Why your store needs its own condition guide
On marketplaces you pick the condition from a fixed list. eBay uses three pre-owned grades for fashion: Pre-owned – Excellent, Pre-owned – Good and Pre-owned – Fair (eBay pre-owned condition guidance). Vinted uses New, Like new, Very good, Good and Satisfactory (Vinted Help: choosing item condition). Each grade has a published definition.
On your own Shopify store, nobody defines the grades for you. “Excellent” means whatever you mean by it, and the buyer finds out when the parcel arrives. A useful condition guide has a handful of grades, a clear lower limit for each, and a fixed home: one page on your store, created under Online Store > Pages > Add page (Shopify Help: pages), that every product links to.
Reseller shorthand: NWT, NWOT, EUC, VGUC, GUC
These abbreviations are common in resale listings. They save space in titles and tags, but not every buyer knows them. Spell each one out on your guide page and tie it to exactly one grade; VGUC in particular sits between two.
| Shorthand | Stands for | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| NWT | New with tags | Never worn, original tags attached |
| NWOT | New without tags | Never worn, tags removed |
| EUC | Excellent used condition | Worn, wear only visible up close |
| VGUC | Very good used condition | Pick one: your Excellent or your Good |
| GUC | Good used condition | Visible wear, no damage |
The scale: five grades with clothing examples
The grades below are a suggestion, not an industry standard. Grade condition only. Age, rarity and brand belong in the description: a sought-after 1970s sweater with a moth hole is still “Fair”, however rare it is. Paste the “For your guide” sentences straight onto your page.
1. New with tags (NWT)
For your guide: “Never worn, original tags still attached.”
Typical: deadstock, meaning old stock that was never sold, still with its hang tag. Doesn't belong here: unworn pieces without tags (grade 2), and unworn pieces with storage stains or yellowing (grade 5, with the flaw named).
2. Like new (includes NWOT)
For your guide: “Unworn with tags removed, or worn once or twice. No signs of wear, even up close.”
Typical: a shirt worn to one event. Doesn't belong here: first pilling, shiny worn spots, cuffs that have lost their stretch.
3. Excellent (EUC)
For your guide: “Worn, with light wear you only notice up close. No flaws.”
Typical: light pilling under the arms, slightly lighter color along the seams. Doesn't belong here: wear you can see from a normal distance.
4. Good (GUC)
For your guide: “Clearly worn, with visible wear. No holes, no stains, everything works.”
Typical: pilling across larger areas, evenly faded denim, slightly stretched cuffs. Doesn't belong here: anything that would need repairing or removing.
5. Fair (with flaws)
For your guide: “At least one flaw, named individually in the description and shown in a photo.”
Typical: a hole, a stain, an open seam, a broken zipper, a missing button, an odor. Some buyers want exactly these pieces to mend, as long as they know what they get.
Numbers instead of words?
A number scale like “9/10” needs a legend on your guide page, for example 10 = New with tags, 9 = Like new, 8 = Excellent, 7 = Good, 6 or lower = Fair. Without one, every buyer reads the number differently.
How your grades map to eBay and Vinted
If you crosslist, use a fixed mapping. It is an approximation; each marketplace's own definition counts (eBay Help: item conditions by category).
| Your grade | eBay | Vinted |
|---|---|---|
| New with tags | New with tags | New if the original packaging is included, otherwise Like new |
| Like new | New without tags (never worn) or Pre-owned – Excellent | Like new (never worn) or Very good |
| Excellent | Pre-owned – Excellent | Very good |
| Good | Pre-owned – Good | Good |
| Fair | Pre-owned – Good or Pre-owned – Fair, depending on the flaw | Good or Satisfactory, depending on the flaw |
For unworn clothing with defects, eBay also offers “New with imperfections”.
Describing flaws: checklist and wording
Inspect every piece in the same order and in bright, neutral light: front, back, collar inside and out, underarms, cuffs, hem, pockets, closures, lining, label. Finish with a sniff test. Flaws worth naming (the core of the list follows Vinted's help page):
- stains and discoloration, including yellowed collars and underarms
- holes, tears, open seams, moth damage
- pilling and shiny worn spots
- fading, for example from sunlight
- odors: smoke, storage, perfume
- alterations: hemmed, taken in
- stretching or shrinkage
- missing buttons, belts or drawstrings
- broken or stiff zippers
- cracked or peeling prints
- missing or cut-out labels
The formula: what, where, how big, how visible
The buyer should be able to picture the flaw without the photo. Four details do it: what it is, where it is, how big it is and whether it shows when worn. Give sizes in inches for US buyers and add centimeters for everyone else. Wording to adapt:
- “Small stain (about 1/2 in / 1 cm) on the left cuff, barely visible when worn.”
- “Two pinholes (about 1/16 in / 2 mm each) on the back below the collar, see photo 6.”
- “Zipper is a little stiff but closes fully.”
- “Hem has been shortened, clean seam. Length is listed in the measurements.”
- “Care tag missing, so no fiber content listed.”
Phrases like “normal signs of wear” or “see photos” say nothing on their own. Only list the fabric if the care label confirms it. For measurements, see how to measure clothes for reselling.
