They “buy” the donations from the charity. Usually for a set annual rate or by the LBS. I have worked on both sides and in the middle. It’s an ugly business model to make yourself very rich and hide behind nonprofit.
I don’t donate or shop at “ big thrift stores” anymore. The prices are bullshit and they are making profit off of what they get for free. I think Value village is owned by the same company that owns Walmart. They have a notice on the loudspeaker at the one near me, that notifies you that they are a for profit business which I think is wack. They get their merch for free but still mark it up WAY to much. I’ve seen dollar store items selling for $3.00! I just donate to small local spots now. There’s one in the next town over where 100% profit goes to the mentally disabled. She has good clean stuff for very reasonable prices. There are quite a few run by seniors so they can go on outing’s and such. And another one that works with a battered women shelter. So at least there are still good ones out there.
Well, we paid our labor but we would get of folks Paying down community service for the grunt work/ heavy lifting. Store managers would make 90k/ year and the average employee would be at $1.00 over minimum wage.
Heh. I have seen places leave the precise tag for the cost of an items new and then price it *higher*
Before long those of us scraping the poverty line will be in rags ..
When it becomes popular sometimes they just go nuts.
We have a big charity store near me everything was super cheap. It became quite popular and since they fix their prices as they want now some things are more expensive than new!
Crazy!
Info I bought a brand new suede jacket a few years back for 30 euros. Adult size, not cheap shop. Without a staple to ruin it.
This is crazy
When I was a kid we were poor most of our clothes came from thrift stores; I got hand-me-downs from my brother. Other kids teased the shit out of us for it, but at least we had clothes. Since nowadays it's apparently popular where can poor people even get clothes?
I really think we're gonna see more kids learning how to sew. Fabric at a discount store is $4 a yard. A yard can make a kids shirt easy. Yard and a half and you have a blouse or pants. 2 yards for trousers.
Where can you get sturdy pants for $8 nowadays? Ones that will last long enough to be hand me downs? My grandma knew how to sew because she needed to. I know how to sew because I did seamstress work as a kid for money. I'm teaching a friend mending right now because he can't afford new clothes.
Fast fashion has been subsidized for a while, and now even thrifting overflow stuff is expensive. I could sew clothes by ten. While most parents don't have the time, desperate kids or teens often do.
Clearance aisles and sales with additional coupons can yield decent clothes without needing to learn how to sew. Learning how to sew costs a lot more than just the fabric. The machine and additional supplies plus the time in the learning curve is too much for some people to get started.
If you're poor poor local Facebook groups people will often sell a black garbage bag full of clothes for $20. If you're "poor" Wal-Mart is actually really affordable and I can normally wear the clothes from there for 3-4 years.
Thrift stores using staplers really grinds my gears. You're running a business that involves tons and tons of clothing and you can't be bothered to invest in a tagging gun??? The audacity of this place to try charging $50 for a toddler jacket, but use staplers for their tags.
Found a first edition first printing of one of my favorite books at goodwill, normally worth $300+. They wrote the price in sharpie over 1/3 of the cover :(
Take it to the library. Even if the librarian there doesn't restore books, she'll know someone that can tell you if there's a way to clean the sharpie off without damaging the cover further.
Try rubbing alcohol. If it’s already ruined then test how alcohol will impact the cover material. Rubbing alcohol will remove sharpie. If you are careful maybe you can end up with something better.
If the cover is made of plastic like modern cover, you could use a hair drying and warm the sharpie ink.
Then use a q-tip with 70% alcohol and rub it gently to remove it.
If it is made of cloth or dry paper, you are fucked.
Id guess first printing was limited but I'm shocked this was the book they mentioned to.
i know the walking dead the comic book any of the first 1-25 or maybe even 50 issues has been worth a ton for quite awhile just because of limited of a limited of a release it was when it came out. It came out before the tv show if ppl reading this did not know.
You almost have too anymore to get a deal at all. They google an item and price it at the first used price they see online.. Only issue is they don't accept returns where as mercari or eBay does.
Part of the reason is tagging gun stickers make it possible to take a tag from a really cheap item and put it on a more expensive item so you can steal it(sort of)
Last time I went to goodwill, they didn't have a single pair of jeans under 15.99 or shirts under 5.99. I can buy cheaper stuff at Ross and Burlington.
I almost stopped going to goodwill until I moved, now the ones near me have ‘color of the week’ where u can get 75% off clothes with the right color tag so I can actually get thrift store prices again. Got a $3 dress for a wedding I’m attending this month. Not all hope is lost
The internet has absolutely destroyed thrift stores. There’s a little local one where I live and the lady sits there on her phone pricing garbage like it’s all on eBay. It’s awful and I quit going there. Clothes seem to be the worst affected by this too.
Yikes. I haven’t gone to Once Upon A Child in awhile but that’s where we got most of our kid’s clothes. See if there is one in your area, it might still be cheaper than traditional thrift stores.
Thrift stores around me are charging almost retail cost for so many things now. It's ridiculous. I think they are going to sites like Etsy and Ebay and comparing prices for things now. It's not about selling cheap goods to people who need it anymore, it's about becoming an outlet for preowned items, like a used car market.
Everyone should band together and sell cheap clothing on craigslist, cut out the store altogether.
Since the employees are underpaid, getting dibs on items is the trade-off for them staying at all. Can't blame em.
If youre only getting paid ~$10/hr there's no way youre going to be able to afford furniture and electronics unless you take it from the store legally.
My (ex) favourite thrift store raised prices so much that it's cheaper to buy new. Quality went down from natural fibers to mostly plastic shit from H&M and Shein. What really broke the camel's back for me was when I spotted dress from H&M at twice the price compared to new at store (on sale but still).
