committee could divide up the tasks between them.
Hannah and Caroline’s top tips
Hannah Osborne and Caroline Parsons, Chair and Pre-loved Uniform Coordinator at Brookmans Park School PTA, share their top tips on uniform sales.
1. Share the load. It’s a big role just for one parent, so have a few individuals responsible for different elements such as storage, online sales and in-person sales.
2. Organise your stock! There is a lot of uniform – organising it into boxes by size or category means you don’t have to hunt through piles to find the requested item.
3. Keep prices low and quality high. Low prices mean it’s accessible for everyone and having only good quality means people are likely to buy again.
4. Do a mixture of in-person and online sales. Some parents like to see and feel the clothes before buying, a completely remote shop wouldn’t facilitate that.
5. Speak to your school. See if there are any fancy dress or themed days happening throughout the year. If there are, ask for donations to sell to parents on these days.
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