The thrift store has never been out of the trend. There are many people I have met who shop from the thrift store even though they can afford to buy new stuff. I prefer thrift stores, not because of one single reason but many…..
Reselling goodwill items
Thrift Store sells second-hand clothes (reselling thrift store clothes) and household goods, typically to raise funds as additional income or for a Church or charity. Making money reselling thrift store items can be a very lucrative business if you have a purchase plan and use social networks and apps to promote products.
Let me discuss them one by one… that why you should also go to thrift stores more often than buying new or expensive stuff because there is always the time when we somehow do not need any extra stuff, but we tend to buy them. Let’s say shopping to get rid of homesickness or letting your boredom go away by doing some shopping.
There are also times when we need something urgently and but at the end of the month when we do not have some extra money, I have explained I have been through them in these situations. Since then, I have made up my mind to go for thrift stores/shops, instead of wasting thousands of dollars on buying new and expensive stuff that I could not even afford, not all the time, but sometimes this thrift store really got my back.
So the first reason first, the major benefit of shopping from thrift stores is the following.
Thrift store reselling improves your environment.
If we buy new stuff, the market has to produce more, and for the more products, they need more resources. More resources mean more damage to our environment. that means for leather the skin of animals is going to be needed, for furniture the trees have been cut down. And if we take a look over the life of these products you might feel bad about it. For example,
Things to look for at thrift stores to resell:
- Leather shoes: 25-40 years
- Plastic bottles: 70-450 years
- Nylon clothes: 30-40 years
- Cotton: 1-5 months
- Tin cans: around 50 years
So these are some of the age categories in which stuff we use, and its age befalls. that means if you use plastic that is not going decompose in more than 100 years, so producing more and more plastic products means that the next seven generations can use them without the products getting decomposed.
So why we bother to let the market and industries and factories produce more plastic products? We can use different methods to sterilize the products to use them again.
It will not only allow nature to breathe, but the water pollution will also come to an end, where marine life will have ease in their life cycle. None of us are aware of the aquatic life problems caused mainly due to the plastic garbage we throw in the sea.
The animals with fur have to stay in the wild without their own fur, isn’t the worst regard we are giving to the while using their fur in our coats? If only we can reuse the products, will not it be the better option? We need the solution, and in many ways, thrift store reselling is the ultimate option.
What to do with ‘SO MUCH STUFF’?
If you are also the one who actually got no space in them because of overstuffing, then SELL them. Exactly, selling the home furniture and extra stuff to others is the best solution in some ways mainly.
1- You can use the space for other purposes.
2- You can clearly make enough money by just reselling them to others who are in need.
3- people who can not afford to buy new stuff can reuse your stuff, and I guess it’s also a kind gesture.
4- The more you have space, it means you have less to own. Which is great to give you a simplified life.
How to start thrift store reselling?
If you are interested in opening or starting your own thrift store, here are some tips before moving toward the tips. It is great that you have opened your own store; it will not only make you much income, but it will keep your area more in shape. Many people waste the stuff that is not much in use, but you can use that stuff before it gets wasted. So for this purpose, first of all, do some exploring in your area.
1- Strolling + exploring
Take a long walk in the night and bring all the stuff that you feel is useful and people might have dumped them, pick them up. After bringing them to your place, clean them, check if they work properly or not, and then sell them for half of their price. It can be a machine (home appliances) or clothes or toys or anything.
2- Use the small area of your home
Use your garage or a small room of your home as a place to put all the stuff you can then upload them on any website you want, maybe on any social site that is popular in your country, or you can launch your own website too.
3- Pricing stage
Price them on half of their original prices, and there you go, but it’s always better to do some research on the product’s market price. It will not only generate sufficient income, but you can feel the sense of living a simple life without stuffing your home with more stuff that you do not even want.
Also, some apps allow you to order your stuff while sitting at home.
Since it has never been wasted, some people are actually doing business with it and earning quite good money every season from thrift store reselling. Now it is not a complex task to go through. Here are some popular apps to sell on:
- Poshmark
Postmark is a simple app for people in the United States to sell and purchase used or new clothes, shoes, and accessories. It is a social commerce market.
- Depop
It is also a social app based in London and operates in New York and Milan with 18 million users.
- 5 miles
5miles is also a platform that gives the facility to its users to sell and buy used stuff, such as cars, furniture, heavy machines, etc.
- Chairish
chairish is a big online market for decor and chic, where you can buy gently sued furniture and decor product of almost every variety.
- Vinted
vinted is a Lithuanian company, where you can also buy and sell clothes and accessories, etc.
Instagram is considered the largest social media platform to find thousands of people selling and buying from their accounts.
You can use any other popular app in your city or state to find any thrift store easily and shop from there. As for my experience, I have seen and even ordered from a few of the online thrift shops on Instagram and Facebook.
It would help if you searched the shops according to your location. Otherwise, you have to pay some extra shipping charges that won’t be any good.
So the crux of this thing is that thrift store reselling is not something low or bad for reputation; even the international marketplace is also doing a large business. So can you.
Note: If you are buying any online stuff, you need to be extra careful about paying for it. Always ask for the extra images of the product that you want to buy. Check the size chart and match it with your size because there are usually more than three country sizes available on the chart size. That is Euro, US, Chinese… so in these three sizes sometimes it becomes difficult to decide what size is yours. So match your size with the shop’s size chart, then discuss it with the customer service representative for extra tips.
Clarify your payment method with the shop and then checkout. Usually, on Facebook and Instagram, the customer service representative helps you choose the perfect matched product for you. But for the apps or websites, you are on your own like some websites do provide the CSR facility, but they act on automated replies, and you can not even ask for the extra images.
Carefully look over each item before purchasing it.
Of course, some of the cons (hurdles) you will deal with, and some of them are the hygiene and damage stuff. It is normal to see damaged stuff in thrift stores so be careful about those things, you can always choose the best among them, and still, it won’t be any expense to you.
Just look through every product and find the perfect size for yourself before buying it. Even after buying the product, if it is related to clothing, it is always better to let it be (dry cleaned) washed again.
Tips:
Thrift store reselling is a better way to shop than to shop from other shops. The reasons are mentioned above with clear details. The better you save money on spending on clothes are profitable to you in many other ways.
People spend on clothes, and after wearing them for quite some time, they get bored with that dress and want to buy a new one. It is not a problem if you want to buy new and discard the old ones. The minimal change you can bring in your buying and spending habits over here is that you can buy from thrift store reselling in this way you can save 70 percent of your money and when you want to discard them that won’t bother you though it is expensive or not.
Be frugal in spending on clothes.
Good luck.
After leaving Wells Fargo Bank in 2014, Daniel began a career as a finance consultant, advising companies and individuals on economic policy, labor relations, and financial management.
At Promtfinance.com, Daniel writes about personal finance topics, value estimation, budgeting strategies, retirement planning, and portfolio diversification.
Read more on Daniel Smith's biography page.
Contact Daniel: daniel@promtfinance.com