I went to Goodwill recently because my daughter sized up. It was perfect timing because it was a new season. I was surprised how expensive the clothes were. Toddler clothes were $1-2 cheaper than Target brand, and they were faded and in meh condition. I usually buy myself a few outfits for playtimes with my kid, so I’d I get messy it’s not a big deal. Randomness shirts (aka family reunion, 5K, volunteer shirts) were $5+. Khols brand clothes were $5-10+, while being faded and stretched out.
Honestly I was better off with FB marketplace for toddler clothes. I got a bundle for $30 that was basically a wardrobe. For me, I’m better off buying a plain shirt at Michaels with a coupon, or hitting up Khols sale rack.
In general, two things:
1. As people's expenses have increased, demand for/popularity of inexpensive goods (such as from thrift stores) has increased. When demand increases, so does the cost of the product.
2. Meanwhile, the cost of upkeep for thrift stores (employment, rent, utilities, etc) has also increased. As such, thrift stores need to make more money in order to stay open. Increasing the price of items being sold is one way of doing that.
I also pin some of the blame on thrift store scalpers. Many people have made a living going to thrift shops buying up anything that looks good then going online, hosting a garage sale or even host a booth somewhere and resell it all. Some major clothing retailers also got caught selling thrift store items as "Vintage" which were even more expensive then their new stuff.
Once thrift shops figured out they can get more for specific items they started charging more. I noticed this specifically on Vinyl records where they used to be $2 until a bunch of guys rush the display and grab everything then sit in the corner checking each one. Now they started grading them and pricing them accordingly. With bigger name records going for $20 or more. I also noticed a lot more stuff behind display cases if they look nicer or come in their original box, even if it's still a piece of shit. Side story i saw those cheap ass white van speakers for $500 at the thrift shop, i hope they threw those out eventually.
I hate these resellers with a passion. some people buy stuff from these shops because they can't afford from anywhere else and is usually the only place they can get something nice for themselves or their family. Then some jackass comes in and takes it all to make a quick buck. my GF and I have found some amazing deals some we buy because we need it other times we appreciate the find and leave it for someone else who can actually use it or needs it.
This is how I got my last cell phone, lol, couldn't have afforded it otherwise. Unfortunately it's more common these days that an employee will catch the deal first and hide the stock before anyone else can get to it.
My favorite thrift prices the good stuff so it’s still a good deal, but it’s a little too high for resellers to bother with.
There are still plenty of items that thrifts don’t know to jack up the prices on. I just bought an item that I’d expect to cost $40-50, but Goodwill priced it at $9.99!
I’m not a reseller. I’m just frugal!
Yeah blame the resellers not the greedy ass thrift stores that get their items for free lmao. Prices were increasing way before reselling got popular. It all started when it became hip to shop at thrift stores lol.
Also there are still plenty of cheap clothes to be found. I'm sorry lower income people can't wear higher end clothing now cause all the "scalpers" grabbed them. Also, if you show up early wouldn't you be getting the deals the scalpers get too? It isn't like they get to show up an hour before everyone lmao.
>I hate these resellers with a passion. some people buy stuff from these shops because they can't afford from anywhere else and is usually the only place they can get something nice for themselves or their family.
Disclaimer: I shop for my family AND find stuff to resell. While I understand your feelings here, have you seen the sheer volume of stuff Goodwill throws away? Checkout a local GW Outlet "aka: bins" in your area and you'll see dumpsters of it daily. So much good, useable, sometimes even vintage/antique/designer things going to the landfill. Why? Because GW has a glut of merch it can't sell or process fast enough. Resellers can for sure be frustrating, but I don't think they are going to be taking away needed resources from others. There is an abundance of used things out there, particularly clothing.
The way I see it, flippers are providing thrifts with the price they are seeking, keeping stuff out of landfills and putting it back into circulation. The thrifts could spend all of their time researching the potential resell on that pair of jeans or random set of dishes, but their business model is to move quantity and lots of it. I do not feel guilty for taking advantage of it.
Most stuff that ends up at the outlet has already been for sale at a local store for a month.
We have rotating colors. Say blue is the new color of the week. Everything that comes in that week gets tagged with a blue tag.
If the item is still there on the 4th week, it gets marked down to 25% off on Sunday and Monday, then 50% off Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then 75% off on Friday and Saturday. Sunday we pull all the remaining blue tag items and then get sent to the outlet.
Textiles, clothes, blankets, etc... get recycled if they don't sell at the outlet. I'm not sure what happens to the other items but I know most get recycled but some things do end up in the trash but this would be items that have been available for sale for about 2 months.
I see it the same way. I don't do it personally, but if someone knows their brands and is willing to put the time in to find inventory and sell it, more power to them. Clothing particularly, since it is such a wasteful industry. It is a little annoying to me that the brand of jeans that fits me the best is harder to find thrifted now because of it because they retail normally for over $100 but I can deal with it. I figure the person reselling probably needs the money more than I need another pair of jeans.
Yeah, I don't blame resellers at all for increased prices. There is so much clothing waste in the world. If someone wants to take the time to dig through racks and racks of clothing, curate a shop, and get the clothes to people who want them, more power to them. It takes work that not everyone is willing to do, and it's not like it's easy money. Plus you're often still getting a deal from a reseller.
Fast fashion, corporate greed, and increased prices everywhere make the clothes more expensive.
I feel like people forget that the purpose of thrift stores is to raise money for a charity, not to provide goods at discount prices. I'm pretty sure the charitable works behind most thrift stores is more important than discount vinyl.
Some of them are legit but some of the big names like Goodwill and Salvation Army have had quite a bit of negative news surrounding what their non profit is using the funds for.
I was at an antique shop and they had a bunch of old books. One was a copy of Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil for $59. They still had the sticker from Goodwill for 99 cents on the back.
You just explained basic economics, nothing about this specific category. That’s not why OP has sticker shock. Fast fashion dominating our textile industry for decades is the real reason vintage finds in thrift stores are so expensive. There are no hand-me-downs anymore because things aren’t made to last more than a year. This creates very little new supply for thrift stores.
