I’m a massive fan of Everything 5 Pounds (otherwise known as E5P) and have been meaning to write a review on the discount website for about five years.

E5P is a bit of a jumble sale, where some things are better than others – but there is incredible value to be had if you know what you’re doing, but you also may end up with some tat!

So here is my Everything 5 Pounds review, with tips, tricks and full honesty (you know me, I’m not easily pleased!).

What is Everything 5 Pounds (E5P)?

Like it or not, we live in a society where we value fast fashion, so that means that an item of clothing will be in the shops for a few months, then out. Retail space is expensive, so if it doesn’t sell, it has to go.

So what do brands do with all the clothes that were not sold? Well, they try and sell them on to third parties.

If you see an item but has the label cut out of it, that’s a really good sign that the item was sold off cheap, but it was agreed that they wouldn’t sell it as ‘Next’ or ‘Topshop’, as that would “devalue the brand”.

I see clothes like this in the London markets all of the time. I used to joke that ‘they came off the back of the lorry’, but it’s actually very legit.

So basically, Everything 5 Pounds (E5P) is pretty much an online discount ‘market’.

It sells women’s, men’s and children’s clothes, homeware and accessories. It’s a mix of high-street brands and cheapish market-style clothes.

Everything 5 Pounds review

I’ve been using Everything 5 Pounds (E5P) for years and the items on there are very hit or miss. Can I just tell you know, don’t bother with the homeware section. Never seen anything decent in it and you can usually buy bits and bobs in there at Poundland!

That said, I really like that the concept is actually very environmentally friendly because it’s giving these clothes a second chance, rather than wasting them because they’re not ‘the latest trends’.

Ideally, you want to bag yourself one of the highstreet brand items for £5 or less, rather than a cheaply made item of clothes. And I have some tips for you to do that.

Check the colours

If it’s an item that has a load of different colour options – it’s unlikely to be from a good brand. Maybe if there are two options, that might work, but if it’s a top with five colour options, it probably wasn’t in River Island once, because high-street shops don’t work like that.

I’m not saying that the product will not be good quality, it just is unlikely to have come from Topshop.

It’s ALL about the reviews

This is the key thing – you need to check the reviews because the people who have bought the item before will drop hints.

In the olden days, reviewers would literally tell you what brand the item was and you could look up the RRP and star rating on the store.

Super frustratingly, it just doesn’t seem to work like that anymore. I spent around three hours last night going through as many item reviews as possible and couldn’t find any specific brand name – but people will tell you it’s from a ‘high street store’.

I think there’s an algorithm on the Everything 5 Pounds website that if you mention a brand, it gets deleted. However, there’s no such algorithm on the E5P Facebook page (hint hint), but I’ll go more into that later.

When you get onto the E5P website, you’re going to want to sort by ‘top rated’, so that way, you’re going to see products that not only do people really rate, but are going to have more reviews left, which will give you more clues.

Get on Google Images

Everything 5 Pounds takes its own pictures of the items, so you can’t do a straight image search and see where the item originally came from.

However, if you’re like me, and are willing to spend five minutes of your life doing your best Sherlock Holmes impression, you may get lucky. Check this out.

Saw these wide fit red E5P shoes and thought they looked nice and well made. I also thought that they probably came from a brand somewhere because ‘wide fit’ is quite specific and you wouldn’t bother making them if you were just trying to make cheap items to sell.

So I described (red wide fit heels with buckle) the shoes into Google and clicked on ‘images’. You can then have a look there and see if the shoes come up. Odds are, they won’t be ‘in stock’ anymore though.

I found this pair from Matalan originally I thought matched, but then my wonderful Twitter follower (hey Sarah!) found the exact pair after doing a bit of digging online. They’re from New Look!

They’re currently selling for £18 on eBay.

Everything 5 Pounds Shoes

The shoes on the Everything 5 Pounds site are particularly good. Again, You’re going to want to hunt out those reviews those.

Just browsing through, I managed to find a pair of leather brogues for £5 which is pretty incredible.