One photo for every flaw
Vinted asks sellers to upload a photo where the flaw is clearly visible, one for each flaw, and to describe it in the listing. eBay's pre-owned definitions say the same about signs of wear. On your own store, the same applies: a flaw the buyer saw before checkout is no surprise.
- Close-up plus context. One close-up shows the flaw, one shot from a little further away shows where it sits. A ruler next to small flaws helps.
- No flattering edits. No filters, no smoothing, no retouching. A flattering photo undoes the most careful description.
- A fixed order. Front and back first, then details, then flaws, with the label photo last. On Shopify the first media item is the main one: it shows on collection pages, the cart, checkout and your home page (Shopify Help: product media). Don't put a flaw photo there.
Showing condition on your Shopify store
Shopify's Help Center doesn't name a standard field for condition. Three methods combine well.
1. A fixed line in the description
Start every description with the condition in the same pattern, linked to your guide: “Condition: Excellent (EUC). Light pilling under the arms (photo 5). What the grades mean: see our condition guide.” Shopify suggests including specifications such as size and material in product descriptions; for secondhand pieces, condition belongs there too.
2. A tag for filters and collections
Tags like condition-excellent or condition-fair let you build filters or automated collections, such as a “Fixer-uppers” collection. Shopify recommends using only ordinary letters, numbers and the hyphen in tags, and states that tags aren't used by search engines (Shopify Help: tags). So the tag doesn't replace the line in the description.
3. A metafield your theme displays
To show condition on its own line, for example below the price, create a product metafield under Settings > Metafields and metaobjects with the type “Single line text”, for example custom.condition. In the theme editor, connect it to a block with the “Connect dynamic source” icon, if your theme supports it (Shopify Help: displaying metafields). The measuring guide covers metafields in more detail.
Google Merchant Center: new, refurbished or used
If your products go to Google Merchant Center, the condition attribute is required for every used product (Google Merchant Center Help: condition). There are three values:
- new: Google defines it as never used, in its original packaging and unopened. An unworn vintage piece with a hang tag often doesn't meet that; when in doubt, used is the safer choice.
- refurbished: professionally restored so it appears new, and it comes with a warranty. That rarely fits secondhand clothing.
- used: second-hand, the usual fit for vintage. Google's own example is a pair of 1930s vintage high heels.
Google also says used and refurbished products aren't displayed on YouTube organic and Discover surfaces; they can still serve as ads on YouTube, the Google Display Network and Gmail. Shopify notes that the Google & YouTube channel doesn't use the “Google Shopping / Condition” column of the product CSV (Shopify Help: product CSV). Check a used test product in Merchant Center to see what actually arrives.
Grading every piece the same way
A guide only helps if the hundredth piece of the day gets graded like the first. Three habits help:
- Keep the guide at your workstation, printed next to the photo table.
- When in doubt, pick the lower grade, as Vinted also advises. Rule of thumb: better than described is the surprise you want.
- Spot-check when several people grade. Now and then, have two people grade the same piece and talk through any difference.
Record the grade next to the SKU (see the SKU system for vintage resellers).
If an AI suggests the grade
Klamox can suggest the condition from your photos, but only if you switch it on in the workflow: as a tag in the “Tags & collections” card, or as a field in the “Custom fields (metafields)” card with the source “Automatic — visible on the product”. New fields default to “Automatic — is on the label”, which makes the AI look for the condition on your label photo. Know the limits:
- It doesn't know your grades. The AI looks at all photos of the piece and, for the condition tag, suggests a short value such as “Sehr gut” or “9/10”. That value is German by default, since listings are created in German unless support switches your workflow to English, and the tag takes it as delivered. To use your own grade instead, write it on the card you shoot as a label photo and give your condition field the label source on purpose; handwriting is read noticeably worse than print.
- Review the draft. New products are created as drafts by default. Correct the grade there, and keep that default while you aren't reviewing condition.
- “Condition 9/10.” is not a grade. You'll see it in two cases. In the “Fixed value” description mode it is the preset text in many workflows and appears word for word on every piece; under the legend above, that reads as “Like new” for everything. In “Automatic” mode it appears when the AI returns no description. Replace the fixed text in the workflow with your own line, and fix the placeholder in the draft before you publish.
- Plan the photos. The number of product photos per piece is fixed in the workflow (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 or 10), and photos are assigned strictly in order. Flaw photos have to fit inside that number; one extra photo shifts every following piece. The label photo sits at the start or the end of each group (end by default), never in between, and by default it isn't uploaded to your store.
- No preset choices. Custom metafields are written as single line text, and the AI returns free text that isn't tied to your grades. Create the condition metafield as “Single line text” without a preset list of choices.
Whatever tool you use, you are responsible for what your store says. The features page shows the full flow.
Condition notes and returns
Accurate condition notes help prevent “not as described” disputes. eBay names fewer returns as one reason accurate conditions matter, and Vinted warns that buyers may cancel or return an item whose condition is significantly worse than described.
On Shopify, you manage your return policy under Settings > Policies, and links to your policies show in the checkout footer by default (Shopify Help: store policies). Say there how you handle condition-related returns, and link your condition guide from it.
Return rights and rules for faulty goods differ by country and by whether you sell to consumers or businesses. This guide is not legal advice; check the rules for each country you ship to.