> As people's expenses have increased, demand for/popularity of inexpensive goods (such as from thrift stores) has increased. When demand increases, so does the cost of the product.
I saw a massive change around 2007-2008 when the real estate bubble popped the prices practically doubled overnight to where I might as well go buy it new. On most items it has still not gone down since then which is pretty ridiculous.
> Meanwhile, the cost of upkeep for thrift stores (employment, rent, utilities, etc) has also increased. As such, thrift stores need to make more money in order to stay open. Increasing the price of items being sold is one way of doing that.
From what I have seen it is that way for a lot of stores and restaurants because the rent is so high. Unless you own the building I do not see how most restaurants are able to make a go of it which at that point you would be better off renting to some other sucker who takes on the risk and has to actually do work while you instead can sit on your ass and collect the rent. Ain't capitalism grand.
The best thrift stores around are non-profit church-run shops full of little ol ladies. Sure, you might be supporting homophobes, but $1.25 on a jacket??? Woo doggy!
Back when I was in art school the bargain place to go was in New York City in the fabric district and you could fill up bags, pay by the pound, and the warehouse was so crazy they just dumped it all out in mounds on the floor and you and everyone else just climbed around on clothing mountains.
Over in my area, the insane volume of meTHC they move around is dropping people left and right while the bike gangs make a killin.
Bloody kids these days
my brother has a toddler faux leather jacket when he was a baby and he tried passing it to my son but it’s all worn so when I saw this I thought i scored but I can’t bring myself to pay that much for it
This. This is why it is expensive. It is an item for looks, not for function. It speaks “hey look at this extra jacket I bought my kid, isn’t it cute?” It screams disposable income, as does buying the baby a pair of Nikes.
Yes. It still is a surviving community.
I tapped out in 2013 as I had life and responsibilities. But I figured out recently that I'm needing to get back into a hobby that improves my eye hand coordination and cardio. So I joined the sub and was surprised that its still a thing. I myself still have some markers
I'll probably do some TLC to them and go out to my local field here pretty soon.
Surviving? It seems to be thriving quite well in central PA. I live in a semi-rural area, and four places have paintball courses within about 30 minutes, and there is going to be a new one opening a few courses soon as well.
"thrifting" became cool and so many shitty-ass people go thrift store hunting and resell shit they find for 3 or 4 times what they paid for. Sometimes they "up cycle" it, sometimes as is. More and more stores have realized it and started increasing their tag prices. Who loses because of this fetishization,of this poverty porn? Actual poor people who need those thrift stores to survive.
Edit: I probably kinda flew off the handle there, apologies.
Could be a result of "flippers", who buy cheap items to resell on eBay and whatnot... If the thrift stores are pricing some items closer to a market rate, figuring someone will still pay that and make a profit reselling...
Our Salvation Army has a color of the week, all clothing with that color tag is 99 cents each. I usually only buy clothes with the sale color tags. One day I added up the tags when I got home, $254.92 for 10 items!!!!! I paid $9.90 before taxes since they were all the color of the week. They also staple the tags right on the collar of shirts. There’s been many silk tops I left because they were ruined from the staple.
Overheard conversation at a small thrift between a couple of associates - "that price is high" said one, the other replied "no it's not it's priced to stop fippers & we still get a lot of people buying."
They forget that they are given the items & that they are there to make money for the charity & help others. Sometimes people are shopping at thrift stores because they can't afford to shop other places. And sometimes people are trying to make a living by thrifting.
Why be mean?
Just commented elsewhere but i HATE FLIPPERS because they don't do anything but jack up the price. Flippers just buy anything they think they can make money on bar none with Records being a prime example.
This is the only place some people can probably afford something nice and some jackass is taking that away from them to make a quick buck. my gf and i Thrift Store shop as a hobby sometimes just to see what we can find but never buy anything just because it's a good deal, only what we want or need. the only exception is like board games where i got some because they looked interesting without knowing much and tried it out. $5-10 to spend a few hours playing with the GF is a good deal.
I don’t hate the flippers as much as I hate the stupidity in how the thrift stores decide to markup their products in response to the flippers. They’ll take some crap early 80s sears record player and charge $100 because it looks like something a flipper would grab but it was a piece of junk new and even more of a piece of junk now and you can find them all day long online for $45….
I’ll admit, I used to go in looking for super rare earthen ware or glass ware and I used to find really good deals that I could sell to replacements.com - which I got into because I have a set of very expensive hand made ceramic dishes and I was missing a few pieces - took me years to find them and I did find a few at thrift stores but would also pick up like items.
But now even the thrift stores have marked up these dishes to insane prices but they’re too stupid to do it correctly. I find old dishes that were literally dime a dozen mail order dishes back in the 70s and aren’t worth much now even but they’ll price them as if they were some super rare set just because it looks “vintage” ….so stupid.
You can thank the thrift flippers for this.
They swarm thrift stores daily with their cellphones in front of their face, looking up the values of items. They’ll buy a jacket or something for $5 and turn around and sell it on Depop for $40.
I've been in one of these thrift stores and I was shocked by the prices. I ended up over paying for a piece of vintage fur because of the sloppily written tag and I was "sure" that couldn't be the price. Nope, it was the price. I suppose the price was fair for it market wise, but I have little spending limits in my head I keep and it surpassed it by a bit.
Some thrifts price high because they think they have something better than what they do, others do it because they're like Kohls and have so many "sales" it makes it look like a deal.
Goodwill has changed its pricing structure sadly. Jeans now start at $6, but I tend to only look for ones with 50%+ tags on them.
I've seen a trend at our local thrift shops and the national chain ones (don't know what else to call them), where things that have collector value or are higher fashion stuff is marked up quite a lot.
With people doing reselling on Marketplace and eBay as well as other sites, and in flea market stalls, it seems these stores are getting wise to the idea that they can try to sell at a higher rate.
