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Is reselling secondhand unethical?
This week’s episode is part two of a THREE episode series examining the ethics of secondhand resale with Alex of St. Evens.
In the second installment, we will tackle two arguments often tossed around in discussions about secondhand on social media:
Resellers are taking all of “the good stuff.”
Resellers are responsible for rising prices at thrift stores.
There is a lot of money to be made off of secondhand resale, and in the introduction, we’ll dig into where that money is going and who’s really “making bank.”
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this episode: Tamara, Aimee, Maria, Amanda, Christine, Vilma, and Weenie.
Additional reading:
“Even Thrift Stores Aren’t Immune From Rising Prices,” Jacob Gallagher, The Wall Street Journal.
Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that always keeps a calculator handy for writing the scripts for podcast episodes.
I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 160. This week’s episode is part two of a THREE episode series examining the ethics of secondhand resale. This is a MASSIVE topic, that honestly, seems to be getting bigger as I continue to explore it. Fortunately, I’ll be accompanied by one of my favorite all-time guests, Alex of St. Evens.
In this three episode series, we are examining the five major arguments thrown out there to argue for the unethical nature of secondhand resale:
You will notice that we are referring to these as myths throughout the episodes because we will be actively debunking them, while also digging into the incredibly complex nuance within each of these issues. After many, many hours of research and reading regarding each of these, I can say that they are largely myths, or at the very least, over-simplifications of much more complex situations. And these issues encompass many other dark realities of living in late stage capitalism:
In last week’s episode, we tackled the first two myths:
Thrift stores are designed to be a resource for low income people.
Resellers are making tons of money from taking things that should be for low income people.
I recommend going back and listening to the first part of this series if you haven’t already because the pieces all fit together.
In this week’s episode–part 2 of 3–we will be unpacking two more myths:
Resellers are taking all of “the good stuff.”
Resellers are responsible for rising prices at thrift stores.
Alex and I were incredibly detailed about our research and preparation for this series. But I’ve also been doing EVEN MORE research for a series that is running in tandem with this one for my other podcast, The Department. That mini-series is all about the history of secondhand shopping as a social and retail trend. And as that series develops, I’ve been discovering even more (and having more time to think about it) than I had when Alex and I recorded our conversation a few weeks ago.
The first myth we will be tackling in today’s episode is that idea—which I see all over the internet, all the damn time (including in the comments section on the Clotheshorse instagram posts)–is this belief that resellers are taking “all the good stuff.”
We are going to break down all the reasons why it might feel this way (but not be completely true) in our convo. But there is something I touched on briefly when we talked, but I didn’t go into too deeply because I hadn’t yet written two 32-page scripts for The Department yet.
Time and time again–in the 30s, then again in the 70s, again in the 00s as The Great Recession was in full swing–thrift stores have seen two things happen when the economy is not good: their sales go up (because more people have less money for the things they need) and the volume of donations goes down. And there are two primary reasons for the reduction in donations. First, people hold on to their stuff longer because they have less money to buy new things. And secondly, people will try to resell their unwanted items to make a little bit more cash, rather than straight up donating them. In the 1970s, people opted to sell their things at yard sales and flea markets. And thrift stores felt that decline in donations. In the 00s, people were now living in the internet age, so it was even easier to resell their things via eBay and Craigslist. If they wanted to make selling their stuff even easier–while making a little less money–they could go to any number of consignment and buy/sell/trade stores that were on the rise, including places like Buffalo Exchange and Plato’s Closet. There were similar places for selling children’s clothing, records, books, sports equipment, and music equipment.
During those years, I moved around a lot for my job. And so I was practically an expert in paring down my belongings in a way that got maximum cash back in my pocket. First, I would take my clothes to Buffalo Exchange or something similar. Whatever they didn’t take, I took to another buy/sell/trade store in the suburbs. Whatever was left after that, I might sell at a yard sale for super cheap. I would let my friends take anything that interested them. And anything left after that went to a free box outside my apartment or off to a thrift donation bin.
This is what you do when you’re part of the working class.
I often find myself comparing the 2020s to 1970s, politically, economically, and socially. And once again, people need every last dime. Straight up giving something to a donation bin seems wasteful! And now it’s easier than ever to get a little bit of extra cash by selling these things. We still have the buy/sell/trade stores (who I’m sure are feeling the impact of all of the online platforms). And the list of ways to sell your stuff online grows every day: Poshmark, Depop, Etsy, eBay, Mercari, Vinted, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Next Door, Discogs (records), Reverb (music equipment) and so on. And more and more people are opting to rehome their things in their community via Buy Nothing Groups, clothes swaps, and mutual aid. Or holding epic yard sale/estate sales.
What this means is that probably the least desirable stuff is making its way to the thrift stores (at least in more middle class neighborhoods). As in, the stuff that wasn’t “good” or “best” enough to be sold through any of the various channels that I just listed.
Something that has become very apparent during my research for both this series and for The Department is that thrift stores sorta rely on overconsumption for their business model. Not their customers overconsuming per se, but rather their donors over consuming. There is a direct correlation between shopping and donation. If donors are constantly buying new stuff/upgrading their furniture, home goods, electronics sooner than necessary, then the thrift store benefits from a steady flow of newer, constantly increasing quality inventory. And the “relief” of donation makes buying new stuff easier than ever because you don’t have to deal with the burden of the “old” stuff. In a time where more and more people are cutting back and/or trying to turn unwanted things into cash, it is the wealthiest donors who have to do neither of those things. It allows them to rely on the ease of dumping their stuff in one foul swoop at the thrift store.
The thing is–and this definitely alarms me–that despite more and more people selling and rehoming their “best” stuff rather than donating it, thrift stores are still seeing all-time record high donations. It was different in the previous decades I mentioned earlier. In those decades of economic difficulty, thrift stores saw their donations decrease by as much as 10-20%. And it made them hyper competitive about procuring donations, going on a media blitz, taking out ads everywhere they could, even twisting the arms of volunteers to give, give, give.
This time around, thrift stores are receiving a constant deluge of donations, but so much more of it is low quality or undesirable, often even straight up trash.
Ultimately, while secondhand clothing might seem incredibly valueless to some people (or at least, extraordinarily less valuable than new clothing), there is so much money involved in secondhand clothing. Money to be recovered (when individuals sell their stuff), money to build a micro business for resellers, or millions to be made for the platforms and retailers who have gotten into the secondhand selling game.
We know that resellers are making money from selling secondhand clothing (but probably not “making bank,” despite the rumors). But who is making “bank” (and lots of bank, at that) are the various platforms and services that are the technological and logistical backbone of the resale industry.
First, we have the platforms themselves. And their revenue is pretty wild. I mentioned these numbers in the last episode, but let’s just revisit them:
Poshmark, $350 million last year
Depop, $552 million last year
Mercari, $1.2 billion last year
Etsy, $2.5 billion last year
eBay, $9.79 billion last year
None of these platforms sell anything, they just create and maintain the platform, collecting a cut of sales. Some provide customer service to the buyers, others do not. And the fees these platforms charge is not insignificant:
eBay: their schedule of fees is a bit complex, based on category. For clothing and most items, eBay takes 13.25% of each sale plus 30 cents. So if you sell something for $20, eBay takes $2.95. Let’s say you bought something for $6 at the Goodwill. You sold it for $20 on eBay. That leaves you $11.05 in profit after selling the item, before we deduct things like packaging, any laundering or mending, and the time you spent sourcing, listing, packaging, etc. If you sold that item for $10 (keeping the price more in line with the Goodwill price), you’re left with $1.05. That’s not even worth your time at all. So you can start to see why resellers are marking up significantly beyond the thrift store prices. Yet, one can argue that $20 is a hot deal for something you don’t have to find on your own, that shows up on your doorstep, clean, mended, and ready to wear.
Poshmark: For all sales under $15, Poshmark takes a flat commission of $2.95. For sales of $15 or more, you keep 80% of your sale and Poshmark’s commission is 20%. So taking that $6 shirt from the Goodwill as an example again, selling it for $20 gives Poshmark $4. After the cost of the shirt itself, you’re left with $10. But if you offer free or discounted shipping, you’re basically giving away most or all of that $10. Maybe then you decided to raise the selling price to $30 to help cover that. Poshmark takes $6 of that, you give them another $8 for the “free shipping,” and after you deduct the price you paid for the shirt at Goodwill, you’re left with…$10. And that’s supposed to cover all of your labor. Hmmm….maybe this is why very few people are “making bank” off of resale. Because you also have to pay taxes on that $10. You have to pay for your computer, internet access, lighting and backdrops for your photos, maybe models.
