Episode 162: Examining The Ethics of Secondhand Resale (part 4)…Now What?

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that has four cabinets of dumb mugs.

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 162. This will be the fourth and final (for now) episode in a series about the ethics of secondhand. If you haven’t listened to the other three episodes in this series…well, what are you doing?! Go listen to those right now! For the previous episodes, I was joined by Alex of St. Evens. But for this one, I’ll be all alone. And yeah, it feels a little weird! But as I was editing part 3, I had this sort of lightbulb moment: now that we’ve debunked all of the myths that form the core of all of the anti-reseller rhetoric I see across all social media platforms (and in a lot of blog posts), we’ve uncovered a lot of larger systemic issues along the way that are the actual causes of the frustrating things being falsely blamed on resellers.

So, in my career as a buyer, I’ve also been a manager. Like a lot of jobs, the higher you move up the career ladder, the more people you manage. To be honest, at a certain point most of your job becomes strictly managing people, strategizing, and being the “final boss” to solve all the biggest issues that arise. I guess what I’m saying is that over the years, I’ve become the Bowser of buying, but like a nice, empathetic Bowser. As I mentioned early in the life of Clotheshorse, one of my past bosses told me that I needed to care less about the people who worked for me if I ever wanted to succeed in my career. I obviously don’t believe that. And that could be a whole episode of its own. In fact, I’ve been trying to get Kim, my cohost on The Department, to come over for a Clotheshorse episode about toxic work environments (particularly in fashion) and how the world of shitty jobs that give you stress eczema is (hopefully) changing!

Anyway, back to being a manager. When I’m helping members of my team solve a problem or make a decision using data, I always follow a formula of “What?” and then “Now what?” So if we identify that the problem is thrift store prices being too high (that’s the What), then now we have figure out “Now what?” Meaning: what could make this situation better. As I was working on the third installment of this series, I realized that we had uncovered a lot of “Whats,” and it felt irresponsible to skip the “Now what?” part of it all. Furthermore, I’ve been getting a lot of questions on the instagram posts that accompany this series that ask “what can we do? How can it be better?”

So in this episode, we’ll be taking the Whats and exploring the Now Whats. Now, I don’t have all the answers. I’m one person who spends a lot of time researching and thinking about these things, but at the end of the day, these are very complex issues that will require time, larger systemic changes, and massive social changes to accomplish. But, that doesn’t mean that they can’t happen.

There’s a metaphor that I’ve heard used in situations involving complex, overwhelming projects: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Sorry, I feel gross saying that because I love elephants. The last time we were in Japan, I watched an hour long program–that was maybe intended for children–about the various baby elephants in the Japanese zoo system, and it moved me to tears multiple times.

So rather than eating an elephant, let’s try this: how do you eat that baseball bat sized zucchini that somehow grew to that size in your garden with minimal attention? If you know, you know. Well, you eat it one bite at a time, by making zucchini bread, zoodles, skewers, zucchini fries, and so much more. And that’s sort of how we make the secondhand clothing system more equitable and less wasteful. By making a long list of changes. And while some of these changes seem scary and huge, others are a lot smaller and more personal. No matter the scale, they all add up to shifting the secondhand clothing system into a better place.

And every participant in the system will have to make some changes: thrift stores, resellers, consumers, the people who donate to thrift stores, the resale platforms…so essentially, all of us.

Here are the individual elements of this massive zucchini that we will be discussing in this episode:

What might help bring thrift store prices back to a more accessible level.

How there could be “better” stuff in the thrift stores.

Ways we can ensure that the people who need things like clothes and home goods are getting them

A path toward making resale more equitable for resellers.

How we can de-escalate the ever-intensifying anti-reseller rhetoric happening on social media right now.

Just a super simple list, right?

One last thing I wanted to mention before we get started: in the last episode, Alex used a term that is often used as a name for people who are price gouging, specifically buying up things and then charging astronomical prices for them on the resale market. It was used in a single time, in one sentence. A listener let us know that the word had a racist origins, which was a learning opportunity for both of us. I learned this about four days after the episode was released, but fortunately I was able to pull it, cut out that sentence, and re-render and upload it, all within about an hour. If you listened to the episode before I did that, you heard that word and I apologize from the bottom of my heart for any harm that may have caused.

Okay, let’s get started by tackling the first “What,” thrift store prices. There is no doubt that thrift store prices have increased over time. For one, overall prices have increased, but secondly, thrift stores are tagging some items with prices that are closer to what I would consider the “market value” of the item. Some do this more than others. And the practice is kinda inconsistent. Like, I’ve definitely seen secondhand Adidas and Nike sneakers at thrift stores, priced in the $70-100 range. At the same time, I’ve seen actual vintage stuff priced below $10, even though the market value would be much higher

And to be clear, when I talk about market value, I’m referring to the average price that a customer would be willing to pay. That customer might not be YOU, but it is someone out there. Will that person willing to pay that price happen to walk into the thrift and buy it? That’s a bigger risk. If that person doesn’t show up, the thrift store will either have to mark it down to a lower price or end up baling it up and shipping it off elsewhere. And the labor of doing that costs the thrift store money.