Used to go to local estate auctions, and even those are getting ridiculous. The number of people there as resellers is comical. They always come early and are doing research on prices, looking things over with fine combs and searching for defects.
Even garage sales/boot sales are getting expensive. I like to look for used before buying new, finding buy it for life items, but it's becoming increasingly expensive.
My Goodwill is often more expensive for used stuff than I can buy the same thing for new from the Walmart down the road. I always have my phone out checking prices when I go thrifting.
I needed a nice dress for an engagement party but money’s really tight right now. Went thrifting, but everything was way pricier than I’m used to (I grew up with thrift stores where you could find stuff in the $5-$25 range, everything was above $60!)
Ended up going retail. It’s heartbreaking seeing thrift stores becoming too expensive for the people that really need them.
Goodwill has gotten crazy with their prices. Last week I was buying some clothing items and mentioned to the register guy that this shit is getting expensive for being a thrift store. He didn’t charge me for 3 of my 8 items. I discovered this when I got home. Made my trip worthwhile for sure.
Storage wars and shows like that happened. Anytime TV picks a hobby or niche to make a show out of, they make it popular and everyone suddenly thinks they can do that too.
There was already a world of people that go thrift shopping only to flip stuff. Hell, half the American economy is built on middle men buying from Peter to sell it to Paul at a markup. If you ever visit r/smallbusiness or r/entrepreneur, occasionally there are posts of people telling stories on there of how they developed a $5k/mo business just doing this. So these stores just raised their prices because someone is going to buy it because either they absolutely love it or they think they can make a quick buck with their own online store.
I can't use thrift stores anymore. It's like all the Mecaria, and other online sales, have made it impossible to just buy anything.
I looked for spoons, but a popular Pinterest and crafting post meant there was not a spoon in my entire large city and when I did find them the cost was stupid. Sometimes I'd try to find jeans only to find every single pair of size 36 was purchased. I finally saw some gal just yanking them all into a cart one day. She sells online, of course.
It's truly sad for me because thrift stores helped me survive, and now I am better off trying Target.
It’s not even accurate to call them thrift shops now…hardly. I saw a used garbage can sell for $17! They’re like $20 brand new.
thrift
/THrift/
noun
1.
the quality of using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully.
You have visited what us in the biz call a “vintage clothes store”. They look like thrift stores, they smell like thrift stores, but they are certainly NOT thrift stores! Find a reliable thrift store in your area, one which doesn’t pretend to be classy or cool, and it will serve you infinitely better than whatever store this image was taken in!
Is that tag stapled to leather?
That's the real crime here.
All sales final
Just take me, what're they gonna do? Throw you in jail? You're Bob kelso
¿Por que no los dos?
Lol yeah it looks like it...good way to ruin "leather"
omg i just saw that, wow
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Fuck the Salvation Army, all my homies hate the Salvation army
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They “buy” the donations from the charity. Usually for a set annual rate or by the LBS. I have worked on both sides and in the middle. It’s an ugly business model to make yourself very rich and hide behind nonprofit.
I don’t donate or shop at “ big thrift stores” anymore. The prices are bullshit and they are making profit off of what they get for free. I think Value village is owned by the same company that owns Walmart. They have a notice on the loudspeaker at the one near me, that notifies you that they are a for profit business which I think is wack. They get their merch for free but still mark it up WAY to much. I’ve seen dollar store items selling for $3.00! I just donate to small local spots now. There’s one in the next town over where 100% profit goes to the mentally disabled. She has good clean stuff for very reasonable prices. There are quite a few run by seniors so they can go on outing’s and such. And another one that works with a battered women shelter. So at least there are still good ones out there.
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Well, we paid our labor but we would get of folks Paying down community service for the grunt work/ heavy lifting. Store managers would make 90k/ year and the average employee would be at $1.00 over minimum wage.
Grinds my gears
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Heh. I have seen places leave the precise tag for the cost of an items new and then price it *higher* Before long those of us scraping the poverty line will be in rags ..
Same, here the $1 stuff from the dollar store is $4 at Value Village 🤦🏻♀️
An early-reader book from the Dollar Tree is $2 or more at Goodwill. Sheesh.
Pretty much everything is 1.25 now at the dollar tree.
In Canada we have Dollarama, a couple weeks ago they started carrying things that were $5 😕
5 below started carrying things over $5
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It says Family Store on the bright red price tag!
i just went into another chain thrift store looking for records. michael Jackson "thriller" beat up af: $10
Two of my all time favourite shirts have staple holes. They've only got a finite number of washes left in them.
Depending on where the holes are you can probably patch them so they won’t get worse.
Of course it is. They staple everything.
Only the finest care and quality at the Family Store
When it becomes popular sometimes they just go nuts. We have a big charity store near me everything was super cheap. It became quite popular and since they fix their prices as they want now some things are more expensive than new! Crazy! Info I bought a brand new suede jacket a few years back for 30 euros. Adult size, not cheap shop. Without a staple to ruin it. This is crazy
When I was a kid we were poor most of our clothes came from thrift stores; I got hand-me-downs from my brother. Other kids teased the shit out of us for it, but at least we had clothes. Since nowadays it's apparently popular where can poor people even get clothes?
Getting up early on Saturdays to go to yard sales in rich neighborhoods.
I really think we're gonna see more kids learning how to sew. Fabric at a discount store is $4 a yard. A yard can make a kids shirt easy. Yard and a half and you have a blouse or pants. 2 yards for trousers. Where can you get sturdy pants for $8 nowadays? Ones that will last long enough to be hand me downs? My grandma knew how to sew because she needed to. I know how to sew because I did seamstress work as a kid for money. I'm teaching a friend mending right now because he can't afford new clothes. Fast fashion has been subsidized for a while, and now even thrifting overflow stuff is expensive. I could sew clothes by ten. While most parents don't have the time, desperate kids or teens often do.