But let’s pretend that you don’t have to pay for anything else out of that $10. You have to sell 200 items per month to make $2000, which is still only $24000 a year. That’s before taxes and includes no benefits like health insurance, sick days, and paid time off. Spoiler: that’s not a living wage. You can’t make a living sourcing from the Goodwill, selling on these platforms, and charging only $20-30 per item while giving customers the oft-demanded free shipping. It’s no wonder then, that the majority of resellers DON’T source from thrift stores. It doesn’t make good financial sense. Most find their inventory at the “bins” (the Goodwill outlet where items are sold by the pound, it’s often the last stop before the landfill), estate sales, yard sales, raghouses, auctions, and via companies selling by the “lot.”
If you’ve decided to skip the platforms, you can sell on your own website or via Instagram. But don’t worry, there’s someone else to take a cut there: the payment platforms. Alex uses Shopify, which makes its money two ways from her: First, she pays a flat rate depending on the plan she uses. This can be $29, $79, or $299. The platform also takes a cut of each transaction, ranging from 2.4% to 2.9% (depending on the plan) along with 30 cents.
For people selling on IG, Venmo takes 1.9% of each transaction, plus $0.10. Paypal takes 2.9% plus 30 cents per sale.
Selling on your own (outside of these platforms) can save you fees, but then you’re responsible for hustling twice as hard to bring people to your website or IG profile. It’s not easy either way. And even still, sourcing your inventory at thrift stores probably won’t make financial sense, either.
Here’s the thing: everything is being sold to us at a markup.
As Tamara of Venus Vestiaire said, “Although vintage sellers are labelled as resellers, everything is resold to us. Everything is marked up at any retail store we shop at. Even at the grocery store.”
I’ve been working in buying for close to 20 years now (wow, that went fast) and the thing is: all retail is resale. Stuff costs one thing, but sells for another price. Ask me about the time my sister’s boyfriend tried to explain that to me as if I hadn’t been building a whole career out of it.
Retailers mark stuff up to make profits for shareholders and executive bonuses, but they also have overhead expenses to cover via these sales. Things like salaries, rent on stores, offices, and warehouses. Utilities. Equipment and office furniture and store fixtures and trucks and on and on and on.
Resellers have their own expenses. When you buy something from them, you’re covering a lot of different things that contribute to the cost of that item, beyond the price the reseller paid when they sourced it:
The gas used on sourcing trips, along with the reseller’s time spent sourcing.
Any laundry or mending, including the time and materials needed to do that.
The time spent listing, measuring, and photographing an item, along with any listing fees.
All the tech and apps involved in running a small business, from subscriptions for photo editing, website hosting, and creating social media content, to computer, phone, internet access, printer, paper, ELECTRICITY!
Taxes and free shipping (if included), after all, only three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and that shipping is never free.
Packaging, shipping labels, trips to the post office
Hopefully now you are starting to see why resellers are charging more than say the Goodwill, who got its products for free. And once again, resellers are providing a service of convenience, assortment, and accessibility. You can also see why no one is getting rich from resale, except for the platforms. Well, other companies are getting rich, too. Like the shipping services. I know many of you use Pirate Ship. How do they make money? They negotiate a bulk rate with the USPS and UPS that is below the standard rate, based on a promise of volume. And then they charge users a slightly higher rate, that is still below the standard market rate. They pocket the difference.
Other industries benefit from the rise of online resale: companies that make boxes and mailers. The brands that sell thermal printers and labels. Or lighting and backdrops. Credit card companies that offer business credit cards to resellers. Photo editing apps.
There is so much money in resale, and shockingly, only the smallest part of it seems to go to the actual resellers.
Okay, well, moving on to myth number three. This one really speaks to what it is to be human, I think. Resellers are taking all the good stuff. I know you have a lot of thoughts here.
Alex:
Yes.
Amanda:
I wanted to see our thrift stores running out of stuff. Like, what’s their official position here? I mean, I can tell you anecdotally that they’re not, but I was like, are they? Are they feeling the pinch? Because, you know, they were feeling a little bit of a pinch in 1978, right? According to a 2022 Wall Street Journal article, by the way, this is probably the first and only time I will ever cite the Wall Street Journal here on Clotheshorse, but this was a particularly good piece. It was called “Even Thrift Stores Aren’t Immune From Rising Prices,” which actually does touch a little bit on the next myth we’re going to bust.
Clothing makes up 48% of Goodwill sales every year. And you’re probably wondering, oh, is that much higher than usual because secondhand shopping is so popular right now? Guess what? It’s always been 48 percent of Goodwill’s sales. People aren’t buying more clothes from the Goodwill than they were before. However, what has changed is that thrift stores are looking to make more money off of the more valuable items they receive via eBay. The Salvation Army and many other thrifts I have shopped have their own eBay auctions or their own websites, which the Goodwill has and is making massive money off of.
Greg Tuck is the Assistant National Community Relations and Development Secretary, what a title. At the Salvation Army here in the United States, he told the Wall Street Journal, our staff are trained as much as we can to identify the high value things, and then we will sell them for high value. According to Goodwill’s own website, 2021 ShopGoodwill.com surpassed $1 billion in sales. Half of those sales have happened in just the last four years, even though the site had been around since the early aughts, because they have gotten so good at channeling the high value product out of all of their smaller stores to a central location where they shoot it and put it online.
Alex:
Yeah, it’s so interesting because you see this, resellers are taking all the good stuff, resellers are taking all the cute stuff, and that argument is kind of right in the sense that the resellers are these corporations themselves.
Like, yeah, you know what, you’re right. There is this mysterious entity that’s swooping into the back of the Goodwill and snatching up everything good before it hits the floor. It’s Goodwill itself.
It’s not like some rando coming into the store. It is the corporation asking their employees to filter out the items that our designer, are like valuable and rare and put those things on their own website so that they can increase their profits.
So when a lot of people are like, oh, I used to find, you know, amazing designer goods and all these types of things at the Goodwill and I don’t see that stuff anymore, that’s because a lot of that stuff isn’t ever making it onto the floor.
Goodwill is getting to it before you, and they’re putting it on their website and they’re auctioning it and they’re forcing us to fight over this item so that they can make more off
Amanda:
Oh, totally. I talked to a few different people who did not wanna be named on the episode, who worked for the Goodwill and within the past few years as the Goodwill, ShopGoodwill.com was really picking up momentum. And they told me that they actually had daily quotas for the amount of product they were supposed to pull and to send off to the website. And I mean, obviously you can’t control what you’re gonna get each day, but if they were not meeting those quotas, disciplinary disciplinary action, more supervision, definitely everything that they pulled to go out into the floor like before it could go out on the floor had to be inspected by a supervisor to make sure they hadn’t missed anything of higher value that could be sent to shopgoodwill.com.
Alex:
Interesting and honestly like I don’t blame the people in those positions for not wanting to publicly come out and say that That was their job. I don’t blame them for having that job at all. That’s not their responsibility to you know, not do that It’s just interesting that we’ve chosen to go after resellers instead of being mad at Goodwill.
Amanda:
I know!
Alex:
Yeah, and another thing also that I think people a lot of people either don’t think about or are unaware of is that corporations and retailers outside of the thrift space that have now entered resale. And so I know Levi’s is a big one and I know that Urban Outfitters also has their like vintage secondhand line and they hire people specifically to go out in source and they collect vintage product for these companies to sell and it’s interesting in the case of Levi’s because Levi made the product sold the going back out so they can make more money off of their same product again. And these buyers have like way bigger, you know, bank accounts and access to resources than the average reseller does. Like when I go out and buy, I don’t have a corporate card. I don’t get to just swipe up as stuff as possible and just, you know, like money doesn’t matter. I can spend as much as I want. Like that is not the case for the average reseller, but people working it for these secondhand do typically have like enormous budgets to do that so they can go into a Rag house or thrift store and buy every single pair of Levi’s in the store
Amanda:
Yeah, and also, you know, you touch on Urban Outfitters and there are a few other retailers who kind of have permanent secondhand or vintage sections in their stores or selling a lot of reworked stuff. In the case of Urban Outfitters, it’s all of those things. They are literally buying that stuff by the pallet.
If you wanna talk about someone taking all the good stuff, let’s talk about companies buying entire palettes of desirable product for pennies, pennies on the dollar. and then reselling it to you basically at the same price of a brand new product or higher. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of this product. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of this product. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of this product. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of this product. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of this product. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of this product. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of this product. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of this product.
Alex:
And then, you know, I think that just brings us back to our point of, while I do disagree with a lot of the, like, morals behind these corporations that do this stuff, even if they are buying up pallets and pallets and pallets, there is still too much stuff.
There is still an endless supply of stuff.
Amanda:
Yes, which brings me to another great quote from that Wall Street Journal article, which I hope to never ever again, attribute a great quote to the Wall Street Journal, but this was a great, I mean this was great. “This surge of flip-happy prospectors has ignited fears, particularly on Gen Z’s favorite social media platform, TikTok, that thrift stores may get cleaned out of their inventory, leaving frugal shoppers with nowhere to shop. “I don’t think we’ll ever be in a place where we don’t have stuff,” said Mr. Tuck, that was the guy from the Salvation Army. He noted that the Salvation Army received $68 million worth of donations just during last year’s Christmas season. He said, “part of our culture in America is that we are consumers and we are replacers and we just hope that the public always sees us as a viable place to make those kinds of donations.”
