Where Can You Sell Old Sewing Patterns?

If you’ve got a box of vintage sewing patterns lying around, you could potentially be sitting on a consignment gold mine. More and more old sewing patterns are being sought out as vintage, and retro-inspired clothing comes back around in seasonal fashion. 

Old sewing patterns are easy to sell online in a variety of different digital marketplaces. Selling sewing patterns online has advantages over selling them in person, such as personal safety and being able to curate your online shop easily. Some old sewing patterns can be quite valuable, depending on their age and popularity. 

Selling old sewing patterns can be a great way to make a little extra money or even start a regular side business. Read on to learn more about where you can sell your old sewing patterns and which are most likely to sell. 

Advantages of Selling My Old Sewing Patterns?

One of the best places to sell old sewing patterns is in online markets. Here are some of the advantages of selling old sewing patterns online (Source: nChannel): 

• Easy shipping: Sewing patterns ship quickly and cheaply compared to many other items sold online. This also means that it’s easier to turn a profit on sewing patterns than on heavier items that cost more to ship.
• Multiple markets: There are plenty of different places online where you can place your old sewing patterns up for sale, with some markets being better suited for vintage patterns while others are better for craft patterns or costumes.
• Third-party mediators: If you run into a dispute with a customer, selling through an online market can give you a neutral third party that can mediate between you and your unhappy customer.
• Collectors go online: When it comes to sewing patterns, collectors are often looking for a particular style or design. It is much easier to find what you’re looking for by popping it into an online search than thrift stores. If you are trying to offload real collector’s items, online markets are the way to go. 

There are lots of great reasons to try to sell your old sewing patterns online. There can be plenty of advantages in doing it that way versus selling them in person. Here are some of the benefits you have selling online versus selling in person: 

• Personal security: You won’t have to worry about people coming to your house, having to go to a stranger’s house, or having to meet in some public place out of fear. All transactions in an online marketplace are done with plenty of documentation, including the final payment. You also don’t waste gas going to meet buyers to have them back out or not show.
• No haggling: Buyers are much more inclined to try to haggle in face-to-face consignment versus in digital marketplaces, where people generally accept the price marked as the going price unless the item is up for auction. For sellers who prefer not to haggle, digital marketplaces are the way to go.
• Niche markets: If you have old sewing patterns that are especially rare, the Internet contains the kind of niche markets where you can get the best bang for your buck. Collectors online are more likely to know the real value of a pattern and are willing to pay for it. (Source: Vintage Fashion Guild)

Not only is it easier to sell old sewing patterns online, but you can also make more money doing it that way, too. In either case, it’s worth looking into if you’re sitting on a pile of vintage sewing patterns, and you’re not sure where to sell them. 

Where Can You Sell Old Sewing Patterns? 

If you are looking for digital marketplaces that are good for selling old sewing patterns, check out the list below. These markets feature a large selection of sewing patterns, which means there’s already plenty of demand. Unfortunately, it also means there is plenty of competition, too. Hence, you need to keep your online shop curated well to stand out. 

Here are some of the best online markets for selling old sewing patterns: 

• Etsy: Etsy is an online marketplace centered around artisan crafts, but they also have sales categories for vintage items and patterns. Etsy is a good market not just for vintage sewing patterns, but also for costume patterns and craft patterns. It is a website frequented by crafters and cosplayers. 
• SheepBuy: SheepBuy is an online marketplace that has no selling or hidden fees. They offer their basic package where users can post items for free, and if sellers need more selling power, monthly plans start at $2.99 a month and up. 
• Craftsy: Along with providing an online digital artisan’s university for crafters to take online courses in sewing, crocheting, knitting, and other crafts, Craftsy also has a large market where patterns can be either sold or given away for free. Craftsy is a good place to sell sewing patterns because it’s a niche website aimed directly at sewists rather than a general market. (Craftsy is currently being rebranded as Bluprint.)
• eBay: eBay is one of the oldest general online marketplaces, and it can be a good choice to sell your patterns there just because it’s so well established. However, one of eBay’s drawbacks is that because it’s so large, your sewing pattern listings may get lost in the shuffle if you’re not good at writing up product descriptions or photographing your patterns well. eBay also charges a high percentage fee on items sold through its marketplace.
• Amazon: Amazon can be a good place to sell old sewing patterns that are uncut or are in very good condition, including the packaging. Because of the nature of the website, newer patterns or those in better condition will typically sell better on Amazon than more distressed patterns.
• Facebook Marketplace: Facebook Marketplace is quickly becoming a more popular online market, and since it caters to an older demographic, it can be a good place to offload vintage patterns on older sewists who are feeling the need to revive a loved pattern from the past. Facebook is also a good place to sell locally if you’d rather sell to neighbors than online strangers. 

As you can see, there are plenty of online options for you to choose from when it comes to selling your old sewing patterns. Where you eventually set up shop depends on how you feel about the different vendor policies and which website layout you prefer.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Selling Old Sewing Patterns

So, why are old sewing patterns a right choice to sell online? There are many advantages to selling old sewing patterns: 

• Endless varieties: Companies have been making and selling sewing patterns since 1860, which means there are literally thousands of them in existence. You can sell a large selection of different patterns, or you can specialize in one niche type of pattern, such as vintage costumes.
• Old fashions don’t go out of style: Fashion is cyclical, which means that all of the old fashion patterns from the fifties, sixties, and seventies are becoming popular again and are being reused in new fashion trends. This is also the reason why so many people hold on to vintage sewing patterns. There will always be a market for these patterns since home sewing is not going out of fashion anytime soon.
• They’re easy to catalog, photograph, and ship. Out of all the vintage items that you could set up an online shop for, sewing patterns are the most convenient to sell. You can set up all your sewing patterns in a file cabinet and categorize them in a way that makes them easy to find and ship. That’s about the extent of the floor space you’ll have to dedicate to your pattern-selling business. 