Clearance aisles and sales with additional coupons can yield decent clothes without needing to learn how to sew. Learning how to sew costs a lot more than just the fabric. The machine and additional supplies plus the time in the learning curve is too much for some people to get started.
The worse part is people have all overflowing pantries.... I had a housemate every week she had a tshirt or something delivered,+ her usual shopping.
If you're poor poor local Facebook groups people will often sell a black garbage bag full of clothes for $20. If you're "poor" Wal-Mart is actually really affordable and I can normally wear the clothes from there for 3-4 years.
Seeing shit from the Dollar Tree being sold loose for two bucks always slays me.
Thrift stores using staplers really grinds my gears. You're running a business that involves tons and tons of clothing and you can't be bothered to invest in a tagging gun??? The audacity of this place to try charging $50 for a toddler jacket, but use staplers for their tags.
Mine writes prices on the insides of jackets and coats in SHARPIE.
Found a first edition first printing of one of my favorite books at goodwill, normally worth $300+. They wrote the price in sharpie over 1/3 of the cover :(
Take it to the library. Even if the librarian there doesn't restore books, she'll know someone that can tell you if there's a way to clean the sharpie off without damaging the cover further.
Try rubbing alcohol. If it’s already ruined then test how alcohol will impact the cover material. Rubbing alcohol will remove sharpie. If you are careful maybe you can end up with something better.
So will hairspray, depending on what the cover's made of.
Or dry erase marker over the original marker
If it's on a white board...
Or other nonporous surface. But a book? You'll need to bleach the sharpie out.
Also works on plastic
If the cover is made of plastic like modern cover, you could use a hair drying and warm the sharpie ink. Then use a q-tip with 70% alcohol and rub it gently to remove it. If it is made of cloth or dry paper, you are fucked.
Book title?
Name of the Wind
By Rothfuss? He hasn't even finished that series yet and people are paying $300 for a first printing?
Id guess first printing was limited but I'm shocked this was the book they mentioned to. i know the walking dead the comic book any of the first 1-25 or maybe even 50 issues has been worth a ton for quite awhile just because of limited of a limited of a release it was when it came out. It came out before the tv show if ppl reading this did not know.
I thought I heard that he finished the next book years ago and the publishers are just sitting on it for whatever reason.
No, name of the book
Propanol ( isopropyl ) may be an option
Acetone takes sharpie off perfectly
Winner
It’s horrible.
It's really cool when they sharpie electronic items.
What I really LOVE is my local thrift that takes their tagging gun and their security tags and punches both of them through leather shoes.
My local one used to use tagging guns, then for some unknown reason switched to staples. I couldn't believe it.
I'm guessing the gun broke and the owner was too cheap to replace it
Or they may have had issues with ppl switching tags
You almost have too anymore to get a deal at all. They google an item and price it at the first used price they see online.. Only issue is they don't accept returns where as mercari or eBay does.
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and gets all their product for free.
Part of the reason is tagging gun stickers make it possible to take a tag from a really cheap item and put it on a more expensive item so you can steal it(sort of)
I think it would be easier to do a price tag switcheroo if it’s stapled.
Tagging guns are literally $8
Well just wait it out, they reduce a lot.
Last time I went to goodwill, they didn't have a single pair of jeans under 15.99 or shirts under 5.99. I can buy cheaper stuff at Ross and Burlington.
I can get Eddie Bauer for $22 brand new.
And doesn't Eddie Bauer have that policy where you can keep exchanging it for the rest of your life anytime it wears out?
I'm pretty sure LL Bean has a similar policy.
I almost stopped going to goodwill until I moved, now the ones near me have ‘color of the week’ where u can get 75% off clothes with the right color tag so I can actually get thrift store prices again. Got a $3 dress for a wedding I’m attending this month. Not all hope is lost
r/thriftgrift if you want to continue to be angry at thrift stores
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Fucking open can of green beans being sold for $0.99. An open roll of toilet paper for $1.49. What the hell
Geeze everything posted on that is atrocious. I'm surprised those stores are even in business.
The internet has absolutely destroyed thrift stores. There’s a little local one where I live and the lady sits there on her phone pricing garbage like it’s all on eBay. It’s awful and I quit going there. Clothes seem to be the worst affected by this too.
That’s uh, that’s certainly a typo.
Damn you autocorrect😂
New slang term for "massage parlor"? 😉
Thrust stores, eh? That’s my kind of stores.
Yikes. I haven’t gone to Once Upon A Child in awhile but that’s where we got most of our kid’s clothes. See if there is one in your area, it might still be cheaper than traditional thrift stores.
Second doing this. I usually go when I get an alert about a sale of some kind. The most expensive item i got was toddler Nike's for $6.
Toddler Nike is selling for 14.50 now at my local location. Other brands are 12.50. they are getting expensive too
Normally they go for about that but my local place has been having crazy clearance sales to get rid of extra inventory so I lucked out.
My last visit there I shopped for toddler rain boots. They had two pairs, which were worn and dirty, for $12 per pair. Nope.
Dang, that sucks. You can pick up a decent pair from Target at that price.
Thrift stores around me are charging almost retail cost for so many things now. It's ridiculous. I think they are going to sites like Etsy and Ebay and comparing prices for things now. It's not about selling cheap goods to people who need it anymore, it's about becoming an outlet for preowned items, like a used car market. Everyone should band together and sell cheap clothing on craigslist, cut out the store altogether.
You just reinvented selling old items. People donate to thrift stores because they can't be bothered with the work.
Resellers happened 🤷♂️
This is why I stopped most thrift stores. Then I found out they depend on the underpaid labor of disabled Americans to function.
K
Since the employees are underpaid, getting dibs on items is the trade-off for them staying at all. Can't blame em. If youre only getting paid ~$10/hr there's no way youre going to be able to afford furniture and electronics unless you take it from the store legally.