Alex:
Yeah.
Amanda:
Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing. There’s no shortage of stuff. Everybody I’ve talked to, even well before, this episode was a glimmer in our eyes who has worked in the thrift store industry, has told me that only a small percentage of the stuff that a store receives on any given day ever makes it out onto the floor. And the even smaller part of that actually goes home with someone because there’s so much product coming in that they have to constantly clear out what’s on the floor that came in. There is no shortage.
Alex:
There really is not.
Amanda:
There really is not. So we have some more messages from different people.
From Aimee, I Need More Vintage:
If we’re running out of secondhand clothes, how come there are no empty thrift stores? The thrift stores are all packed all the time. Think about the fact that Goodwill has OUTLET stores. They have so much stuff that won’t fit into or can’t be sold in their stores that there is an off-price store to get rid of donations. Bonkers. I shop there and you can tell that there are bags and bags of stuff that never even got sorted because they are IN CLOSED BAGS. Knotted up like they just got donated.
I have been to the bins enough times to also recognize that some of the stuff, no one ever even looked at it. It’s just too much. And I want to remind you that a lot of the larger thrift stores and chains are actually selling off their excess because there’s just too much. We’re talking like someone in my life who worked at a small town Goodwill, a couple huge trailers like tractor trailers of product shipping out of their store every week.
Alex:
Oh yeah, I believe that.
Amanda:
So Maria Eisen has worked in thrift stores for 14 years. She’s also now a reseller.
From Maria Eisen, who worked in thrift stores for 14 years and is now a reseller:
“The first thrift store I worked for, I started in the early 2000’s, and during the 9 years i worked there I saw the good the bad and the ugly of this industry. We were a self contained non profit, but the stores expanded too fast, and the warehouse had a hard time keeping up. When people say “there’s no good stuff in there” I’ll tell you it’s 80% of the time because the donations aren’t being sorted well… either there’s not enough staff, or the sorters aren’t given guidance as to what to prioritize, or they focus on corporate donations of new goods. There’s a disconnect with the people who run thrifts, upper management, because they want something more scalable and predictable than is realistic. They want to project numbers and growth, and create sales goals, and that’s really hard on merchandise that can’t be predetermined… so they rag out bags and bags of regular donations in favor of like, a Zara donation where they can feel like its outcome is more predictable… except it’s not what the customers want. Prices start to rise because, aside from the fact in NYC at least the commercial rents are even more out of control than residential, the store needs to meet some sales goal upper management gave them and thinks maybe they can price gouge their way to it. None of this has anything to do with resellers. The store I worked for had HEAVY reseller business, more so in antiques and jewelry, and I can still say we often had plenty of amazing stuff coming in for everyone… until decisions made by the board hobbled our ability to do so. Resellers aren’t buying up all the good stuff… these days not that much good stuff even reaches the store.
There is also the reality that the percentage of really cheap crappy clothes getting donated has increased exponentially. Back in 2005 when I started at this place, the “cheap” clothes were way nicer than 80% of the clothing is now, and when I was a teen in the 90’s, the quality was even better. This race to the bottom in the fast fashion industry is hurting thrifting too.”
Slow clap because this is the reality. Like, I remember the first time I saw something Shein at the thrift door and I was like whoa I’ve heard about Sheinand now I go thrifting and it’s like 25% of the stuff on the racks.
Alex:
Everything I pick up is Shein or Lularoe.
Oh my god, the Lularoe, it just keeps coming.
Alex:
This, everything she said is so true and this is such a good segue into something that I wanted to talk about that ties into that. So, you know, the reason that donations are declining in quality is because what people are buying new is declining in quality. And if you think about, If you think about the things that you or the people that you know donate, a majority of those items were probably purchased within the last like five to ten years or maybe less, right? So think about what has happened to the state of the fashion industry and the quality of clothing in the last five or ten years. And then start going back five, ten years. Every time you go back, you see that quality of clothing is better. So if you started drifting in the 2010s, you were seeing a lot of items from like the very beginning fashion. If you started thrifting in the early 2000s and the 90s, you were looking at clothing from before fast fashion really existed in the way that it does today. And then not to mention that people were just consuming way less than they are now.
So people are keeping clothes that they had for a lot longer. In the past, people were way more likely to mend their clothing. They were more likely to hand them down to family or community members. It was a lot harder to replace clothing. It was much more expensive than it is now. button falls off your shirt, plenty of people just get rid of the shirt because A, they don’t know how to sew and B, like it’s honestly probably cheaper. Like it’s literally easier and faster to go to H&M and buy a new top for $10 than it is to sit down and like watch a YouTube video on how to sew a button on, go buy a needle and thread, go buy a new button. People are like, I don’t want to do all that. So if you think about the way that our relationship with clothing has changed also, people are keeping things for such a shorter amount of So if you think back down the line, like there’s a good chance that a lot of the things that people were donating were in the past more like 10, 20, or even 30 years old
because people were keeping things for longer. So, you know, you could go into the thrift store and find things from the 70s when the 70s was 20 or 30 years ago. Now, like the 70s was 50 years ago.
So the expectation to be just waltzing into the thrift and finding tons of that, like, time so like the chance that people having held on to that and then be just like bringing it into donate is just smaller than it ever has been.
Amanda:
100% true and in many cases if someone was like oh wow I do have a bunch of 70s stuff that I don’t want anymore at this point they would probably sell it somewhere else they would take it to a vintage store who buys from the public they might try to sell it themselves online or they would give it to someone they know to resell it they’re not it kind of takes me back to what we were talking about in the late 70s where people were selling stuff themselves rather than donating it because they needed the money.
Alex:
Yeah, absolutely. And just, you know, there’s way more accessibility now. People have options besides just dropping stuff off the thrift store. And I feel like this is just something that we a lot of people don’t think about and we haven’t thought about the ways in which the industry has changed so much and how our buying habits and how the habits of how the stores operate and the kind of product they’re making have it it’s all you know it goes downstream and that just really affects the quality quality of what we’re seeing at the thrift stores.
Amanda:
Yes, yes. I once again, a couple years ago saw one Shein thing at the store. I was like, oh, that’s so weird. Now there’s so much. And Shein hasn’t been around for that long, which just shows how fast people are cycling through these clothes.
Alex:
I mean, I want to say the first time that I’d ever seen something Shein at the thrift store, because like you said, I remember it being kind of like shocking, being like, oh wow, this, cause I knew it was so new.
And I want to say that was probably like within the last five years. And then like you and I were just saying the amount that it’s now proliferated what’s in the thrift store, like that’s alarming. That is a very large amount of stuff and like flooding the racks within such a short amount of time.
Amanda:
Yeah, yeah. I, it’s the, the, what we see in the thrift store is always going to be a function of the climate that we live in at that point.
And this is where we are right now. I remember 10 years ago, I felt like anytime I saw something cute at the thrift store that like I had a vintagey like pre-70s vibe, I would look at the tag and it would be from Old Navy and I would be kind of like, oh, OLd Navy, why do you do this to me?
Now when I go thrifting and I see stuff that has like a vintage vibe, you know, And it’s always Shein, always every time and it’s so crappy. So it has never been worn.
Same for the Luleroe. I feel like the founders of Lularoe need to be like on trial for like environmental crimes at this point.
Alex:
I mean, someone should be held responsible.
Amanda:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alex:
And I really don’t think that the people who are conned into participating in the MLM are the ones that should be to blame
Amanda:
And I just cannot believe, doesn’t matter where in the country I am, there is so much Lularoe in every section of the thrift store. Dresses, pajamas, leggings, t-shirts, kids, you name it, it’s horrible.
Okay, well, Amanda is a former employee of a chain of secondhand clothing stores.
From Amanda, who is the former employee of a chain of secondhand clothing stores:
“We used to see hundreds of storage bins, trash bags, cardboard boxes… of shoes, clothes, accessories every week. I’m talking vintage, brand name, things you’ve only seen in ads… To the point where even if something was top brand it was ‘we can’t keep it because the store is full and the 200 Square Foot storage unit we also own is completely full,’ this really struck me as someone who was working double shifts and couldn’t afford a mcdonalds meal. I just kept thinking this stuff has such a high ‘value’ and we’re saying no…will it end up in the trash?”
Alex:
Yeah, I mean, the sheer quantity of donations now is definitely a major, major issue. And like two of the people that you’ve read from have said like that definitely plays a huge role in the declining quality of what we’re seeing at the stores. You know, the average consumer is purchasing over 70 new items per year.
And you like, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t have like a bottomless closet.