The same thing applies with E5P shoes as with clothing in general, they are likely to be high street brands.

Something I’ve noticed with Everything 5 Pound shoes in particular, is that the brand is often decent, but European. I bought a pair of sandals a couple of years ago and when I googled them, they were worth about £40 and came from a store in Spain.

So the brand may not always be recognisable to you, because of where you live, but it doesn’t mean the quality would be bad.

Something that’s frustrating to me when it comes to Everything 5 Pound shoes, is that there is no wide fit section – because I have well, wide feet! I have two solutions for you.

1. Something I’ve learned over the years is that often sizing up works (especially if you’re strapped in). It just gives your feet a little more room
2. You can put ‘wide fit’ into the search bar and it will come up with ‘some’ options. Sometimes E5P will put ‘wide’ into the title, so it will bring up all options (but it’s mostly trousers!).

Everything 5 Pounds dresses

There are literally thousands of E5P dresses to choose from on the site at any one time, and it’s probably where you’ll find the best items (the Karen Millen stuff etc).

You’ll find party items, wedding-appropriate dresses, summer dresses – absolutely every style going.

I’ll go into it fully below, but you can buy absolutely stunning designer dresses, where you know the brand, on Everything 5 Pounds too – but obviously, they’re not £5.

Brands such as:

• Lacoste (£55 dress down from £130)
• Juicy Couture (£75 dress down from £300)
• Jolie Moi (£36 dress down from £95) – which I would definitely buy if I was a size 8!

And that’s a major drawback from shopping at Everything 5 Pounds – the sizing is very limited.

So something you really need to be careful of (because it’s a trap I have even fallen into) is to not buy the wrong size because it’s such a bargain.

At one time, I genuinely had a wardrobe of “bargainous” clothes that I had never worn because they were all size or two too small.

I said to myself I’d diet to get into them, but it never happened. It was depressing and the best thing I ever did was to donate it all. So yeah – if the item you like isn’t in your size, leave it. It’s not a bargain if you can’t wear it.

Oh – also, you can get plus size clothing at Everything 5 Pounds, which is pretty impressive because it’s hard out there for a plus size girl (check out my plus size cheap clothing guide!).

However… I’ve never really been taken to the E5P plus size offering to be honest. It always seems a bit frumpy and cheap, and rarely from high-street brands. Always worth keeping an eye out though!

Designer items (Hi Five)

It’s not just high-street brands that have excess stock they need to get rid of, higher-end and designer brands do too.

Now, the big boys such as Burberry literally cuts up and burns their clothes which is absolutely gross in my opinion, but others try and sell them off cheap.

Introducing Everything 5 Pound’s fancy section, Hi Five. Items are not £5 in this section and range from around £15 to £105.

You’ll find:

• Women’s clothes (the vast majority)
• Men’s clothes
• Bags and accessories.

Because no-one is going to fork out £100 on an item they don’t know what brand it is, Everything 5 Pounds straight up tells you who the product is made by.

Plus, when it comes to designer items, it’s pretty easy to see where something comes from because they tend to have logos on them.

Again with everything else on the E5P site, the items and brands change all the time, but at the time of writing I saw:

• Versace
• Juicy Couture
• Diesel
• Lacoste

That said there are some products around the £25 that are not branded, but are better quality than the usual £5 stuff.

If you’re thinking of buying a mystery £25 item, I really recommend you check out the reviews to make sure you’re getting a good quality item or wait until you bag yourself an Everything 5 Pounds discount code.

Everything 5 Pounds new arrivals

Let’s talk about the cult of Everything 5 Pounds. I’m not being dramatic when I say people are absolutely obsessed with the brand and wait patiently for E5P new arrivals.

Put it this way, the *really* good stuff goes incredibly quickly – within hours.

To see new arrivals on the website you can either click on the Everything 5 Pounds New Arrivals section on the site which will show you all of the new stuff.

Because it’s new, there are unlikely to be reviews helping you see what brands they are. So here, it’s up to you to try and use your judgement to see if the times are likely to be high quality.