There are some major benefits of selling old sewing patterns, but there are a few things to look out for too. The most significant disadvantage of selling old sewing patterns is that they may come as a cut pattern rather than an uncut pattern. 

In some ways, this can still be an advantage, as many sewists will pay extra for a pattern that is already pre-cut. But this also means that any pre-cut vintage pattern you have will have to be carefully counted to make sure none of the pattern pieces are missing. 

Are Old Sewing Patterns Worth Anything? 

The answer is yes! If you’ve got vintage sewing patterns from a famous designer or from certain styles or periods, they can sell for a $25, $50, or even more. It just depends on the rarity of the pattern and whether you can find the right buyer for it. 

The real money in selling old sewing patterns is selling them in bulk. While common older sewing patterns may not sell for much individually, selling a bunch of them can add up quickly when you don’t have to pay much in shipping fees. 

However, you aren’t likely to run into a vintage pattern that will sell for thousands of dollars. Sewing patterns are a little too commonplace for that. But if you watch fashion trends and get to know your online markets, you can purchase and sell vintage sewing patterns at a profit. It just requires the right presentation.  

How to Make the Most Money Selling Old Sewing Patterns Online

There’s money to be made on old sewing patterns, especially if you choose to sell them in an online shop where overhead costs are cheap. Still, you’ll have to develop a little bit of technical savvy to use an online marketplace to its full potential. Considering you’ll probably end up paying a nominal fee to use any of them, you need to take full advantage of whatever the site has to offer you as a vendor. 

Here are a few ways you can maximize your profit in selling old sewing patterns: 

• Learn how to write a good product description. You’ll need to not only include the intended size of the pattern and whether it’s cut or uncut but also the company, the year the design came out, and any other pertinent details.
• Learn how to take good photographs of your listings. It’s worth investing in a good digital camera to take pictures of your old sewing patterns to sell online if you don’t have a cellphone that can take decent pictures. 
• Keep your shipping and customer contacts organized. Keep track of all your previous customers, as this information can be vital to your business’s longevity. Customers will not like it if items were shipped to the wrong place, they were charged the wrong amount, or items were delivered late. It is always best to have the client’s information organized to provide excellent customer satisfaction.
• Cultivate good reviews. One of the things that can help you most in an online marketplace is receiving consistently high reviews for your transactions. Go above and beyond in communicating with your customers and making them happy to help your business grow.
• Buy vintage sewing patterns in bulk. Getting vintage patterns on the cheap and then going through them to cherry-pick the best ones can leave you with some listings that may go for much higher price marks. Hence, it’s worth investing in thrift store, and yard sale finds when they show up. You never know what kind of treasures you might find in an old, discarded box of patterns. 

It helps to sell your listings if you can find somewhat unique sewing patterns that you don’t have much competition in the marketplace you sell on. Before putting up your patterns for sale, do some research through on the marketplace to see what kind of other sewing patterns are currently up for sale. This can give you some ideas on what holes in the marketplace need to be filled.

Is It Legal to Resell Old Sewing Patterns Online? 

While the legal line on this topic has been historically slippery, the technical answer is yes, at least in the United States. Under the First Sale Doctrine of American copyright law, a person who buys a copy of a copyrighted item such as a sewing pattern, a CD, or any other media has the right to sell that copy of the media to another seller. (Source: U.S Department of Justice)

What this doesn’t mean is that it’s legal for a seller to take a McCall’s pattern, make digital copies of it, and sell those copies online as their own pattern and creation. That would violate copyright law. 

But vintage sewing patterns (like records or old movies) fall under the First Sale Doctrine, which means they can be safely sold to a second buyer without violating copyright law. It is 100% legal to resell old sewing patterns as long as you don’t make copies of them to sell. Some companies may balk at their patterns being resold, but realistically there isn’t much they can do about it. (Source: Amazon Seller Central)

Can You Make Good Money Selling Sewing Patterns?

You aren’t likely to make enough money selling old sewing patterns online to pay a mortgage or make your other major bills. However, you can still make some decent money selling old sewing patterns if you stay organized about it and do your research into the kind of patterns that are selling for high prices. 

If nothing else, selling old sewing patterns on the side can help fund your sewing hobby or at least allow you to break even. This can, in turn, allow you to invest in more sewing projects. You might even get to the point that you can design and sell your own original patterns!

Regardless of whether you just want a quick way to get rid of your old cache of unused patterns or you want to set up shop in a part-time business, online marketplaces are probably the best place you can get good money for your time and energy invested. 

Selling Sewing Patterns Online Is Easy

Selling old sewing patterns in a digital marketplace can be one of the easiest ways to get started selling items online, either as a casual hobby or as a serious business. Thanks to the popularity of online marketplaces these days, they can be one of the most hassle-free ways to sell your sewing patterns not just to local sewists, but to sewists all over the world.

The best thing about using the Internet to sell sewing patterns is that you have access to so many more potential buyers than you would if you focused on local sales. And with retro sewing patterns not going out of fashion any time soon, you can remain in business for a long time.

Click here to learn of 10 Cricut projects you can sell.

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