You know what? Let’s take a minute to talk about the psychology of pricing. If there is anything I know very well, it is the art of choosing the right price for a product. Yes, there are spreadsheets and calculators involved, but like any part of buying and retail, determining the right price is a mixture of science and…ART. And in this case, the art is sort of a gut feeling that involves understanding how people behave.

Now, I know the internet is full of tales of unscrupulous resellers price gouging by asking prices that no one can afford. And listen, that definitely does happen. As Alex and I discussed in the last episode, some people are assholes. And they are in every industry, field, scene, instagram community, etc. But most people are decent people and if they are marking things at a super high, unrealistic, unfair price, it’s probably because they don’t know any better. But if they are smart, if they have natural business acumen, or at least can recognize that something isn’t selling because it’s priced too high, they will lower the price or never sell it. That’s how all retail works, actually.

Pricing is wayyyyy more complicated than just “my expenses were this, now I’ll just double or triple that to get the asking price.” It’s a lot more than that! I teach a whole session on it for Small Biz Big Pic, the small business classes I teach with Courtney of Sonic Wave Vintage. In fact, the most important part of pricing isn’t how much the item cost you to source, clean, mend, and list…it’s how much a customer is willing to pay for it. That’s called the “perceived value.” Sometimes the perceived value of an item makes it a profitable thing to sell. And other times, the perceived value of something is lower than the cost of sourcing it. In that case, a reseller or maker or retailer should stop trying to sell it and move on. Perceived value is more squishy, more complex than pricing based on a formula. And even more frustratingly, it changes over time, trend, place, and customer.

Here are some examples:

Y2K: just five years ago, it was the last thing anyone wanted to buy and it could only be sold at rockbottom prices, if at all. Now Y2K is a fashion trend, and customers are willing to pay more. This is a great example of fashion trends dictating the perceived value of something. Other great examples: Gunne Sax dresses and 00s mall brands like Abercrombie.

Scarcity (or at least, perceived scarcity) plays a role in perceived value, too. People are currently selling discontinued Balm Dot Coms from Glossier for 5-10x the original retail price. And people are paying it because, well, they don’t know if they will ever get it again. This same sort of phenomenon of scarcity, plays a role in the prices people will pay for vintage rock tees, clothes that are older than say, the 1980s, luxury items, even vintage in larger sizes. And yeah, these things fetch some pretty steep prices. But for the customer, the perceived value is high because the odds of encountering another one of these items are pretty low.

We also see scarcity playing a role in the price of agricultural products (fruits, vegetables, animal products (eggs!), cotton), oil and gas, all kinds of things around us, outside of clothing.

Geographical availability can create its own type of scarcity, driving up the perceived value. For example, in the 90s, resellers were making a fortune exporting secondhand American jeans to Japan and Thailand. Here in the US, no one was interested in them because the whole country was flush with Gap stores and denim every where we turned. The perceived value here was pretty low. But in Japan, resellers were able to charge top dollar for these jeans that weren’t readily available there. The first time I went to Japan, I guess it was like 2017, I saw tons and tons of Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts and sweatshirts in every store and on the body of every cool kid in Harajuku. The sweatshirts were priced around $50, but back here in the US, you would be hard pressed in 2017 to find someone who would take one from you for free! Just another example of perceived value being different for different people in different places.

And here’s the thing: even if a price seems wildly unrealistic, sometimes it works in ways that surprise us. How many of you watched Arrested Development? I loved it at the time, but I haven’t rewatched it, so I don’t know if it holds up. But there is an iconic line, when the wildly out of touch, mega rich lady, Louise Bluth scolds her son for charging his brother for a frozen banana on a stick. She says, “I mean it’s one banana, Michael, what could it cost, 10 dollars?” The joke is that $10 for a banana is ridiculous and only a rich person who has no concept of money or groceries or the world I suppose, would think that a banana could cost $10. That anyone would pay $10 for a banana! And most of us wouldn’t, right? I’m the most thrifty person ever, so I wouldn’t in most situations. But if I were just getting over food poisoning and I was sorely in need of some potassium, and a banana felt like just the perfect food to be my reintroduction to eating….well, I would probably pay $10 for a banana if that was the price at that moment. And I wouldn’t bat an eyelash at it, even though I’m neither wealthy nor reckless with money.