Also, and it happens less these days, sometimes Everything 5 Pounds messes up a bit and leaves the brand tag in the picture so you can see where the item is from.

Another way to see all the new arrivals from E5P is to go into a specific area such as ‘Everything 5 Pounds dresses’ then order it to ‘New Arrivals’ meaning al the new stuff goes to the top of the search bar.

If you’re interested in getting the new arrivals quickly, you’re going to have to join Everything 5 Pounds Facebook page.

Everything 5 Pounds Facebook

Here we go, this is where it gets juicy. The Everything 5 Pounds Facebook group is there all the drama is. So you’re going to need to join it.

I can’t underestimate how obsessed people are with E5P (there are over 1.3m fans on the page).

Everything 5 Pounds creates events where they drop new arrivals on a certain date and time (usually between 8am and 9am).

They seem to do drop new products every couple of days although the retailer says that new things are added to the website daily.

They’ll give you a sneak peek of some of the best items on Facebook to stir up hype and the fans get researching.

So for example in the most recent one, there’s this beautiful blue dress. In the comments, people have pointed out you can buy it at Quiz (it’s at Debenhams and other stores), and it costs £35.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a savvy shopper (or want to be). So trust me, come join my Facebook group Luxury on a Budget where I post all the good shopping finds I come across.

Everything 5 Pounds Shipping

Here’s where it gets a little dramatic as people are angry that the Everything 5 Pounds shipping costs have changed which makes it more expensive.

I also can’t ignore from the comments on Facebook, that people are frustrated with how long their items are taking to be delivered at the moment.

We all know it’s an odd time for retailers, so postage for everything takes longer – but you can’t ignore all the unhappy shoppers at the moment. They like the products, but they aren’t getting them quickly.

So let’s talk E5P shipping basics. Everything 5 Pounds currently ships to the UK and worldwide.

It used to post items based per item, but now it charges you based on the weight of your total order – which will be at least £3.95.

I saw someone on the Facebook page get annoyed that their shipping order was coming to £40! I’m assuming she had a load of heavy things in there (like shoes), but that’s a really hefty delivery charge.

You also have to pay more for international shipping, and you also have to take into account any additional customs charges which may be incurred.

You will be able to see how much your Everything 5 Pounds package will cost to ship before you make your payment.

When it comes to returns, you can get a full refund within 14 days that the order was received, BUT – you have to cover the cost of the return.

If the item is faulty and you want to return, you’ll also be refunded the full postage placed from the original order.

Everything 5 Pounds Sale

Everything 5 Pounds always seems to have a sale on. At the time of writing, there’s a bit £2.50 sale, and often there are sections where all of the clothes are £2.

The sales are massive too, with literally thousands of items included.

It’s not just the standard items that get reduced either. It’s certainly worth checking out the designer section because there are plenty of discounted items there in the sale too.

E5P new arrivals are very unlikely to be included in the sale, so if you really want something from there – don’t hang around for a discount.

The best place to see when there will be a sale will be the Everything 5 Pounds Facebook Page, its Twitter or Instagram account.

Everything 5 Pounds Voucher

Every now and then Everything 5 Pounds will release a voucher code. They usually work together on a deal at my old workplace, MoneySavingExpert (though I’ll probably spot the deal and post in my Facebook group!).

MSE usually bags a £5 off voucher which will cover your shipping. I’ve also seen a 5% off voucher code. So it’s worth checking the usual discount sites for a discount code, but they are few and far between.

Don’t forget, you can also get cashback via a cashback site such as Quidco. At the time of writing, E5P are offering 11.5% cashback for new customers, and 3.5% for returning customers.

---

Phew! That’s pretty much it for Everything 5 Pounds. I don’t think I can think of a single other thing you need to know! If I have missed anything out, please do let me know and I’ll add it to the guide.

Oh – there are some affiliate links in here! This means I get a tiny percentage if you end up buying something using my links. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but helps me cover the costs of running this site.

---

Want to read more?

• How to save money during lockdown 2020.
• Where to buy cheap plus size clothes
• Why you shouldn’t buy designer items at TKMaxx or Costco