Like most of us can’t actually keep or wear that much clothing. you know, 60 items a year, that’s like, that’s ridiculous. And so if you if you continue to buy that way, like, it’s more stuff than anyone can ever manage, which means that we’re donating and getting rid of more stuff than ever. And like someone else mentioned, like, these thrift stores are just trying their best to keep up and sort through stuff. And the reality is, is that a lot of things that are vintage, a lot of things that people would find desirable are actually more likely to be damaged. And they’re also more likely to have a brand name that isn’t going to be recognizable to a lot of consumers or to a lot of employees at thrift stores. I know that a lot of my favorite vintage brands are not going to be brands that like the average person has ever heard of before. So I would be super excited to find it, but someone who works at a thrift store that doesn’t have specialty knowledge in vintage apparel, they’re going to see this label, they’re not going to know what it is. And you know, if it has a stain, if any elements broke it, if buttons are missing, there’s a good chance that they’re just… not going to put it on the floor.
Amanda:
You know, I think you just touch on something that is really important to because another one of the sort, I mean, I’m going to be honest, this is a bad faith argument that I see being thrown out there on social media as like as part of like anti reseller logic is that resellers are only leaving behind all the stained damaged messed up stuff. And I was like, hmm, because everybody I talked to who works in the thrift industry has told me that they receive such high volume of stuff. only allowed to put things on the floor that are in flawless condition because they there’s such limited space that they don’t the you know the management of these thrift stores do not want to waste space on things that are not perfect and so even if something has a little chip or a snag or a tiny stain it’s gonna get pulled and sent off to the rag house now at that point it might be sold off to another thrift store sure you know that stuff is graded And definitely Dustin and I are pretty convinced that here in Texas, the chain of Texas thrift stores is buying like the B or C rated vintage palletss because we will see vintage in the vintage section that you’ll be like, oh my god, this is so cool, but it’s like can we get the 95 stains out of it?
Alex:
Yeah, and honestly, like when I do see stuff that’s damaged, that a lot of that stuff does manage to sneak by, that’s often the stuff that I go for as someone who has the expertise to deal with
it. Like, I am very much capable of cleaning something, of mending something, or of altering something in a way that I know can preserve a garment in a way that a lot of other shoppers either can’t or are not willing to do.
And it’s just so interesting because, again, new fast fashion stuff like the Shein and the Zara, like that stuff is way more likely to not be damaged and to be in like new condition because A, some of most of it’s just not worn, like people buy it, they try it on, it looks horrible and they’re like whatever this was four dollars, I’m just gonna get rid of it, I don’t care. And so that stuff is more likely to be quote-unquote like in good condition. And so that’s what we end up seeing, which is such a shame because that’s not one.
Amanda:
I mean, that’s the rub of it all, right? People don’t want the Shein and the other fast fashion stuff. But yet at the same time, people are buying so much of it that that’s the majority of what you see in the thrift store.
So it’s sort of like people don’t want it secondhand because clothing has such little value to people in the first place. And then when it’s secondhand, it loses the majority of its value. You know, there’s always that thing, like if you buy a car the moment you drive off the lot, it loses half its value. clothing, it’s even bigger, I would say, that decline in value. And so, She-In and Zara and other fast fashion brands that people thought were totally fine to buy brand new, they won’t buy second hand.
And I think that speaks to, like, sort of an illness that we have as a society, that we’re buying the stuff that we don’t respect or care for in the first place. We have such
little value for it that we won’t buy it second hand. I actually tried to when I’m thrifting, of practice like “label blindness” as I call it. Like I don’t let myself look at the label. And I
just decide like, is this something that I would wear? Does it fit me? And then I might like look at the fabric content label.
And then when I’ve made my decision, I’m like, what is the label in here? You know, and it inevitably, I don’t know why it’s it always ends up being Chicos. I don’t know why. But you know, like, I definitely think that, you know, we have to use this stuff. And I do see people reselling Shein and Zara online. I see people reselling Zara for pretty wild prices, actually, sometimes on Poshmark. I don’t understand the strategy. But I think this idea that resellers are storming thrift store, grabbing everything and just leaving racks of stained, shredded clothing behind, it’s just, it’s just not true.
Alex:
It’s very weird. And also the thing is is that as the low quality product in these stores increases, there is higher threshold of skill and knowledge and just like time and labor required in order to find high quality and vintage items.And it’s so interesting because I feel like a lot of times in, you know, when I see people attacking resellers online, someone will be showing off a pair of like 70s trousers, right? And they’re like, I found these trousers, I’m gonna be reselling them. And you have people in the comments that are very upset because they’re saying like, well, you should have just left those for someone who is gonna keep them for themselves instead of reselling. And the thing is, is it requires a trained eye to look at 500 pairs of pants from Shein,
find the ones that are vintage, recognize their potential on the rack and accurately identify them as being from the 70s, which is not something that everyone can do.
And when someone is showing off this item It’s often being modeled on a body. It’s styled in an outfit. The person who found it is providing you with information that they wouldn’t have found in the thrift store. They’re able to tell you the age of the garment, the name of the style. They could maybe tell you the history of the brand. You have all of these additional elements that are making this item seem so appealing in a way that it wouldn’t be appealing to you if you had seen it in the thrift store. Then you also have confirmation bias. already purchased this item signals to other people that it’s desirable and if it’s just like drooping on a rack you probably wouldn’t feel that same way and so it’s just so interesting because I feel like people are given all of this information and context and you have someone who’s super excited about something and people are like wow I want that but if you took all of that away if you took all of the information and all the context away from that piece like the item wouldn’t look good to you and that’s not to say that people can’t find great things but like most of the people that are so angry and saying why would you buy that to resell why wouldn’t you just leave that like you know it does it’s not gonna have all of that appeal when it’s just in the thrift store
Amanda:
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot in conversations like this about a thrift store that Dustin and I like to go to in San Antonio. I’m gonna be honest and say that I rarely thrift clothing at this point because I don’t need any.
Sometimes I’m always in the hunt for nightgowns. I generally go thrifting for more like house stuff and books and like art for Clotheshorse stuff.
I still look at every single aisle. I just like to see what’s out there and get a feel for
it and see what people are doing. And that store is massive. to be a Lowe’s home improvement store. So it’s huge. And it is just like, imagine if you went into like a Lowe’s or a Home Depot and there were, it was completely emptied of all the construction stuff. So we’re talking like this huge space. And there were rows of clothing on racks that went from the front of the store all the way to the back wall. Think about how much clothing that is and just multiply that by like 20 aisles. I mean, it is just packed. And I’m gonna tell you that if you found a pair these jeans in there, it is like a miracle. So the fact that like someone found them means it’s going to be saved from going to the landfill probably like odds are high it was going to end up there because to go through all those jeans, find them and also be someone who recognized them and liked them and it was what they wanted is like nothing short of a miracle because there’s shoppers are not looking for 70s jeans or if they are they might not be their size.
Alex:
And that’s the thing, because it’s so interesting. Like people say, you should be leaving, you should have left those behind for someone who really wanted them or really needed them and could buy them at the thrift store price, right? So you’re basically raising two scenarios here. So in the commenter, the angry anti-reseller comment, the scenario is that this reseller says, you know what, I’m not gonna resell these, I’m gonna leave them behind, right?
And like one of the essays that you shared earlier pointed out, Like that relies on a hope that someone who is the exact size that wants pants and that exact style is going to look through all of those items and find them. And like you said, not only are a lot of these thrift stores just absolutely enormous and have so much inventory, but they generally aren’t really sorted or organized that well. Like I have gone into thrift stores where it is a fucking mess. There is stuff on the floor.
Like there’s hangers everywhere. thrown over, things are randomly in piles, things aren’t in the racks of where they’re supposed to be. So you have to hope that someone’s gonna find those in the store out of the tens of thousands of other pieces. And then in a lot of the cases, the window that a person has for finding something is only like a few days, maybe weeks, probably not months, because thrift stores are cycling out products if they don’t sell within a certain timeframe
Yeah, so like, you’re, you’re leaving people are trying to say that the moral thing to do is to leave them. So you’re gonna leave them, you’re gonna hope that someone comes along at exactly the right time, within exactly the right time window finds those exact pants and they’re their size and they’re their style and they wanna buy them. And if that doesn’t happen, then now what? Those pants are gonna be, there’s a good chance those pants are gonna go to a landfill.
AmandaL
Or they’re gonna get bundled up, shipped off to a textile recycler, where there will be pulled and sold to a vintage dealer and resold anyway.
Alex:
in which case, the outcome is the same.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Alex:
And then, so then you have the other scenario in which the reseller just purchases the pants because the pants are cool. In this situation, there is now a very, very good chance that that one person who is that exact size and wants that exact style is going to find those pants. And will they have to spend more money on it to cover the labor that the reseller did? Sure. that the cost of that labor is worth saving something that is probably irreplaceable. Like a lot of these vintage items that are floating around, like there are a limited number of those.