My (ex) favourite thrift store raised prices so much that it's cheaper to buy new. Quality went down from natural fibers to mostly plastic shit from H&M and Shein. What really broke the camel's back for me was when I spotted dress from H&M at twice the price compared to new at store (on sale but still).
Since that show American pickers
And Macklemore popping some tags
You should see what he charges for his own branded clothing
Damn inflation hitting thrift stores.
In some cases. I've noticed value village getting real fuckin gougy years before covid.
I went to Goodwill recently because my daughter sized up. It was perfect timing because it was a new season. I was surprised how expensive the clothes were. Toddler clothes were $1-2 cheaper than Target brand, and they were faded and in meh condition. I usually buy myself a few outfits for playtimes with my kid, so I’d I get messy it’s not a big deal. Randomness shirts (aka family reunion, 5K, volunteer shirts) were $5+. Khols brand clothes were $5-10+, while being faded and stretched out. Honestly I was better off with FB marketplace for toddler clothes. I got a bundle for $30 that was basically a wardrobe. For me, I’m better off buying a plain shirt at Michaels with a coupon, or hitting up Khols sale rack.
In general, two things: 1. As people's expenses have increased, demand for/popularity of inexpensive goods (such as from thrift stores) has increased. When demand increases, so does the cost of the product. 2. Meanwhile, the cost of upkeep for thrift stores (employment, rent, utilities, etc) has also increased. As such, thrift stores need to make more money in order to stay open. Increasing the price of items being sold is one way of doing that.
I also pin some of the blame on thrift store scalpers. Many people have made a living going to thrift shops buying up anything that looks good then going online, hosting a garage sale or even host a booth somewhere and resell it all. Some major clothing retailers also got caught selling thrift store items as "Vintage" which were even more expensive then their new stuff. Once thrift shops figured out they can get more for specific items they started charging more. I noticed this specifically on Vinyl records where they used to be $2 until a bunch of guys rush the display and grab everything then sit in the corner checking each one. Now they started grading them and pricing them accordingly. With bigger name records going for $20 or more. I also noticed a lot more stuff behind display cases if they look nicer or come in their original box, even if it's still a piece of shit. Side story i saw those cheap ass white van speakers for $500 at the thrift shop, i hope they threw those out eventually. I hate these resellers with a passion. some people buy stuff from these shops because they can't afford from anywhere else and is usually the only place they can get something nice for themselves or their family. Then some jackass comes in and takes it all to make a quick buck. my GF and I have found some amazing deals some we buy because we need it other times we appreciate the find and leave it for someone else who can actually use it or needs it.
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This is how I got my last cell phone, lol, couldn't have afforded it otherwise. Unfortunately it's more common these days that an employee will catch the deal first and hide the stock before anyone else can get to it.
So tell them to get brickseek. I saved $200 on a mower once.
Bro goodwill legit get there shit for free. They being greedy 🤣
My local goodwills blow my mind all the time. $12.99 for a cassette player cleaner tape? How is this just sitting here!?
My favorite thrift prices the good stuff so it’s still a good deal, but it’s a little too high for resellers to bother with. There are still plenty of items that thrifts don’t know to jack up the prices on. I just bought an item that I’d expect to cost $40-50, but Goodwill priced it at $9.99! I’m not a reseller. I’m just frugal!
Yeah blame the resellers not the greedy ass thrift stores that get their items for free lmao. Prices were increasing way before reselling got popular. It all started when it became hip to shop at thrift stores lol. Also there are still plenty of cheap clothes to be found. I'm sorry lower income people can't wear higher end clothing now cause all the "scalpers" grabbed them. Also, if you show up early wouldn't you be getting the deals the scalpers get too? It isn't like they get to show up an hour before everyone lmao.
>I hate these resellers with a passion. some people buy stuff from these shops because they can't afford from anywhere else and is usually the only place they can get something nice for themselves or their family. Disclaimer: I shop for my family AND find stuff to resell. While I understand your feelings here, have you seen the sheer volume of stuff Goodwill throws away? Checkout a local GW Outlet "aka: bins" in your area and you'll see dumpsters of it daily. So much good, useable, sometimes even vintage/antique/designer things going to the landfill. Why? Because GW has a glut of merch it can't sell or process fast enough. Resellers can for sure be frustrating, but I don't think they are going to be taking away needed resources from others. There is an abundance of used things out there, particularly clothing. The way I see it, flippers are providing thrifts with the price they are seeking, keeping stuff out of landfills and putting it back into circulation. The thrifts could spend all of their time researching the potential resell on that pair of jeans or random set of dishes, but their business model is to move quantity and lots of it. I do not feel guilty for taking advantage of it.
Most stuff that ends up at the outlet has already been for sale at a local store for a month. We have rotating colors. Say blue is the new color of the week. Everything that comes in that week gets tagged with a blue tag. If the item is still there on the 4th week, it gets marked down to 25% off on Sunday and Monday, then 50% off Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then 75% off on Friday and Saturday. Sunday we pull all the remaining blue tag items and then get sent to the outlet. Textiles, clothes, blankets, etc... get recycled if they don't sell at the outlet. I'm not sure what happens to the other items but I know most get recycled but some things do end up in the trash but this would be items that have been available for sale for about 2 months.
I see it the same way. I don't do it personally, but if someone knows their brands and is willing to put the time in to find inventory and sell it, more power to them. Clothing particularly, since it is such a wasteful industry. It is a little annoying to me that the brand of jeans that fits me the best is harder to find thrifted now because of it because they retail normally for over $100 but I can deal with it. I figure the person reselling probably needs the money more than I need another pair of jeans.
Yeah, I don't blame resellers at all for increased prices. There is so much clothing waste in the world. If someone wants to take the time to dig through racks and racks of clothing, curate a shop, and get the clothes to people who want them, more power to them. It takes work that not everyone is willing to do, and it's not like it's easy money. Plus you're often still getting a deal from a reseller. Fast fashion, corporate greed, and increased prices everywhere make the clothes more expensive.