When I put on my buyer’s hat (I like to imagine that it’s the hat from Holy Mountain), before I even look at the cost of something, I ask myself how much a customer would pay for it. What is the perceived value? After I make a decision there, I actually pull out the price sheet. And sometimes that number makes sense from a financial perspective, other times it does not.

The thing is…if the price is wrong–and that can be both too high or too low–the customer won’t buy it, and I’ll have to make adjustments, like running a promo or taking it to markdown. Ultimately, a wrong price will correct itself: either no one will buy the item and the price will be lowered until it is, or a seller will never change the price, see dwindling sales, and possibly go out of business.

A lot of the hand wringing about price gouging in the world of secondhand resale is unwarranted. As I said earlier, either the seller will realize that they are pricing wrong and fix it, or they will sell nothing, and go out of business. It’s just that simple. Anyone who is overpricing probably isn’t very successful. But much like one woman’s $10 banana is another person’s 50 cent banana, what might seem like a high or low price to you, might not feel that way to someone else. Price is very subjective, like so many other things connected to what we buy!

So that’s the psychology, no, ART of pricing.

Let’s talk about thrift stores. Prices are a little higher on some things and much, much higher on other things. When it comes to thrift stores wanting to get the highest possible price on the inventory they get for free, it can certainly feel kinda…dirty. But remember, thrift stores are businesses, not charities, even if the sales of that thrift store support a charity!

It’s important to remember that the act of selling secondhand stuff is NOT the charitable element of a thrift store. Rather, the sales of secondhand goods fund the charitable work. More sales = more charitable impact. And thrift stores want to bring in as much money as possible, just like the majority of other types of businesses out there.

Since the middle of the last century, thrift stores have worked to maximize sales by choosing store locations in high traffic areas and merchandising stores in line with current retail and fashion trends. Because they want people to spend more and be willing to pay higher prices.

But on top of that, there are factors increasing the cost of running these thrift stores. And just like any other business, those costs get passed on to the customers.

A big cost for thrift stores is rent. You know how housing rent has been increasing all over the country? Commercial rent has been affected, too, particularly in urban areas. And thrift stores have very specific real estate needs: loading docks, space for large trucks and shipping containers, parking lots, and large back-of-house spaces for sorting donations. It’s expensive! Maria sent in some thoughts about this:

From Maria:

So, while this is not exactly a specific solution for equity in thrift shops, I think that maybe something that’s getting overlooked by people in this convo is that at least in urban environments, thrift stores are in trouble! Their business model isn’t designed to exponentially grow in revenue… A successful thrift store will eventually plateau in sales because you can only sell so much stuff to so many people, especially in a business that can’t predict what it’ll have on hand at any given moment. So the stores are getting priced out, and closing, and there’s way less of them in NYC anyway than there was when I first moved here 20 years ago.

Housing Works (my former employer) closed a few shops, and some goodwills have closed as well. These places aren’t being replaced, though some more expensive vintage warehouse joints are opening in the city kinda filling that void?

I think also more and more donations are just going straight to rag houses, sorted there, and baled for overseas or sold to these bulk vintage buyers, and ending up at those big vintage warehouse stores in Brooklyn (L train vintage, I’m looking at you!) The rag houses have the economic advantage because they can be in further away industrial areas in New Jersey and make a ton of money selling these bales… of donated stuff a charity thrift sold for Pennies on the pound to the rag houses cause they have no where to sell it.

I think as long as the real estate climate is so brutal, a lot of thrifts aren’t going to be able to hold on, especially the non profit ones that consider affordability a priority. Every thrift store location for either company i worked at had some major rent increase at some point that sent us all in a tailspin, and that contributed to price-gouging, and other crappy practices businesses do when they’re desperate and their rent doubled.

I guess this isn’t a solution, but ultimately unless rent gets under control, in urban areas anyway, these stores are going to be in desperation mode, which isn’t great for equity.

Maria has a really good point there! Part of my research for both this series and the series I have been doing for The Department about the history of secondhand shopping as a trend has been reading every single article from the last 50 years of the NYT archive about thrift stores and secondhand shopping. Fortunately my superpower is speed reading, so it only took maybe 20 hours instead of a whole week! Anyway, a trend I began to see developing in the 90s, was more and more articles about thrift stores closing or relocating into smaller spaces in less high traffic neighborhoods because they were being priced about by rising rents. Yes, it turns out that you and I have way more in common with thrift stores than we might have imagined. All along I thought the biggest thing I had in common with thrift stores was an incredibly large inventory of dumb mugs, more mugs than any one or two people could drink out of in a year.

