Shopping Hacks I Love

Two apps I really love scrolling late at night

Warning (!!) this post is for a specific (dare I say) neurotic kind of shopper- hi, it me! I have some pretty bizarre shopping habits BUT both help me to (1) slow down and (2) consume thoughtfully. And, honestly, I’m looking for even more of this in my shopping life come 2025. In the meantime, I wanted to share my two favorite apps for shopping. And, as someone who keeps her phone paired down, it’s a major achievement that both get used daily.

I am the kind of girl who is always looking to MAXIMIZE my dollar. I love shopping second-hand because it allows me to find the product I want without paying full-price for it. And I, like many of us, have been enjoying the popularization of vintage shopping in recent years. However, I am not the best at searching resale sites nor do I have the time for it. Enter my first favorite app; Gem. Be warned: the website and app are simple and straightforward. All you’re going to find is a search bar for you to enter the term you are looking for on second-hand sites.

What I love so much is that Gem scrubs second-hand markets¹ and aggregates them for you to browse or into a daily, shoppable email. You can also use the app to check on your searches real-time but I rarely remember to do that.

Boom! That’s it! But, also, THAT’S IT! It’s one of my favorite emails to get because it feels like cheating. I’m not having to remember to check a bunch of different apps for the things I’m looking for daily AND you by clicking “set alert” you can have it searching for you for that random shirt you saw and loved and can’t find right now.

Also, it is catching items on The Real Real that are on First Look before they are available to non-paying members so even if you don’t pay for that subscription you can see what’s there and be prepared to pounce when they are available 24 hours later.

Just for funsies, I thought I’d show you a few examples of how I’ve used the app recently.

I saw Makenna Alyse in this incredible high-collar leather jacket on TikTok and was lucky enough that she shared the tagged name in her comments.

I immediately searched “Katherine Kelly Leather Jacket” on Gem and found the exact jacket here (I’m devastated it’s not my size)! Now I have a saved search for it because while I might forget to look for it otherwise, I’ll never forget IT. I also searched Gem for “high collar leather jacket” and enjoyed that scroll for a while.

I saw a post in a substack chat about Aeyde shoes which made me curious about the resale options for their gorgeous shoes. After searching for the brand and filtering by my size, the first pair that caught my eye was this luscious pair from The Real Real.

But boots continued to catch my eye so I changed my search to Aeyde boots and, my oh my, it was a treasure trove.

Most of the searches that come up in my email are just brand names; James Street Co, Toteme Boots, By Malene Birger. You do have to keep the search pretty generic in order for everything to get caught because, as we all probably know, items on TheRealReal are frequently mislabeled.

I have a search for Nili Lotan and I frequently look for Shon pants in the results that are captured. Luckily I know my size in them so I can take a chance on well-priced second-hand ones.

There was a top from Cordera that I wanted for months that I found it on the app.

I have a saved search for “Arket” because it’s not available in the US but often people sell the best of their past stuff on second-hand sites.

Another success story involved casting a wide net for a suede fringe jacket. I stood by and watched the trend develop feeling, each time I saw someone in a jacket like this, that it would work great in my closet.

So I set to work looking at the thousands of results Gem found until I spied this one. I loved the shape, color and fringe. Hilariously it was a youth XL.

The measurements on it matched what I needed and, boom, it was mine. If you are going to undertake shopping second-hand online, where returns are often not an option, I recommend knowing the measurements of the item you are looking for by comparing against something you already own.

You can “bookmark” items in the Gem app but rather I use my next favorite app; Carted². Mostly I read pieces from people who already use wishlists to figure out what to buy but if you don’t keep a wishlist, may I recommend the practice as a New Years Resolution?

Previously I would use secret Pinterest Boards to track the items that I was eyeing. I sorted things into the items that I loved (impulsively) vs. the items I knew I was shopping for like knits and pants (I think I’m always on the lookout for these things).

But I ran into two issues; (1) I didn’t know the price of any of the items nor if they sold out. It has always been such a bummer to realize I’m ready to buy something and then I click through and realize that it’s long gone. C’est la vie. (2) when I bought something or decided I didn’t want it after-all I would delete the item. The reason this is a problem for me is that I couldn’t learn anything. I’m sort of a data nerd so I wanted to see what items I buy AND what are the items that I eventually passed on so I could remind myself “don’t go looking for ANOTHER pair of black boots, you’ve been down that road, Kelly.”

My workaround was a very embarrassing word document where I kept a running list of everything I every “wanted” and then it’s color coded with what I bought, what I bought and returned and what I decided against. Wow, do I sound crazy yet?

To cut to the chase; Carted solves both those problems. Visually it’s as appealing as Pinterest (I’m still working on how to categorize my lists) but it collects more data (price and stock status) and even has a promotion alert on the main page of the app to tell you if one of your items has been marked down.

The activity page will even track price changes on The Real Real and Poshmark!

I also love that it tracks ALL items and allows you to mark a box when you have bought something. I’ve personally created a board to put things that I’ve decided not to buy so my other lists stay easy to shop/scroll. My one annoyance is that I can’t sort the different boards I’ve created.

I’ve linked some of the things I’m currently eyeing here (and other links from the newsletter) in case you are as nosy as I am about other people’s wishlists. And now that I’ve revealed the (perhaps) odd way I track purchases and items I’m dying to know how you decide when/what to purchase!

L to R: purse necklace that could *maybe* fit a few dollars but I remain obsessed with ($100) // purty ear cuff ($75) // snakeskin bucket bag ($358) // toteme boots that I missed out on// gingham bikini ($129) // Jamie Haller mules (Maurene Goo scored these for me at an extreme discount at a sample sale!) (normally $595) // Juju Vera necklace that I need someone to tell me I don’t need ($495) // gorgeous tove jeans ($595) // blue cashmere sweater ($425) // yellow maryjanes ($100) // this whole outfit (tee shirt and shorts)

Important note: after I downloaded and began using the app, a friend recommended me to Carted for a partnership and they reached out so this is my first pseudo-sponsored post! You’ll be glad to hear that they were all about lifting up micro-influencers like me AND provided no brief of anything I *had* to mention because they realize the best endorsement is organic. I hope you all read my genuine heart for the app. I’ve written before about loving wishlists for shopping here, here and here. Oh also, here, when I wrote about another app that I actually stopped using because I found it wasn’t as useful for me as Carted.

1. According to their website: Gem finds products from marketplaces such as eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, Grailed, The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective, Mercari, Rubylane, Farfetch, Fashionphile, Garmentory, ASOS Marketplace, LiveAuctioneers, Reversible, GoodwillFinds and hundreds of independent online stores.

2. Carted doesn’t have a desktop option so you’ll have to download the app to use