If you’ve spent any amount of time in the Instagram quilting community, then chances are you will have heard about destashing fabric on Instagram. It’s a great platform to reach an interested market – if people (followers) like your quilting, chances are they will be interested in buying the fabric that you use in your quilting! Having held a few Instagram destashes now, I want to share a few tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way. It’s the perfect sequel blog post to How to KonMari the Fabrich Stash – what to do with all the fabric you’ve culled!
How to host an Instagram destash
Start a separate destash account
There is nothing more annoying than having a quilter you follow suddenly start posting bundles and bundles of fabric to their account! Don’t spam your followers with destash posts, start a second account that’s just for posting your destash. Use the profile bio to let people know where you live (for postage purposes) and also link back to your main account so it’s easy to see who it is that’s destashing.
Set a date and time
Decide on a date and time that’s convenient for you, and that you know will also be a good time for buyers too. After dinner on a week night is a good time. Make an announcement post and share it to your main account a couple of days in advance, letting your followers know the details and which account to follow for the goodies! Giving a few ideas of what fabrics they can expect is also good, to help build up anticipation and excitement. And then set an alarm on your phone for just before that time so that you don’t forget (and so you can grab yourself a tea or coffee to keep you going)!
Photograph on a clean, clear, simple background in daylight
It’s time to pop your business hat on and think carefully about how you’re photographing the fabric. Clutter in the background, shadows, fluro lighting… all are going to detract from your fabric and not be at all enticing to potential buyers. Look around the house and see what you can find – light-coloured flooring, a fresh piece of poster board, a desk or bench top… something clean and simple with good window light nearby to evenly light your fabric.
Weigh the fabric
Use a set of kitchen scales to weigh each destash listing – this not only helps with calculating postage, but it also helps you determine just how much fabric is in each bundle if it’s not straight yardage or untouched precuts, and thus also helps with pricing.
Quilting cotton weighs approximately 150 grams or 1/3lb per yard. If you have a bundle of assorted novelty prints in various sizes of cuts, you can use this to determine roughly how much yardage equivalent it is, and use that to help set a price. Using a set price per yard makes it easier to price everything; here in Australia where we pay $25+ per metre for designer quilting fabric, you might find $15 per yard a fair destash price.
As you photograph, weigh, and price, keep a list or spreadsheet with all this info in one place, leaving space to note the buyer’s name.
Research and set postage prices
To save your sanity, set flat rate postage prices based on what your postal service offers. Here in Australia, you can purchase prepaid flat rate satchels for <500gm, 3kg, and 5kg. Clearly state in the first post on your destash account what postage prices are for what weight of fabric.
First post on your destash account
The first post you make to your destash account should be one that clearly states the rules of your destash. What you choose is up to you, but some things to consider are:
- Where will you post – domestic and/or international?
- Postage prices
- Payment options – most common is to instruct buyers to “Comment sold then DM your PayPal email” as PayPal is the safest option for protecting both buyers and sellers.
- How long do buyers have to pay their PayPal requests – many request payment within 24 hours before offering it to the next person interested if it’s a popular item
- Include some popular destash hashtags to garner more interest – #greatfabricdestash #destash #fabricdestash #greatCOUNTRYdestash (i.e. #greataussiedestash)
Advertise advertise advertise
On top of the first post on your destash account, post on your main account. Post to your Stories of your main account. Share the first destash post to your main account’s Stories (while using your main account, tap the paper plane icon on the destash post and select share to your Stories) so that people can tap through directly to your destash account.
Share in the morning, share at night… at least once a day leading up to the destash. And again as you’re about to start, and even again during the event, and again at the end. Get those eyes to your destash account and cross your fingers that your beautiful photos are enticing to those sets of eyeballs!
Game time
The time has come, and get ready for a post-palooza! In each caption, post the price, what the fabric is, and how much of it there is – the weight and the measurement. If it’s an assorted bundle of assorted sizes, use the weight to provide an approximated measurement. For a guide, 1 yard of quilting cotton weighs about 150 grams (5.3oz).
I highly recommend keeping any text you will be including in every caption in your phone’s copy/paste memory!
As you post, hopefully the “Sold!” comments will come flooding in. Once a listing is sold, leave a comment with “Sold to @___” to make it clear who has bought the listing. Leave the listing there until the fabric has been paid for and sent.
Invoice and send
It is common courtesy to send PayPal invoices within 24 hours of the destash event, so do that as soon as you can. As people pay, mark them off on your list/spreadsheet, and make piles for each customer so that you don’t mix up any fabric – been there, done that, caught it just in time! As for postage, if the flat rate/prepaid options from the post office aren’t a plastic satchel, use plastic ziplock bags to package and protect the fabric in envelopes. I know, I know, plastic. But it’s important to protect the fabric from rain and wet letterboxes, because no one wants soggy fabric.
And with that, you’re done! Sit back and enjoy the extra space in your sewing stash, and perhaps even enjoy a little bit of fabric shopping for new and exciting goodies with your destash pocket money 😉
Stephanie Sinden says
Thanks for all the grea5 information. I have pinned it for reference.
Alyce says
Glad it was/will be useful!
Eva says
Thank you for sharing this great info. Will need to use it one day…..
Alyce says
My pleasure! Good luck.
Afton Warrick says
Great post! Perhaps I’ll bring myself to narrow down my collection…At least I’ll be better informed now if I do.
Alyce says
Hehe, “collection”, nicely put 😉
Amy says
Excellent! Thank you so much for taking the time to share this. Maybe I will brave enough to give it a try sometime.
Alyce says
My pleasure! You can do it x
Carla says
I have bought fabric from instagram destashes, but my preferred method of pruning my stash remains bundling up the excess fabric, taking it to my sewing group meeting and letting friends take their pick. Or just donating it to the guild for charity quilts.
Alyce says
Yep, I have a mix of that too in my destash process. I know not everything would sell anyway, and those usually go to charity, and friends get first dibs. And whatever is left after the sale usually ends up in the charity pile too!