<Random aside about dumb mugs: I use mine when I have parties or other get-togethers at my place. It’s way better than plastic cups, everyone has fun finding one that best represents their personality, and you’re less likely to drink out of the wrong cup when you know for certain that yours says “I got crabs in Maryland.” (it’s a seafood joke, okay?)>

Thrift stores face other rising costs that you and I can’t really change: higher transportation, facilities, and supply costs. Since the beginning of the pandemic the costs for trucking, fuel and utilities have increased. And thanks to supply chain issues, items like hangers, tags, and equipment have also become more expensive. That’s just a fun combo of capitalism and…wait a minute, scarcity driving up the perceived value of something! Another thing that is part of this: thrift stores that fund charitable endeavors have seen the cost of running those programs increase, too, for all of the same reasons we’ve just discussed. And that gives them more motivation to try to get every last cent out of donated items.

But there is something else that really stems from a horrible combo of overconsumption, dumping our stuff in the donation bins, and the disservice the fast fashion industry has done to the world:

Thrift stores have been receiving a record level of donations over the past few years. After all, we’re buying (on average) 70 new garments each year. And we are wearing them for a very short period of time. As I told you at the beginning of this series, 60% of new clothing ends up in the landfill or incinerator within the same year it was made. That’s 60 billion garments each year. A lot of this doesn’t go straight to the landfill; it starts its journey in the donation bins. And an increased volume of donations requires more employees and time to sort and process. These employees cost money…although many thrift stores (especially Goodwill) go out of their way to fight a higher minimum wage, avoid paying workers a living wage, and provide enough staffing in stores. Goodwill also pays workers with disabilities below the minimum wage (and yeah, that’s unfortunately legal thanks to antiquated laws). We’ve talked about that a lot here in the past, I’ll try to remember to share those episodes in the show notes!

To make matters worse, many of these donations are just not great quality or are straight up trash, only slowing down the process and requiring more people to handle them.

Only 10-20% of the donations are sold in the thrift store.

Because the flow of new donations never stops, stores must move product out as fast as possible. The 80-90% of donations that are not sold face several different fates:

Downcycling into insulation, carpet and industrial rags.

Being sold off to other thrift stores, vintage dealers, and retailers that sell secondhand items.

Export into the global secondhand clothing industry. Many of these garments will end up in the Global South, passing the burden on to others.

Landfill or incineration. Thrift stores pay disposal fees for these items.

Regardless of where these unsold donations end up, thrift stores bear the expense of sorting, packing, and transporting all of them. This includes trucks, fuel, and drivers, along with the workers loading these trucks.

And when we get down to brass tacks, desirable items that will probably sell are priced higher to cover the cost of transporting and/or disposing of the 80-90% of donations that will never sell in the store. Everyone who shops at the thrift store is bearing the burden of all of that overconsumption of shitty stuff!

So how does this get better? I think it starts with us changing both our shopping AND our donation habits. I’m going to get into that when we get to our next “what,” how could there be better stuff in the thrift stores?

Here are some thoughts from members of our community. First, let’s listen to a message from Tamara.

Tamara has a lot of good points here: don’t donate trash to the thrift stores (because yes, that does drive up prices), don’t buy stuff that is overpriced (force the thrift stores to correct their bad pricing), and maybe give your stuff to a reseller to sell (and donate your share of the proceeds to a charity that matters to you). I would love to hear all of your thoughts on that idea! I will say that I want to keep this conversation going, so many times throughout this episode, I’m going to remind you to send your thoughts and ideas my way and maybe we can do some follow up episodes!

Okay, next I’m going to share some thoughts from Stacie, that touch on both pricing and how we could make thrift stores more accessible in a way that has nothing to do with the stuff we buy:

From Stacie:

I think thrifting is already fairly equitable. Even with rising prices, it’s still very affordable, and thrifts are open to anyone who has the time and the physical ability to sift through them. When I see complaints around fairness and thrifting, two themes dominate: first, that “poor people” can’t afford to thrift anymore, which I think we can agree is a canard. And second, that everyone deserves to have “nice” things, which I agree with in principle, but it’s a materialistic point of view and it isn’t really a social problem. Deserving is not the same as being entitled to, and I don’t think consuming name brand clothing has anything to do with equity or justice. This, too, seems like consumerism sinking so deeply into people’s brains that they can’t imagine life without it!

One way I’d like thrifts to be more equitable is being navigable for people with disabilities. My partner has terrible knees and can’t thrift anymore because he can’t stand that long, so I know just having places to sit here and there would help for some folks, and no doubt there’s much more they could do.

I’d also like to see more thoughtful pricing. I don’t begrudge thrifts getting more for “better” items, raising money is their mission after all, but why not skew prices low on everything else, especially overabundant categories like t-shirts? They should also validate their higher prices with comps rather than winging it. Worthopedia has a partnership with the Salvation Army, maybe they all should?

