Cost Effective Shopping For Fashion
Online clothes shopping should make our lives easier. But with so many websites and apps, it can be overwhelming rather than helpful. So, where do you shop for fashionable clothes at reasonable prices?
Where to shop
Brand websites, online retailers, pay monthly catalogues, designer outlets, social media marketplaces and fashion apps. They’re all vying for your attention and trying to make it as easy as possible for you to spend your money.
Many apps come with useful features to help us shop, but some have useful extras that can help us save money too. Gilt is great for flash sales on those pricey brands and ShopStyle allows you to set up sale alerts and filter items by price or discount. Then there’s handy marketplace apps such as Depop, that are great for bagging affordable vintage and preloved items.
If you prefer to shop online directly from brand websites, there are a few tips to save you money. The first is to put the items you like in your online basket and leave them there for a day or two. Why? This will help curtail impulse purchasing. If you still want the items a day later, then great. But if you’ve changed your mind, you’ve saved yourself some money. Plus, you may get a discount from the retailer as an incentive to finish your purchase. So, it’s win, win.
How to shop
Changing your shopping habits is perhaps the best way to shop for fashion without breaking the bank.
One mistake many of us make, is to over shop and rely on cheap, fast fashion. This has two downsides. It’s not very ethical or environmentally friendly. But more importantly for your finances, it can be surprisingly expensive. Cheap clothes don’t last, so you end up buying more.
Go through your wardrobe and organise it. That way you can make a list of items that need replacing or you just don’t have. It’s easy to forget you what you already own! Items such as smart trousers, jeans and seasonal jackets, are staples that need to be of a certain quality and should be your priority. Stick to your list and it will stop you buying more than you need.
Look for items that can be worn in different ways and will mix and match well with clothes already in your wardrobe. Cost-effective shopping means getting as much wear as possible for the money you spend.
And for special occasions, hire clothes instead of buying a new outfit every time. Despite saying we’ll wear it again; it often sits at the back of the wardrobe. Forward-thinking companies will now let you hire outfits suitable for proms, parties, festivals and job interviews.