And so when you leave something behind and say, I hope that someone else finds that, like if no one does find it, that might be it. That might be the last pair of blue flares in a size medium from that brand. And they just are gone forever now. And now no one a reseller, saving them, selling them to someone, not only does that one person that bought them get to have them, treasure them, cherish them, but now those could live a life for who knows how long. If that person outgrows them, doesn’t want them anymore, they could resell them. And so now you’re keeping these in this cycle and you’re saving something that like otherwise, like that’s it, they don’t exist anymore.
And I just don’t think that risk is worth it.
Amanda:
I don’t think so either. I also just want to say, and I mean, I already know that you know this, Alex, but some listeners may not. When you go to a store, a thrift store, and there’s a colored tag on sale, the colored tag system is how thrift stores manage the age of their inventory. So
they know that the blue tags came in four weeks ago, and that’s why they’re 50% off, because next week they’re either gonna go to 75% off, or someone’s gonna go through every rack, everything with a blue tag, they’re gonna bail it up and they’re gonna send it off somewhere else. And I think that’s really important to tell everybody. If you didn’t know, that’s why the tags work that way. And that is because it is very important that product is cycling in and out of the thrift store constantly because they receive so much stuff. So, I think that’s a really good call. Like people should, like, ah, anyway, I’m getting riled up. Okay, we have another great message from Christine Lady Hogg Vintage, who is a friend of mine and has been selling vintage her entire adult life. Definitely an expert in this space.
Alex:
Christine is like an internet mutual of mine
Amanda:
Oh yeah!
Alex:
who is super cool and so supportive. Yeah, she’s awesome.
Amanda:
I just had dinner with her last night because she was in Portland. I’m not in Portland. Where am I? I’m in Austin. She was in Austin last night. We had a really great time. She was passing through.
From Christine, @ladyhoggvintage:
“Where do you find your stuff: no gate keeping here! Thrift stores, auctions, estate sales, flea markets, free piles, garage sales, goodwill outlets, rag houses and just knowing people that need help clearing a lifetime of positions. Ppl sometimes hit a point where liquidation is a necessity, and many resellers buy directly from those people and allocate the wares among various stores and local markets.
To those who say: the resellers pick all the good stuff- look harder. It’s there, I assure you. Thrift stores are only widely known… but far from the only way to find secondhand clothes. In smaller communities look at yard sales, rummage sales, rural antique malls…. talk to people downsizing. Put an ad in the local paper. The clothes are there and if there….; get them or they will be thrown away!
A plea to other resellers; please give back!
Socks, beanies, Long Johns, sleeping bags, army surplus are easily sourced- especially at the Goodwill Outlets. These things are great for direct action donation. Handing a military surplus pair of socks to a homeless human outside asking for help- truly helps. I’ve never seen someone be angry about free socks when they’re out in the elements.
Let’s all wallow in the muck of late stage capitalism together. Keep it circular and dispel the myths that individuals are the problem when we are all just doing the best in the world we were born into!”
Alex:
Love that.
Amanda:
So good, right? And I do, I always cite Christine to other reseller friends I make as like, I love that she specifically sources inventory to give back to people in the community.
Alex:
That’s amazing.
Amanda:
Yeah, I love that. I think I would love to see that happening in every city. Although once again, should the thrift stores be doing this? Yeah, they’re not. Tell them they need
to, right? Okay, then we have, I’m sorry, It’s either Tamara or Tamara. So there’s a 50-50 chance there.
From Tamara, who sells as @venusvestiaire:
– I don’t think the appreciation for sustainability, secondhand fashion and vintage would be what it is today without resellers. Thrifting has always been a thing but was seen as for “poor people” before resellers made it “cool”. The pricing we have shows we know the true value of these pieces and have brought value back into secondhand pieces. We’re so different from thrift stores because we put the knowledge, research, repair, clean etc. it’s easy for people to overlook that. Usually we are trying to find clothes before it ends up in thrift or at rag houses where all the clothes from thrift stores were wanted.
I went to Chile recently, where mountains of clothes from North America is dumped in their Northern deserts. So much cheap fast fashion there as well because of the income disparity and it’s much in touristy places. The sustainable people that I’ve met there sourced and repurpose clothes they find off the street. There’s so much textile that some of them even make street art out of it.
This idea of “Oh, we’re taking clothes away from people” …thrifting has been a thing for a long time. So has reselling it.
There’s so much textile in this world, I don’t think people can truly visually fathom it. The abundance of clothes is beyond comprehension.
When you get down to brass tacks, there’s just too much clothing. We’re not running out. We don’t even need to make any more new clothing, which brings me back to that argument. you don’t want people buying secondhand clothing to resell or buying secondhand clothing if they are have whatever too much money whatever that means then what you’re saying is you want them to buy more new stuff that the world doesn’t need
Alex:
And that’s just a huge problem.
Amanda:
Huge problem. Yeah.
Alex:
And I know that, you know, plenty of people hear these arguments and they’re still saying, okay, but like, you know, the good stuff, there’s still like all the stuff that’s being dumped, the stuff that’s being thrown away, like a majority of it is fast fashion, it’s low quality, it’s stuff that people don’t want. And I find it so interesting because this concept of what’s good is so subjective.
Amanda:
Yes!
Alex:
You know, everyone has a different taste level. There are things that people like and don’t like and that’s outside of like brand or even fiber like There are plenty of synthetic fibers that I actually prefer and enjoy wearing You know, even though they’re quote-unquote like low quality or cheap I am very sensitive to a lot of animal fibers. I personally I can’t wear wool unfortunately, even though I love it so I you know I have like cotton sweaters, but I also have a lot of acrylic sweaters that I really love even though they’re that scene as like a low quality synthetic fiber
and In terms of taste too, it’s so funny because I will see seen so many videos online of people that are so thrilled to share They’re like best thrift haul ever and they’ll have this huge pile of things. They’re sharing and I am not interested in any of it
You know they’re showing they said I found 30 things of thrift store today ever. This is my new dream wardrobe and I wouldn’t have picked up any of those things. I wouldn’t have picked them up for me. I wouldn’t have picked them up to resell in my shop. And those videos make me really happy because I just think like five different people, 10 different people, 50 different people could have their best day ever in the exact same store at the same time. And that could happen every single day for like the rest of eternity. We could all go into the about what we find because we’re not looking for the same stuff. Like we all have different tastes, we all have different bodies, we all have different preferences, and it’s just so hard to say, oh, resellers are taking all the good stuff because I’m like, what is the good stuff?
Amanda:
it’s subjective, right?
Alex:
Yeah, there are things that people really, really love that I have absolutely no interest in, and that’s great. Like I think that’s awesome.
Amanda:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. Once again, listen, sometimes you go thrifting and you don’t find anything. And that’s just how it goes. And it sucks. And you’re like, oh, this was going to be like my big fun thing I was going to do today, or I really needed this thing, right? And you don’t find it. And it is easy to leave and go home and say, like, that’s because everybody got all the good stuff before me. But that’s just how it is to shop secondhand. And you know what? I love that because it actually slows the process of consumption so that you know for sure what you want when you find it.
Alex:
And I think it’s so much easier when you’re in a more traditional resale space to feel like I went shopping so I need to buy something. And you can kind of find something that you sort of convince yourself you want so that you don’t leave empty handed. It’s way easier to do that in like a regular store than it is at a thrift store to just justify a purchase of it like at least I bought something, you know?
Amanda:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, it’s funny. I’m sure you feel the same way too. Like if I’m gonna go thrifting I have to be like in the mood for the hunt or I’m not gonna have a good time and I’m just gonna be going home because you really need to look .It’s a far less passive form of shopping And the other thing that comes with it is like you just don’t know what you’re gonna find, right? Or if you’ll find what you needed and I know plenty of people who are at least until recently, were turned off of secondhand shopping because in their mind, the only place you could go is the thrift store who knows what’s going to be there. It’s going to take a million years. You have to look at everything, blah, blah, blah. I get it. And they’re like so grateful that these secondhand platforms exist now because they can participate in secondhand style. They don’t have to buy new stuff. And they also don’t have to go out and spend all that time and frustration. Or, you know, I have a few friends who just are like, out in public, you know, and now I can participate too. So I yeah, there’s plenty of stuff out there everyone I promise. If you’re mad about the stuff you’re seeing at the thrift store, maybe talk to the people in your life who are buying a whole bunch of Shein. That’s the real problem, right?
Alex:
The actual issue, yes, is where is this low quality clothing coming from in the first place?
Amanda:
Yeah.
Alex:
And not just the buyers, but also the brands themselves.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Alex:
You know, we are all like, you know, people are spending all this time and energy yelling at the people who are basically picking through what’s left instead of fighting where this bad first hand clothing is coming from. And this also ties into a lack of inclusivity, often brought up in this conversation.