Thrift stores have to *decide* to do those things, we can’t force them, but as their shoppers and donors, we CAN speak up and make our wishes known. It’s not enough to talk shit about Goodwill on Instagram, we should write them and tell them what we think!

I agree with both Stacie and Tamara here: we have so much power as customers and people who care to force change in the area of thrift stores. As I have said before many many times in the span of Clotheshorse, only two things get retailers to change their ways: the law and the fear of losing sales. It is so easy to feel like a teeny tiny grain of sand in a vast desert, to feel as if you are powerless in the face of all of these big baddies…but your power as a customer is pretty huge. I say that as a buyer who has spent years and years shifting and changing to make customers happy. Thrift stores are no different than any other business in that way.

The last thing I’ll say in terms of pricing in thrift stores: If you want the more high value things you’re getting rid of to go to people with less money to spend, don’t put these items in the donation bin! I guess I’ll just give you a little spoiler alert here: in the next section of this episode, we’re going to talk about mindful rehoming. And ultimately, mindful rehoming is the best way to ensure that people who need the things you’re giving away, actually get them!

Okay, let’s move on to the next What: how could there be better stuff in thrift stores? As Alex and I discussed in part two of this series, resellers are often blamed for the lack of “good” stuff in thrift stores. Well, let’s address the elephant in the room (and no, we won’t eat this one, either): What is “good” is very subjective, meaning a personal opinion. One person’s “good” is another person’s low rise jeans nightmare, right? But that said, what is in thrift stores right now HAS changed. And this is caused by a few things, some of which are actually GOOD things. So let’s start with the good reasons what we find in the thrift stores is different than it used to be:

More people are opting to resell their best unwanted stuff, rather than donating it. And the wide variety of online platforms has made this a lot easier!

History has shown that when the economy is less-than-stellar, more people opt to sell their unwanted things rather than just giving them away. Every dollar matters!

In the 70s, inflation-strapped Americans sold their stuff at yard sales and flea markets. Thrift stores felt a reduction in donations.

During the Great Recession of the 00s, people sold their stuff on eBay or at buy/sell/trade stores like Crossroads and Buffalo Exchange. Again, thrift stores saw a drop in donations.

Today–with inflation and cost of living outpacing wages–more people are selling their most desirable unwanted stuff online. There are a plethora of platforms. And it is more lucrative than just dropping it all in a donation bin.

I think this is actually a good thing, because it increases the chance that a garment is going to get a lot of use.

We are opting to rehome our stuff within our community, rather than jamming into a thrift bin. I call this practice “Mindful Rehoming.”

The facts about the fate of donations are pretty grim: only 10-20% will be resold by the store. The balance will either be sold off to someone else, downcycled/shredded, enter the global secondhand clothing trade, or end up in the landfill.

When you know this, it makes donation a lot less appealing, right?

More and more of us are opting to rehome these items within our community, via Buy Nothing groups, our friends/neighbors, clothing swaps, free bins, and mutual aid groups.

Obviously I think this is great because it actually ensures that items get more use and it can help items get into the hands of people who really need it.

Okay, so those are the two good things.

The next one I would say is more “neutral,” meaning neither good nor bad, and really just more of a function of thrift stores wanting to maximize the amount of money they bring in: Many thrift stores never put the “good” stuff out on the floor, opting to sell it online instead. The ease of selling/shopping online has benefited the thrift stores, too. They can make more money from an item by selling it online than they can by just putting it out on the sales floor, where it could be damaged or stolen. Or just overlooked!

Now we have the more depressing reasons that stuff in thrift stores might not be as “good.”

The stuff you see in the thrift store reflects what people consumed and rejected. One thing I have learned in all of my research is that thrift stores are basically a reflection of what’s going on in the world at any given time.

And thrift stores sorta rely on overconsumption for their business model. Not their customers overconsuming per se, but rather their donors overconsuming.

There is a direct correlation between shopping and donation. If donors are constantly buying new clothes and upgrading their furniture, home goods, and electronics sooner than necessary, then the thrift store benefits from a steady flow of new inventory.

In a time where more and more people are cutting back and/or trying to turn unwanted things into cash, thrift stores receive the stuff that donors overconsumed but did not find valuable enough to resell or mindfully rehome.

The stuff at thrift stores represents the fast fashion-ification of this century.

We should expect to see clothing primarily from the last 20 years in the thrift stores. We can also expect to see some clothing from the 90s, but with each decade before that, we will encounter progressively less items from that era.

As an example, in the 1990s, one would see a lot of 80s-90s clothing, a decent amount of 70s, some 60s, and a rare find from the 50s.

So yes, most clothing in thrift stores right now is from this century. And what happened in this century? The rise of fast fashion! Which means that the quality tends to be lower and the sheer volume of clothing making its way into donation bins is higher than ever.