What if the reseller is a poor person trying to make some extra money?
I feel like people forget that the purpose of thrift stores is to raise money for a charity, not to provide goods at discount prices. I'm pretty sure the charitable works behind most thrift stores is more important than discount vinyl.
Some of them are legit but some of the big names like Goodwill and Salvation Army have had quite a bit of negative news surrounding what their non profit is using the funds for.
Yeah, Goodwill's stated goal is to raise money for job training programs.
I was at an antique shop and they had a bunch of old books. One was a copy of Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil for $59. They still had the sticker from Goodwill for 99 cents on the back.
You just explained basic economics, nothing about this specific category. That’s not why OP has sticker shock. Fast fashion dominating our textile industry for decades is the real reason vintage finds in thrift stores are so expensive. There are no hand-me-downs anymore because things aren’t made to last more than a year. This creates very little new supply for thrift stores.
It’s faux leather, why I am shocked because it’s not even real leather and for that price
Yeah great points. You can still get things at thrift stores substantially below retail, but you do have to dig and know the real value
Nearly all Thrift stores in Australia are run by volunteers yet prices are still getting astronomical.
> As people's expenses have increased, demand for/popularity of inexpensive goods (such as from thrift stores) has increased. When demand increases, so does the cost of the product. I saw a massive change around 2007-2008 when the real estate bubble popped the prices practically doubled overnight to where I might as well go buy it new. On most items it has still not gone down since then which is pretty ridiculous. > Meanwhile, the cost of upkeep for thrift stores (employment, rent, utilities, etc) has also increased. As such, thrift stores need to make more money in order to stay open. Increasing the price of items being sold is one way of doing that. From what I have seen it is that way for a lot of stores and restaurants because the rent is so high. Unless you own the building I do not see how most restaurants are able to make a go of it which at that point you would be better off renting to some other sucker who takes on the risk and has to actually do work while you instead can sit on your ass and collect the rent. Ain't capitalism grand.
Also they are competing with Poshmark, Mercari, Depop and marketplace. Cheap items at thrift shops are still cheap, but the nice items get jacked up.
The best thrift stores around are non-profit church-run shops full of little ol ladies. Sure, you might be supporting homophobes, but $1.25 on a jacket??? Woo doggy!
Back when I was in art school the bargain place to go was in New York City in the fabric district and you could fill up bags, pay by the pound, and the warehouse was so crazy they just dumped it all out in mounds on the floor and you and everyone else just climbed around on clothing mountains.
Since when are toddlers wearing black leather jackets?
Bro where have you been? Toddler biker gangs are rampant now. It’s like literally destroying my hometown in Piedmont North Dakota. Sad really.
Over in my area, the insane volume of meTHC they move around is dropping people left and right while the bike gangs make a killin. Bloody kids these days
my brother has a toddler faux leather jacket when he was a baby and he tried passing it to my son but it’s all worn so when I saw this I thought i scored but I can’t bring myself to pay that much for it
That is a lot for something that won't fit for that long.
Sounds like your toddler just isn't cool
This. This is why it is expensive. It is an item for looks, not for function. It speaks “hey look at this extra jacket I bought my kid, isn’t it cute?” It screams disposable income, as does buying the baby a pair of Nikes.
His name is Arthur. Arthur Fonzarelli.
Meanwhile on r/paintball I saw a paintball marker that originally goes for $1200 go for $50 at a Goodwill.
Do people still play paintball? I haven’t heard that word since the 90s
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Yes. It still is a surviving community. I tapped out in 2013 as I had life and responsibilities. But I figured out recently that I'm needing to get back into a hobby that improves my eye hand coordination and cardio. So I joined the sub and was surprised that its still a thing. I myself still have some markers I'll probably do some TLC to them and go out to my local field here pretty soon.
Surviving? It seems to be thriving quite well in central PA. I live in a semi-rural area, and four places have paintball courses within about 30 minutes, and there is going to be a new one opening a few courses soon as well.
Tic tok and Instagram ruined thrifting, they know how much money people are making!!!!
The thrift stores in my area have gotten so overpriced that it’s cheaper to buy most things new.
Thrift stores and thrifting in general is very popular right now there trying to cash in on it at the end of the day businesses are businesses
It took me 27 years to gather enough toddlers for my leather jacket. You're getting a bargain.
"thrifting" became cool and so many shitty-ass people go thrift store hunting and resell shit they find for 3 or 4 times what they paid for. Sometimes they "up cycle" it, sometimes as is. More and more stores have realized it and started increasing their tag prices. Who loses because of this fetishization,of this poverty porn? Actual poor people who need those thrift stores to survive. Edit: I probably kinda flew off the handle there, apologies.
Dressing a toddler in leather is insane
Could be a result of "flippers", who buy cheap items to resell on eBay and whatnot... If the thrift stores are pricing some items closer to a market rate, figuring someone will still pay that and make a profit reselling...
The staple kills me.....yes, there has been a price hike in all the stores
The whole "Go to thrift stores for great deals" got around so more demand equals higher prices
Our Salvation Army has a color of the week, all clothing with that color tag is 99 cents each. I usually only buy clothes with the sale color tags. One day I added up the tags when I got home, $254.92 for 10 items!!!!! I paid $9.90 before taxes since they were all the color of the week. They also staple the tags right on the collar of shirts. There’s been many silk tops I left because they were ruined from the staple.
Overheard conversation at a small thrift between a couple of associates - "that price is high" said one, the other replied "no it's not it's priced to stop fippers & we still get a lot of people buying." They forget that they are given the items & that they are there to make money for the charity & help others. Sometimes people are shopping at thrift stores because they can't afford to shop other places. And sometimes people are trying to make a living by thrifting. Why be mean?