I’m not plus size, so I don’t wanna speak for anyone. I genuinely just can’t imagine how sad and frustrating the lack of choices must be for plus size shoppers. But the reality is that there isn’t as much nice plus size clothing at the thrift stores because there isn’t as much nice plus size clothing being made in the first place
Amanda:
Period.
Alex:
Like the issue here is that companies are fatphobic. Our society is fat hobic. Brands are not manufacturing for size inclusion in new clothing. I would be willing to bet that when we look at the averages of pieces bought per year that those numbers are driven up by straight-size shoppers because I don’t think that plus-size people have enough options out there to be buying 60 plus pieces a year.
And I think for a lot of plus-size people that do fall into overconsumption A big part of that is probably because the things that they’re buying don’t work for them because plus size clothing is very well known to have bad online representation.
It’s known to be poorly graded. It’s known to be ill fitting. And so, you know, that makes it so much more difficult to buy clothes that fit you that you like, which then forces you to buy more clothing. And so it’s so it’s like more than fair for people to be upset that someone else came in and they bought the few nice plus size items in the store, whether that be for resale or for personal But the issue here is the fact that there are only a few nice plus size items in the store in the first place.
Amanda:
It absolutely is, and it’s, I mean, it’s so unfortunate for so many reasons that the only retailers who have really decided to try to be size inclusive on any level are the ultra fast fashion brands. So like,you know, your Shein, your Forever 21, Fashion Nova, these places. Thing is they’re not doing a good job addressing anyone. Everybody I talked to who has tried extended sizing clothing is like, oh my God, it is two sizes too small or it fits so weird and it’s totally inconsistent. And I buy a lot of stuff that I can’t wear or I return or what have you. And so they’re not doing a great job by them either. And so what I’m saying is like, rather than being angry at people reselling secondhand, maybe be angry that these companies are making billions, selling us clothing that is such crap that we have to buy new clothing right away again. It’s made out of exploitation of humans and our planet’s resources, be upset about that. That is such a larger thing. I mean, something that frustrates me constantly is, like, why do we turn on one another in times like this rather than pulling together and focusing on the really large problems at hand?
Alex:
Definitely. And I think that there are plenty of straight-sized people out there who don’t realize how big of an issue this is. I think that that’s something that a lot of people should be advocating for.
You know, if like, like we were saying earlier, like I don’t like a lot of the new options that are available right now and I have infinitely more new options than people that are in plus-size bodies do. So I just can’t imagine how difficult it must be. And I feel like we all need to be advocating for there to be more inclusive inclusivity in new clothing production, that there needs to be better grading for plus size clothing and that there shall also just be better representation. You know, brands should be showcasing clothing on models of all sizes that actually fit them. Because I know that’s another big issue too, is that brands will, you know, squeeze models into things that aren’t their size.
They sell up to a certain size, which they definitely don’t. And yeah, those issues are just things that, again, they trickle down. What we are looking at in the thrift store is what people are buying, which is what is being produced. And the main issue is the stuff that’s being produced in the first place.
Amanda:
Okay, so the next myth, and this is another, it’s a classic one, resellers are responsible for rising prices at thrift stores. So I’m gonna start this by that I have, like, you know, now I’ve been thrifting for decades. I have noticed some prices increasing, but specifically if I were gonna summarize the way in which I’ve noticed is thrift stores knowing the value of these items. So, uh…
Alex:
I have also seen them go up the most at like the most problematic for-profit stores.
Amanda:
Um, 100% Savers is a great example.
Alex:
Savers is, I was at a Savers last year and they were selling like, okay, you know how there’s nice Tupperware and not nice Tupperware?
Amanda:
Yeah, yeah.
Alex:
So there’s like the really low quality like glad Tupperware that you can buy at the grocery store. It’s very, very cheap. They were selling used glad Tupperware I want to say it was like four dollars.
Amanda:
Oh my god.
Alex:
It was used. It was like crusty.
Amanda:
Yeah, I mean, that’s a great example. Even like, I usually will buy jars if I find them,
and they have reached a point at Savers and some Goodwills where they’re more expensive than buying brand new ones. And I’m like, guys, come on, I’m not gonna pay $2 for one jar when I can go get like a six pack for six bucks. Like you guys are, this is ridiculous. And it would have the lids, you know?
But I’ve also noticed like we were out of Savers a couple months ago and I found this Levi’s jacket and it was $30. And I was like, wow, I mean, it’s worth $30, yes. But I mean, this is them saying, like, we know we can sell this for $30. If they end up selling it for $30 is another question. But I have noticed that. And also, one time and one time only, I went to a Goodwill boutique with my, I don’t know if you’ve ever gone to one of these, Alex.
Alex:
I haven’t actually.
Amanda:
I went to a Goodwill boutique in Portland with my stepmother, because we were like, like, oh, it must just be like a smaller goodwill, like in the city or something. There was a rack in the door of Free People clothing. Now, this is all clothing they had been donated to them. And I’m gonna tell you, everything on that rack that was free people, that was secondhand, was more expensive than buying it right then on their website, brand new, on the Free People website.
I was looking stuff up and being like, what the heck is going on here? Like, why are they selling it for even more? Right? So I mean, I definitely have seen prices go up, but I haven’t also seen all prices going up. And it also just depends where you’re shopping. That said, there are organic reasons why thrift store prices have gone up as well, because like everything has gotten more expensive, right? For example,rent. Thrift stores, for the most part, do not own their spaces. And, you know, yes, there are exceptions. And in the rural areas and small towns and independent thrift stores, yeah, they might own their space. supplies, whether it’s
cash register tapes, staplers, credit card machines, probably they have to get subscription software for their cash registers at this point, bags,
Alex:
Hangers and tags.
Amanda:
Yeah exactly. All of that stuff has gone up in price substantially, but the thing that is there are two things that are really driving up costs organically in the thrift realm and one is logistics. So the
like I said at the beginning of this whole conversation, thrift stores are basically logistics companies moving stuff around from location to location, whether that’s another store, outlet, rag yard, landfill, especially the Goodwill. The Goodwill is like such a massive operation that they are constantly moving inventory around to other stores, over to the bins, and then off to other places where it’s going to be processed. I mean, they are like, they probably own their own trucks, I would assume.
Shipping and trucking expenses across the board have been at record highs since the beginning of the pandemic, but
Alex:
Yes, and they’re only going up.
Amanda:
Some people are saying they’re leveling out. I mean, at least like overseas shipping seems to be leveling out, but like there is a shortage of truck drivers. Guess what gets driven around in trucks like nonstop, our secondhand stuff. Like it is just truck after truck. So it’s more expensive even to just move stuff around to where it needs to go. On top of that, donations legendarily increased during the pandemic, meaning there was even more stuff to move around. And then of course, it’s costing more to move around. So that definitely drove up a lot of costs. And I am not a Goodwill apologist, but I’m sure that they have struggled to make the numbers work. It’s
probably cutting in all those executive bonuses. Poor things.
Alex:
Well, another, those poor CEOs,
Amanda:
Poor CEOs.
Alex:
I hope they’re okay. Actually, no, it’s not cutting into their bonuses. Who are you kidding?
Amanda:
You’re right, they’re taking it out on the people who work in the stores.
Alex:
I was gonna say, their bonuses are definitely just getting fatter.
Amanda:
Yeah, they’re probably just doing sneaky things, like not giving health insurance to their employees by keeping them under the full-time threshold, or cutting everybody’s hours across the board so that everybody has to do the work of three people. I’m sure it’s stuff like that.
Alex:
A sprinkling a little wage theft here and there?
Amanda:
yeah, all the hits.
Alex:
Yeah. It’s also interesting that you were saying that, you know, the donation volume has increased. That has also probably contributed to rising costs as well, because man-o-man is that a lot of work to sort and process the mountains and mountains of stuff that we’re dumping. And I know that in the episode where Dylan and Ryan talked about working at one of these thrift stores, the talked about people donating garbage.
Amanda:
Literal garbage, yeah.
Alex:
And that’s a huge part of the job. A huge part of people working at these places is to just literally sort through trash, moldy wet clothes, clothes that has like God knows what on it, and that is a lot of labor. It’s a lot of time and that costs these stores money. And again, you know, if they’re gonna They’re not taking it out of their bonuses or salaries. They’re gonna find ways to take it from somewhere else and that may mean increasing the price of the clothing
Amanda:
For sure. Also, donation volume increased so much during the pandemic. And I do think that was a function of two things. One, people being home, deciding they were going to clean out their houses, etc. But two, people, I look at people with their lives during the pandemic, right? And there were people who had a lot of money because they still had jobs, but they weren’t traveling anywhere, going out to dinner and stuff, right? Then there were people
who were… I was in this category who… We’re like, oh my God, are we soon not gonna have a place to live? Because I don’t have a job and I don’t have any money coming in and life keeps going on, you know? But the people who kinda came out on top who still have their jobs and were saving all this money because they were just sitting at home. Can we just talk about how much shit they bought during the pandemic? Exercise equipment, all kinds of stuff from Amazon, craft kits, new hobbies they were taking on. They had to get a bunch of new sweatpants to wear. cookbooks, appliances, you name it, all the stuff that they bought that they probably aren’t even using anymore and probably are making their way to the Goodwill and I do think that it is no coincidence that I’m seeing so much Shein in thrift stores now because I think people were buying a butt load of that during like the peak of the pandemic.