The clothes at the thrift store aren’t as great…not because the “good” stuff has been picked out, but because the companies making these clothes decided that “good” was no longer the goal; “profitable” was more important. And now the majority of these clothes are a burden to our planet and its people. They were made cheap and fast, with exploitation and waste as key ingredients. Most will never be worn again.

So knowing all of this, how do we impact the quality, the perceived “goodness” of what we see in thrift stores? I think the easy answer here is actually impossible: stop buying fast fashion. That’s got a weird tinge of diet culture to it because it’s not realistic to tell yourself you’ll never buy new clothes again. And in the era of fast fashion, the vast majority of brands operate using the fast fashion model. People need clothes. Our bodies change, our lives change, who we are changes. And yes, I urge you to shop secondhand first, but it doesn’t always work out. But there are more realistic things here that we CAN do:

First, we–and I mean the collective we here–have to stop buying so much stuff, and we specifically have to stop buying a ton of disappointing stuff that we barely wear and pass on to the donation bin. If we didn’t want it, why would someone else want it? This means buying less and trying as often as possible to choose items with longevity. Items with longevity don’t have to be more expensive, they just have to have a lot more potential use in our life. Rather than being one-off novelty items, they mix and match with the rest of our wardrobe and they fit our lifestyle and priorities. This means breaking some bad habits: buying a new dress for every social event or a suitcase full of brand new clothes for a trip. These are the things that pass in and out of our lives at the fastest velocity.

Next–and this goes back to our power as consumers–don’t give your money to assholes who make clothes that don’t fit you well or fall apart really fast. Buy something from a brand that falls apart or pills up after a few wears? Don’t buy from them again. And spread the word: tell your friends and family. Harness the power of “word of mouth” advertising…against this brand. And of course, let the brand know that they won’t be receiving any more of your money until they get their act together.

Also, take care of your clothes by removing stains, laundering them carefully, and mending/repairing. I always like to think about who will wear my clothes next, and that motivates me to ensure they are in great shape for the next wearer.

And lastly: get involved in pushing for EPR legislation in your state or country. This is something that could be majorly impactful on our planet AND thrift stores/what is available in the secondhand market.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) means making retailers/brands financially responsible for what happens to the things they sell us when we can no longer use them.

Here is a good explanation of EPR from the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC), an organization working on EPR legislation and pilot programs in California:

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a strategy to place a shared responsibility for end-of-life product management on the producers, and all entities involved in the product chain, instead of the general public; while encouraging product design or redesign that minimizes the negative impacts on human health and the environment at every stage of the product’s lifecycle. This allows the costs of processing and recycling or disposal to be incorporated into the total cost of a product. This also places primary responsibility on the producer, or brand owner, who ultimately makes design and marketing decisions for their products. It also creates a setting for recycled commodities markets to emerge, which helps support a true circular economy.

Joanne Brasch is the Special Projects Manager for CPSC, and she sent me some information about their EPR program after seeing my post on Instagram. Here is what she says about it: “The EPR program is designed to be “back of the house” for thrifts, so they can get funding to separate usables from unusables, and get free repair/recycling for what are deemed “unusable” according to the criteria set in the state-approved Plan. We designed the program to support local thrifts, small and large, and to utilize the established infrastructure to serve as a collection systems for recycling.” I have asked Joanne to be a guest here on the pod to tell us more about this, so stay tuned…

What’s great about EPR is that one, it forces retailers and brands to make products that both last longer and are more easily recycled/reused. This could automatically elevate the quality of the things in the thrift store because they will be higher quality. And the flow of donations could slow as people wear and use things longer. Next, it could take a lot of the disposal burden off thrift stores….which could lower prices!

EPR is something that can be regulated on both a national and a state level. But we have to let our elected representatives know that we want it! This means emailing and calling, starting petitions, organizing with others to have public information meetings about it. I think this kind of legislation can be achieved via grassroots, community organizing. I am really excited about the prospect of this!

• Now let’s talk about the next What: How can we ensure that the people who need things like clothes and home goods are getting them?

  Let’s start with some thoughts from Frankie:

  I upcycle clothing as a small part of my income, and I want the clothes to be accessible but also to honor my labor. Because I get most of the clothing and fabric from “the bins”, the main cost is my own labor. This allows me to do sliding scale pricing. People who have more expendable income often give a little tip, so it all balances out in the end. If someone does a lot of volunteering in our community, I will sometimes just give them something I’ve made to say thank you for their free labor.

  But I don’t think the responsibility of making secondhand accessible should fall solely on the resellers. In many towns (including mine) we have the Really Really Free Market, where people bring whatever they no longer want and can take anything they do want for free. It’s usually a lot of clothes, more than anything else. This is one outlet for mindfully rehoming clothes outside of the thrift stores. I also offer mending at these events, which I think is an important part of improving accessibility.

