Episode 228: Thrifty Business with Sara and Shan of Bargain Thrift Center

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that kinda has a grudge against that company that makes all of the mini appliances.

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 228.  I’m back after a few weeks off, thanks to the most brutal case of flu that I have ever had! And I have to say, while there were many reasons I was feeling miserable over the past few weeks, one of them was that I have so many good episodes coming your way and I hated waiting to release them!

Over the past few years, we have explored so many different facets of the secondhand economy: resellers and the ethics of reselling secondhand items, the various secondhand platforms, the fine art of thrifting, and even where all of the unsold stuff from thrift stores ends up! I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wondered what it’s like to own and run an independent thrift store.  And fortunately this week, we’re going to learn all about that with my guests, Sara and Shan of Bargain Thrift Center, a thrift store located in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  I could have talked with Sara and Shan for hours longer than I did because the topic of secondhand never ceases to interest me, but I did rein it in a bit for this episode. That said, the conversation is long, so you won’t be hearing much from me this week. But wow, we talked about some fascinating topics:

• How the unrealistically low prices of ultra fast fashion impact the prices most people are willing to pay for secondhand items
• Opportunities that the secondhand supply chain has to reach more people and match them with the product they are seeking
• What happens to the collectibles and tchotchkes that are flooding thrift stores right now (I call it the “collection industrial complex”)
• And Sara and Shan’s vision for the future of secondhand/thrifting

Along the way, we’ll talk an awful lot about Precious Moments and we’ll wonder where all of the Ed Hardy stuff ended up at the end of the 00s.

Thank you to Sara and Shan for taking time to share more about Bargain Thrift Center with us. I will be sharing all of the ways you can find Bargain Thrift Center in the show notes. And of course, if you find yourself in Philadelphia, you should stop in and tell them that you heard about them on Clotheshorse!

 I think often about how we actually (believe it or not) need MORE secondhand shopping options that are IRL and that offer a range of shopping experiences, from highly curated to just contemporary clothes to entirely secondhand home items.  We need even more creative reuse centers and secondhand building supply stores, and so on.  And we need them across the world, in small towns and big cities, and everything in between.  Yes, I know that many of these types of stores already exist, but we need even more if we’re going to make shopping secondhand first second nature for most people! So maybe you will be inspired to start thinking about creating your own highly specific secondhand business in  your community!

So to wrap this episode up, I’m starting a new sort of “tradition” around here: and that’s ending each episode with a reason to feel optimistic.  Because I know it’s really hard right now to feel okay. But when we lose all hope, the worst things win out: fascism, climate change, bigotry, plastic pollution, loneliness, you name it. So holding on to hope and staying motivated by that hope are really important.  More important than ever.

Why am I feeling optimistic this week? Honestly I’m feeling so excited about how many people have been getting involved with boycotts and sticking with it over the past few months.  My Threads feed is full of people who started boycotting Target back in early February, and they are going strong! In fact, the empowerment they have gained from doing that has actually motivated them to reexamine other aspects of their own personal shopping and consumerism. Now they are canceling their Amazon Prime accounts, skipping Walmart, breaking up with mindless shopping, and looking for joy and fulfillment in other places. I heart every single post I see across all of the social media platforms where someone is saying “wow, quitting Target or Amazon has started this whole new range of habits in my life.” 

I had a moment earlier this week of just really deep panic and despair–I mean, I’ve been alone and sick for weeks now, so my brain is definitely feeling more sad and anxious than usual–and I was specifically in the bathroom brushing my teeth, thinking “oh god everything is so fucked right now.”

And then I don’t know…I realized that wasn’t entirely true.  I thought about all of the people getting involved in boycotts, all of the people having epiphanies about overconsumption and how unhappy it makes them…and I felt…optimistic! I felt so hopeful that we really are at a pivotal moment right now. RIGHT AT THIS EXACT MOMENT.  And you know what? It’s something I have been wanting to happen for years: people are realizing that we buy too much stuff, it doesn’t make us happy, and because we are so unhappy, we keep putting more and more coins in this machine that doesn’t care about us, doesn’t care about this planet, and seems to have no actual future in mind for any of us.  And here we are…people are seeing that.  People are feeling that.  People outside our bubble of slow fashion and anti-capitalism…they are ready for a change. They want to be a part of that change.  They want a better future, too.

Now more than ever, we have this incredible opportunity to connect with the people around us, to share what we know, to get them kinda gassed up and motivated to make change, to (as I have been calling it) REDUCE REFUSE RESIST.  

As I talked about in the most recent episode of the podcast, we tend to think that misinformation is only a problem on the MAGA end of the internet…but it’s actually a big problem on the left side of the spectrum, too. And we can do better!

I’m seeing posts saying that Target has lost $15.7B in profits since rolling back DEI. While I would love for that to be true, it is actually FALSE.

Target has not yet released sales data for Q1 2024 (Feb—April). We will see that in May-June. Furthermore, the $15.7B in profit is impossible because last year Target did about $9B in sales each month. The math doesn’t math. Profit=sales-expenses.

While Target has seen a drop in stock price this year, that actually happened BEFORE the DEI decision. That doesn’t mean we won’t see more declines as people boycott, but we have to be patient.

And this also doesn’t mean boycotting isn’t having impact, we just won’t know for a few months. Things like this take time. So keep it up! Boycotting isn’t an instant gratification kind of thing. Making an impact requires patience and commitment. We’re playing the long game here!

These retailers are hoping that we get discouraged and bored…and get back to shopping. So let’s not give them what they want!

Let’s REDUCE REFUSE RESIST!

Consumerism keeps us apart.  It keeps us struggling. It keeps us lonely and kinda sad and ready to buy more.  The most revolutionary and radical things we can do right now are stop shopping and connect with the people around us.  This is the time to do that.  I mean, it’s always been the time but now it’s SUPER DEFINITELY that time.  And we can do it! I’m excited to look back at this year and say “wow, that was when the big, good changes began to happen.” So let’s make future history now…together.