Alex:
People I think were also shopping optimistically in the hopes that the pandemic was gonna be shorter or quicker than it has been.
As we all know, it’s still ongoing. And I think that a lot of people thought that lockdown, me included, we thought, oh, this will be like a few weeks.
Amanda:
Remember it was gonna end by Easter.
Alex:
yeah, and so I think a lot of people were also buying in the hopes that they were gonna go to that wedding, they were gonna celebrate their birthday, to go on that vacation they had planned.
And as all of those things got canceled and the clothes sat around in their closet, they, you know, by the time people were able to do those things, they were like, well, that’s not new anymore. I don’t wanna wear that.
Amanda:
I totally agree with that. And then people, you know, and I get this because we’re not a constant to being home for months and years on end, right? And unable to see people or do the things that we normally do. People picked up hobbies, like putting together puzzles. They did things
to help themselves cope with this shift, which I know judgment there. But the reality is in like the past year, year and a half, we have been forced to pretend as if the pandemic. is over and go back to work and pretend everything is okay. And we no longer need puzzles or all these other things that we bought to keep us busy and kind of keep us hopeful during those hard times.
Alex:
I mean, or sadly, a lot of people, you know, picked up hobbies that they actually were really passionate about and really loved and are no longer able to continue doing them because we have been forced back to work. You know, a lot of people are just don’t have any leisure time anymore, sadly, or they don’t have, you know, government assistance they may have been receiving at the time. And so that hobby that they loved doing that brought them a lot of joy just like doesn’t have, their life doesn’t have space for it anymore.
Amanda:
Yeah, so we’re seeing more stuff than being donated as people are forced into this weird position that we’re all in now. So in 2021, the donation volume was so high. And I can remember this. I remember we moved out to Central Pennsylvania, out to Amish country at the end of 2020. And I remember January, February, March, like I don’t think thrift stores were open, like
until we got vaccinated, the only places Dustin and I ever went were to like get groceries or pet food. And it was like a whole mission, right? We were practically in like hazmat suits to go do it. And we would drive by this Goodwill that was a couple miles from our house. And there would just be mountains of stuff all over the parking lot because people were dumping it there. But the store wasn’t even open, like employees weren’t in there. It got so out of hand that Goodwill, who once again, I have no sympathy for, but I saw this playing out in real life, they went on kind of like a PR blitz where they spoke to just like every newspaper, the Today Show, radio programs, NPR, you name it, saying, hey, you’re all donating way too much garbage to us. You’re leaving stuff out in the rain and snow and it’s turning into garbage because of that. You’re dropping off hazardous materials like and broken televisions and stuff like that, like you have to stop doing that. And it seemed like every, you know, the way the Goodwill works is that it’s not like there are districts per se, but there are like areas, right? And they each kind of run as their own division of Goodwill. And every division out there was reporting that they had spent millions of dollars in disposal fees just in that first part of 2021 And as we’ve said, if you think that the executives at Goodwill are going to say like, oh, I’ll just take a cut in my bonus or my salary to cover all those disposal fees, you are wrong.
Did they take it out on employees? For sure. But they also took it from us as customers by raising prices.
Alex:
Mm-hmm Yeah, and I mean that also goes back to this idea that like you know There’s good stuff out there that is not able to go into the hands of anyone else because it’s being dumped Like when someone throws a bag of clothes like the Goodwill bin is overflowing good wills not open And they just dump the stuff in the parking lot. What happens when it rains? What happens when? You know rat decides to go make a nest out of the bag that you dropped
off like then all of that stuff becomes garbage whether or not it was garbage when you donated
Amanda:
Oh, totally. I remember specifically driving by that Goodwill near our house, and it had just snowed just a little bit. That’s all it takes, right? And it was just turned to piles of garbage.
Alex:
It automatically becomes garbage. It’s also just a safety hazard to ask the employees to like open all the bags and try and save what’s dropped. They’re not gonna do that. They’re just gonna throw it all away.
Amanda:
What they did was they just threw it all away and we’re talking couches, electronics, clothes, home goods, books, records, you name it, it’s all gone. I bet there was all kinds of cool stuff in there too.
Alex:
Yeah, absolutely.
Amanda:
And it was just people behaving irresponsibly. Well, you know, also like as we have said multiple times, thrift stores, whether they’re small and associated with a charity or they’re a large for-profit, like say, savers, they’re all in the business to make money, pay shareholders or to pay the owner or to support their charitable causes. So the reality is that thrift stores of all sizes are getting savvier about making as much money as they can off of their donations.
This is from that Wall Street Journal article again. Bill Parrish, senior consultant in donated goods retail for Goodwill Industries International, said that while there has not been a set price at the non-profits retail locations, each Goodwill organization adjusts its pricing periodically to ensure that they are in line with the value of the category of items provided. And I don’t really shop at the Goodwill, as I mentioned, but I do also like to, I mean, there aren’t as many here, but back in Pennsylvania, all my favorite thrift stores were either run by the Mennonite women, or they were just associated with one church or organization in the area, so they were just one location kind of thing. And all of them. Had eBay pages where they were selling the high value stuff They also and I don’t know if this is just a central Pennsylvania thing But they would always have an area in the front where you could silent auction like bid on things
Alex:
interesting.
Amanda:
And like that they it was always amazing vintage stuff like I got it. I got a Little People McDonald’s from the 80s from one of those auctions So it was always like it would always be stuff where I’d be like I can’t believe I’m seeing this in real life
They could just put a tag on it for 10 bucks or something and put it on the floor, but they’re saying like, no, we wanna get the maximum value. The end.
Alex:
Yeah, absolutely.
Alex:
And another thing also is that, you know, this idea that resellers are the reason for price increases. I mean, firstly, like no customer has control over the way items are priced. It’s not a customer thing, that’s the store. The stores are setting the prices
And there’s also no data to actually support the argument that resellers are the reason that price is. Like there’s no solid, I’ve tried looking, I’ve tried to see if there’s any sort of numbers behind that. And there are, I’ve seen anecdotes of people saying that we see more resellers and maybe like one manager in one thrift location will say, we need to price up because of the resellers, but there’s actually no evidence that this is the case.
Amanda:
Yeah, I mean, I looked and looked and looked for data that said that there are more resellers. I would assume at this point, like someone like say the Goodwill, who has those resources, would have a statistic. But then I’ll also just say like, as a pretty regular thrifter, the only time I really see any significant and very obvious reseller action is at the bins. That’s where I’ll see people who have been camped out there all day with a humongous mountain of stuff.
Alex:
Right, and in which case like good for them.
People should be going in there taking as much stuff as possible because that’s the last step for a lot of those items.
Amanda:
If anything, I’ll just say rising prices in thrift stores actually deter resellers
Alex:
Yeah, they hurt resellers probably like equally as much as they do the average shopper. Again, a lot of people really rely on resale. And if that’s the difference between you being able to pay a rent that month, then, you know, that could be a huge hit to you to see these prices go up. So like nobody wants that, including the resellers.
It’s also, I found it so interesting that like, you know, prices have gone up for basically everything recently. Like in New York, at least where I am, everything is very expensive right now?
Amanda:
Same in Austin
Alex:
It’s really like horrifying and shocking how much certain things cost. And the only things that have not gotten more expensive or haven’t gone up in price are fast fashion and wages.
Amanda:
Yes.
Alex:
I’m like, that’s it. I’m like, this interesting. Very convenient that the only things that seem to be getting cheaper are low quality clothing and no one’s wages have seemed to go up
Amanda:
It is like the quandary of our time because clothes, brand new clothes are cheaper now than they were in the 90s. And I can assure you that nothing else is, including thrift store prices. And so, yeah, I don’t know why people are surprised to see thrift store prices being higher. I mean, it’s not as wild as grocery prices are. Sometimes we go to the grocery store and it like fills me with such dread now because just like, how bad is this you know, but it’s like way more affordable for us to eat at home than eat out at this point. So it’s like, oh, we just and we have to eat to stay alive. So there’s the quandary, right?
Alex:
I think this also ties into this idea that if a thrift store is charging $12 for pants and they used to charge $7, or that $5 difference means that someone is no longer able to afford those pants, that is an entirely different issue in itself. There is so much wealth and abundance in this country, it is really disturbing that there are people who genuinely cannot afford to spend $5 more on a pair of pants. And this is an equality issue. This is not a resellers or making thrift stores more expensive issue. This is a why can someone not afford $12 pants issue. And you know, that a lot of times it’s a racial justice issue. It’s about exploitation of labor. It’s a lack of government resources. It’s about our broken healthcare system, wage theft. Like there are all these other reasons that we should all be angry. There’s so much to be upset about. Why are we yelling at resellers?