  I save so much money by “shopping” primarily at the RRFM, that I can occasionally afford to buy something special by an ethical maker such as Panty Witch. I don’t think Panty Witch should charge less for all the work she does.

  I received a lot of messages and comments telling me that it was up to the resellers to ensure that happens…and I don’t love that, actually. Yes, if a reseller has the resources to pick up extra inventory and get it into the hands of the people who need it, that’s great. Go for it! But a lot of resellers just don’t have the financial luxury of buying stuff to give away. But who does have the luxury of a lot of extra stuff to give away? Thrift stores! And while some already give vouchers to low income customers to get free or heavily discounted merchandise, most do not. That’s one way we can help…by writing letters and emails, and calling our local thrift stores (or write to the biggest thrift store chains), asking them to provide items free of charge to people in need. I was toying with an idea of starting a petition to ask Goodwill to do this. What do you think? I think we could get a lot of signatures if we shared it enough. I can’t guarantee it would change anything, but it’s better than sitting around, waiting for change to happen.

  Frankie’s mention of the Really Really Free Market brings me to the next way we can ensure that stuff is going to people who need it, and that’s….MINDFUL REHOMING!

  I’m going to go ahead and say this: the donation bin should be your last resort. Because in the world of “mindful rehoming,” we take the time and effort to redistribute our belongings to others who truly need/want them. Yes, it takes time. Forethought. A lot of posting and googling and messaging. But it’s true circularity in action: getting these important items to someone who truly needs them, rather than passing them off to a thrift store that might just send them off to the landfill. Or charge money for these items, putting them out of reach financially for others who are truly in need. And we live in an era where mindful rehoming is easier than ever because most of the options can be accessed through your phone:

  There’s your network of social media friends and acquaintances.

  Your neighbors via Next Door or your Buy Nothing Group.

  Total strangers on Craigslist, Freecycle, or Facebook Marketplace.

  And a plethora of mutual aid and community organizations found via a google search. In our old home in Bird in Hand, there was a mutual aid group on Facebook for the whole county. And people would just say “hey, I need a backpack for my kid” or “I just moved out of a halfway house into an apartment and I need kitchen stuff and towels.” And all of us would drop off things for the person who asked. It was so direct, so simple, and it didn’t involve hoping that a thrift store would take care of it for us.

  Some best practices:

  Yes, mindful rehoming takes more time and advance notice than a last minute trip to the Goodwill, but it’s time well spent. So give yourself that time! Procrastination leads to a last minute trip to the Goodwill or one of those random donation bins in the Target parking lot.

  Take NO for an answer. Don’t pass the burden on to someone else. And call before showing up with a load of stuff.

  The goal is to give to PEOPLE, not donation bins and big corporate thrift stores, so look within your community, including free closets, church groups. and mutual aid organizations..

  Ask your friends, neighbors, and coworkers for suggestions. And share your own positive Mindful Rehoming experiences with everyone you know!

  Let’s be honest here: moving away from the binary of “donation bin or trash bin” is not easy! In fact, it’s pretty groundbreaking in the fast fashion era, right? So we are all going to have to share ideas with others, be receptive to new “outlets” for the things we no longer want/need, and really, maybe not acquire those things in the first place! And when we rehome things, we know that at least right now, we can’t rely on thrift stores to get them into the hands of people that need them. So let’s skip the thrift store and go direct!

   
   

Let’s get to the final What, which is really what started this whole series in the first place: How can we de-escalate the ever-intensifying anti-reseller rhetoric happening on social media right now?

When Alex initially approached me about working on this series, I almost said no. Because I was scared. I had already had a few scary, upsetting, infuriating experiences on social media, just because I had dared to talk about thrifting and secondhand. Every experience seemed to involve someone unwilling to take a minute or two to read the whole post or caption, while being totally fine spending hours sending me harassing and insulting messages. So I was scared. But I also could see that this rhetoric was having a very serious negative impact in many different ways that could not be ignored. Let’s walk through those:

Misinformation can turn people away from shopping secondhand.

Ultimately, we need everyone to buy 75% less brand new clothing. That means shifting everyone to shopping #SecondhandFirst as soon as possible. Secondhand is a big component of a more sustainable, ethical future. We must normalize shopping secondhand. Anti-reseller rhetoric just does the opposite!

If you see enough people saying that only “poor” people should thrift or resellers are “stealing clothes from ‘poor’ people,” you’re going to start feeling as if shopping secondhand is the least ethical choice.

Furthermore, if you’re reading that lots of resellers are unethical, selfish, {insert another negative adjective here}…you’re going to feel as if shopping secondhand from a reseller is risky or at least, super unethical.

Here’s the thing: people who are turned off of shopping secondhand (thanks to all of this misinformation) are going to 1. buy brand new stuff and 2. most likely buy fast fashion (because most brands/retailers use the fast fashion business model in 2023). That moves us farther away from the goal of cutting our consumption of new clothing by 75%!

I have no doubt that some of these anti-reseller sentiments began with good intentions, but ultimately, they are damaging to the larger movement away from fast fashion and overconsumption.

It’s a distraction from the very real issues of environmental and social justice created by the fashion industry.

The fashion industry produces about 150 billion new garments every single year. 30% of them will never be sold or worn.

The fast fashion model depends upon overconsumption, selling us as much stuff as possible, as often as possible. And in order to sell us all this stuff while remaining profitable, workers are abused and exploited, the garments themselves are not made to last, and the industry takes no responsibility for its wasteful/abusive practices.

The industry has a harmful impact on just about every aspect of our planet. These are the issues we should be confronting on social media!

Many of the issues blamed on resellers are actually directly caused by the fashion and retail industry:

Consumers are cycling through clothing faster than ever, thanks to the steady flow of low quality, poorly fitting garments created by the industry. There is less “good” stuff in thrift stores because the industry is not making “good” stuff.

The cost of dealing with the deluge of donated clothes (and other stuff) has driven up prices at thrift stores. Because dealing with this stuff is expensive!

The industry also dumps its unsold inventory on thrift stores, crowding out actual, good quality secondhand clothing.

Misogyny is at the core of a lot of the anti-reseller rhetoric (and eww, who wants to be reinforcing that bullshit):

Our culture has a !@#$ed up tradition of minimizing/insulting the interests, talents, and hard work of women, trans people, and non-binary people. When you get down to it, a lot of the harshest criticism and wildest comment threads target resellers who are not cis men.

And furthermore, a lot of the hard work involved in reselling (laundry, mending, customer service) has often been considered “women’s work” and therefore, constantly devalued, labeled as “unskilled.” We know otherwise!!

Terms like “Depop Girlies” only further diminish the work, skill, and expertise required to succeed as a reseller. Moreover, resellers are a key component of a more sustainable, circular economy.

The harmful language and behavior that we find in the anti-reseller pile-ons is dangerous and dehumanizing (which makes it even more dangerous):

Let’s say it all together: NO ONE SHOULD RECEIVE DEATH THREATS FOR SELLING SECONDHAND CLOTHING.

Yeah, that might seem like an obvious one, but then again…it’s happening! Comment sections have spiraled out of control, with resellers receiving death threats and clear implications of violence.

Furthermore, these conversations are misusing very serious language that is not appropriate to the conversation about reselling. This includes accusing resellers of “committing genocide,” “colonizing thrift stores,” “stealing from the poor,” or comparing them to landlords. This misuse of language dehumanizes resellers by portraying them as monstrous villains, making them easier victims of violence.

False arguments are robbing us of our power and potential:

There are a lot of people out there who are not stoked to hear about a strong community of women, nonbinary, trans, and queer people. And that’s what both the secondhand community and the slow fashion community are…an amazing group of passionate, talented, and intelligent people!

This explosive discourse around the ethics of secondhand reselling can break us into factions, making it easier to ignore and control us.

Why are we destroying one another and our relationships over a bunch of myths around thrift stores, secondhand, and the intentions of resellers? It makes me really, really angry and sad that these false arguments are dividing us and preventing us from working together to make serious change in this world

So what can we do to end this escalating harassment and dangerous rhetoric?

Ignore them. Seriously, there are minds that will not be changed by us, but may be changed with time or more thought. Attention from us is the oxygen that fuels the fire of their rage. Take that oxygen away from them by ignoring them. If it’s happening on your instagram profile, “restrict” them so no one can see their comments. If y’all knew the number of people I restrict on a regular basis for being shitty or fatphobic or rude in comments? You don’t know because you don’t see them! And that shuts down their nonsense before it starts! Plus, they won’t know that they are restricted!

Block people. They don’t get to come into your house and accuse you of genocide and price gouging, do they? Then they don’t get to do that on your IG profile or the comment section in your TikTok video. I know as a seller, you worry about blocking people and how that will impact your business…but do it. Those people are not your customers, they are just looking for an outlet for their frustration.

Report people for bullying and harassment, whether it’s happening on your profile or someone else’s.

Have a friend or family member who is sorta unsure about the ethics of reselling? Maybe they have heard a lot of misinformation and that don’t know what is right or wrong? Share what you have learned with them! Have them listen to these episodes or check out my instagram posts. Answer their questions and talk to them about clothing waste!

In fact, do your best to share information with the people in your life, even if that’s on social media. Let’s drown out the misinformation with facts, nuance, and reason.