Amanda:
I know.
Alex:
Why is that the problem here? That’s not the problem. Like everyone should be able to go out and afford nice things. People should be able to not only buy the things that they need, but buy the things that they want. Like people should be able to treat themselves. People should be able to get good, nice quality clothing that fits them, that makes them feel good. And the reason that people are unable to do that has nothing to do with individuals reselling clothing.
Amanda:
No. No.
Alex:
It’s just like a totally unrelated issue and we have so much to rightfully be upset about. I would love to see people channel that energy into the actual problems
Amanda:
Yes, likelet’s talk about how grocery stores have raised prices when they didn’t need to to be more profitable, okay?
Alex:
Or like how gas prices went up and then all of the gas companies were making like crazy profits.
Like that’s pretty upsetting, but you know, yeah, there’s just so many things to be angry about and it feels like we’re taking a lot of our anger out in the wrong places.
Amanda:
Which I think is like a very human, it’s a very human behavior, right? But I guess one of the reasons we’re having this conversation is because I really want people to hear this who may be channeling that rage and that frustration towards resellers and take that moment and say, oh, whoa, there are these like way bigger things that if all of us channeled it together, we might be able to make some change there. Being angry at resellers on TikTok literally doesn’t make the world better place in any way at all, period.
And the resellers also struggling with how hard it is to find a place to live that you can afford or getting freaked out by the checkout at the grocery when you see how much it is or not being able to see a dentist or a doctor. You know, like these resellers are people just like us with all the same fears and worries, okay?
Alex:
Absolutely.
Amanda:
Okay, so I have two messages from thrift store employees on the subject of pricing and inventory and whatnot. So the first one is an anonymous thrift store employee who works currently for a big for-profit thrift chain.
From an anonymous thrift store employee who works for a big for-profit thrift chain:
Increase in prices: I have noticed a slight increase in prices, and I’ve heard customers talk about it recently too. I’m not too sure as to why they are increasing, I would guess from inflation as a whole. Our production team in the back handles prices, and since I work on the sales floor, I do not get trained in how things get priced.
Decreased volume in “good” stuff: Honestly, I have not. For my store at least, there’s “good” items, and “bad” items. It seems to vary a lot from week to week, but more often than not I could fill up a cart full of “good” items.
Thrift stores being busier than usual: I would say in my experience, yes. I can only work Saturday/Sunday because I’m in school, but I have noticed over the past few weeks that more people are coming in the door, and it’s a wide range between teenagers/younger crowd and adults that seem to be shopping there out of necessity rather than leisure.
Resellers: I haven’t seen that many, but I have heard from my coworkers that the resellers tend to come in the morning, but I usually close on the weekend so I’m not there until later in the day. I know that most of the resellers tend to go to the Goodwill Outlet store, as it leads to more profits.
How much stuff comes in/how long does it take to sell/where does it go?: We get a lot of stuff every week, but that is a production team problem. I was briefly told how long things stay during my training, and since it is not my task to rotate things on and off the sales floor, I can not remember specifically how long things tend to stay on the floor for. I have noticed that clothes tend to get rotated and taken off of the sales floor quicker than household goods such as books/mugs/etc. I know that all of the things that get taken off the floor get packaged and sent to 3rd world countries”
Amanda:
Yeah, I mean we know that these things are being sent to the global south.
Alex:
Yeah, especially from a for-profit chain as well.
Amanda:
Yeah, for sure. They are selling that off. They’re not donating it.
Weenie works for a small local thrift as a sorter and a manager of the vintage section, which sounds like a pretty awesome job to me.
From Weenie, who works for a small local thrift as a sorter and manager of the vintage section:
*Our prices have stayed about the same since I’ve worked there (2 years) I started during the pandemic. but I did notice a rise in goodwill and VOA prices in the area a few years ago.
*We get tons of new stuff, especially new clothes with tags still on them.
Being a sorter I see a lot of clothes, a lot of them are “unsellable” which are smooshed into big bales and shipped to Canada for distribution to other countries (that’s what they say)
*We get a lot of resellers, mainly the same crew who swoop in right when we open to snatch all the good stuff which kind of upsets me sometimes. I understand that’s how they make a living but some can be aggressive and just don’t give a hoot about anyone else. It’s almost like they’re addicted, gotta get the stuff ya know?
*We get donations of probably 50-70 pallets each week (clothes, hard goods everything together except furniture- before it’s sorted)
*Most of the stuff will sit on the sales floor until it sells but once in a while we do pull and throw away or recycle what we can. (Metal) But clothing is definitely the big problem in this world, we just get wayyyy too much. I would say 70% of what we get is clothes donated. I say fast fashion is the problem and also cheap imported clothes (I’ve seen tons more wish type clothes coming in (the little white size tag with no other labels))
*We definitely sell mostly clothing and also many of our customers get free clothes with vouchers through churches, etc.
*We get so many winter hats, gloves scarves that we give most away in a free bin, books too, I’d say books are another big donated item.
*What I dig about our store is how much we do help the community (we even help pay ppls bills and vouchers for mattresses) it’s nice to see my actual boss, our store director listening to our clients stories and having an office area for ppl to come get help. It’s nice to work with people who care about people, not money so much…which I have unfortunately seen at prior thrifts.
Alex:
Wow, that sounds like a really nice thrift store.
Amanda:
But even this small thrift store, is still getting just crazy amounts of clothes.
Alex:
That’s a lot of stuff, 50 to 70 pallets a week.
Amanda:
Yeah, yeah, and just 70% of that being clothing. Like, I mean, I think by now in this episode, you’re all picking up on the idea that there’s too much clothing in the world.
Thank you (again) to Alex for spending almost four hours talking to me. She will be back for one last installment on this series next week (although I’m already wondering if she needs to come back for a fourth part). I’m grateful for her time, expertise, and research. I hope you are, too! You can find her on Instagram as @wear_st.evens and check out her shop at wearstevens.com I’ll also share that in the show notes.
I have one last audio recording to share in this episode, from Vilma. This one came in past the deadline, so I received it after Alex and I recorded. Vilma is a former thrift store employee, who is now getting started as a reseller. Let’s take a listen:
Vilma brings up a lot of good points here:
Resellers are not just online resellers. I’m glad she reminded us of flea market sellers.
Also, the donated brand new stuff from retailers! This is something that has picked up so much momentum in the past decade because it allows retailers who have overproduced and bought more inventory than they can sell, write it off as a donation. AND they don’t have to cover the cost of disposing of these things (yes, it gets expensive). So passing it off to the thrift store is a great deal for these retailers. If you have seen an entire aisle of brand new Zara at the Salvation Army, or just so much brand new Target stuff at Goodwill…this is how that happened.
Next, the fact that thrift stores are a business and as part of that, they want to sell as much as stuff as possible, just like any other business. That means they remerchandise, they make the store more appealing, they try to make the store environment and experience feel more like a regular store. In fact, when secondhand shopping becomes more mainstream and trendy (which happens every other decade or so), these thrift stores lean into merchandising and opening stores in high traffic, middle class neighborhoods so they can cash in on the trend!
Lastly, did you catch all the other stuff we’ve been talking about in this episode? The drive to price things at true market value? The excess clothing? The excess stuff as a whole?
Thank you Vilma for taking the time to record that. She also told me to let you know this:
“I forgot to mention how there were so many donations per week we often had to turn customers away. Our donation hours were only Thursday -Sunday and our warehouse would be packed! We’re a huge 2-floor Thrift store for reference.”
Just the thought of thrift stores receiving that volume of donations, when we know that many people are finding other channels for theid unwanted stuff BEFORE donating…well, it definitely underscores the over consumption happening in our society right now.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this episode: Tamara, Aimee, Maria, Amanda, Christine, Vilma, and Weenie. I am so grateful for your time and thoughtful contributions to this conversation.
If you have thoughts regarding the topics we discussed this week, send them my way via email (remember DMs will be turned off) at [email protected]. Bonus points if you record an audio message!
We’ll be back next week with part 3 of this series, when we will dig into the final myth: Resellers misrepresent what they’re selling, list things at wildly inflated prices, and overall behave miserably both online and in person. We’ll also talk about how resellers increase access to secondhand shopping (rather than you know, taking all the good stuff) and the community aspect of resale.
I also want to remind you that over at The Department (my other podcast) we are working on a series of episodes that pair with this series. It’s all about the history of secondhand shopping as a retail, social, and fashion trend. And spoiler alert: shopping secondhand as a mainstream trend is nothing new. Part three will be coming on Tuesday, April 11. And parts one and two are already out there for the listening!
That’s all I have for this week!
If you want to share your opinion/additional thoughts on the subjects we cover in each episode, feel free to email, whether it’s a typed out message or an audio recording: [email protected]
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