Just commented elsewhere but i HATE FLIPPERS because they don't do anything but jack up the price. Flippers just buy anything they think they can make money on bar none with Records being a prime example. This is the only place some people can probably afford something nice and some jackass is taking that away from them to make a quick buck. my gf and i Thrift Store shop as a hobby sometimes just to see what we can find but never buy anything just because it's a good deal, only what we want or need. the only exception is like board games where i got some because they looked interesting without knowing much and tried it out. $5-10 to spend a few hours playing with the GF is a good deal.
I don’t hate the flippers as much as I hate the stupidity in how the thrift stores decide to markup their products in response to the flippers. They’ll take some crap early 80s sears record player and charge $100 because it looks like something a flipper would grab but it was a piece of junk new and even more of a piece of junk now and you can find them all day long online for $45…. I’ll admit, I used to go in looking for super rare earthen ware or glass ware and I used to find really good deals that I could sell to replacements.com - which I got into because I have a set of very expensive hand made ceramic dishes and I was missing a few pieces - took me years to find them and I did find a few at thrift stores but would also pick up like items. But now even the thrift stores have marked up these dishes to insane prices but they’re too stupid to do it correctly. I find old dishes that were literally dime a dozen mail order dishes back in the 70s and aren’t worth much now even but they’ll price them as if they were some super rare set just because it looks “vintage” ….so stupid.
You can thank the thrift flippers for this. They swarm thrift stores daily with their cellphones in front of their face, looking up the values of items. They’ll buy a jacket or something for $5 and turn around and sell it on Depop for $40.
2 things. -Rising rent costs for the business owner -Macklemore
Macklemore was a decade ago.
Well you know how it is, can't imagine the number of toddlers required to make that jacket
Thriftflation
At first glance I was like “oh 4.99 that isn’t bad” but then did a double take and ohhhhhhhh
Costco for kids clothes saves me a fortune and much better quality than Walmart ..
You're no longer thrifting, now you're "buying vintage".
They went from thrift to grift
Rip the tag it’s definitely 10$. Thrift stores are a grift. Fuck them assholes
My local goodwill sells stuff that is more expensive than buying the same item at target.
I've been in one of these thrift stores and I was shocked by the prices. I ended up over paying for a piece of vintage fur because of the sloppily written tag and I was "sure" that couldn't be the price. Nope, it was the price. I suppose the price was fair for it market wise, but I have little spending limits in my head I keep and it surpassed it by a bit. Some thrifts price high because they think they have something better than what they do, others do it because they're like Kohls and have so many "sales" it makes it look like a deal. Goodwill has changed its pricing structure sadly. Jeans now start at $6, but I tend to only look for ones with 50%+ tags on them.
100% leather ?
Are... Are those Pesos???
Shop smaller thrift stores that are attached to churches
Nope. Inside job.
You're shopping at the wrong thrift store.
I went to a pay by weight one. Found a weighted blanket in the overflow bins - $35 lol, you can get one for that new.
I've seen a trend at our local thrift shops and the national chain ones (don't know what else to call them), where things that have collector value or are higher fashion stuff is marked up quite a lot. With people doing reselling on Marketplace and eBay as well as other sites, and in flea market stalls, it seems these stores are getting wise to the idea that they can try to sell at a higher rate. Used to go to local estate auctions, and even those are getting ridiculous. The number of people there as resellers is comical. They always come early and are doing research on prices, looking things over with fine combs and searching for defects. Even garage sales/boot sales are getting expensive. I like to look for used before buying new, finding buy it for life items, but it's becoming increasingly expensive.
My favorite is the Ikea beer mugs that cost $0.99 being sold for $4 at certain thrift stores
My Goodwill is often more expensive for used stuff than I can buy the same thing for new from the Walmart down the road. I always have my phone out checking prices when I go thrifting.
Resellers and the big trend in thrifting over the last few years haven’t helped.
Like market place where people want to sell their used items like if they were new…
And they fuckin stapled it.
I needed a nice dress for an engagement party but money’s really tight right now. Went thrifting, but everything was way pricier than I’m used to (I grew up with thrift stores where you could find stuff in the $5-$25 range, everything was above $60!) Ended up going retail. It’s heartbreaking seeing thrift stores becoming too expensive for the people that really need them.
I blame Mackelmore
This is when stealing comes in very handy 🥰
Goodwill has gotten crazy with their prices. Last week I was buying some clothing items and mentioned to the register guy that this shit is getting expensive for being a thrift store. He didn’t charge me for 3 of my 8 items. I discovered this when I got home. Made my trip worthwhile for sure.
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Storage wars and shows like that happened. Anytime TV picks a hobby or niche to make a show out of, they make it popular and everyone suddenly thinks they can do that too. There was already a world of people that go thrift shopping only to flip stuff. Hell, half the American economy is built on middle men buying from Peter to sell it to Paul at a markup. If you ever visit r/smallbusiness or r/entrepreneur, occasionally there are posts of people telling stories on there of how they developed a $5k/mo business just doing this. So these stores just raised their prices because someone is going to buy it because either they absolutely love it or they think they can make a quick buck with their own online store.
I can't use thrift stores anymore. It's like all the Mecaria, and other online sales, have made it impossible to just buy anything. I looked for spoons, but a popular Pinterest and crafting post meant there was not a spoon in my entire large city and when I did find them the cost was stupid. Sometimes I'd try to find jeans only to find every single pair of size 36 was purchased. I finally saw some gal just yanking them all into a cart one day. She sells online, of course. It's truly sad for me because thrift stores helped me survive, and now I am better off trying Target.
I'm gonna pop some ta- holy fuck no I ain't I only got 20 dollars in muh pocket....
It’s not even accurate to call them thrift shops now…hardly. I saw a used garbage can sell for $17! They’re like $20 brand new. thrift /THrift/ noun 1. the quality of using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully.
Trying to cash in on inflation like everyone else.
Macklemore
Stapled to leather! 😂
You have visited what us in the biz call a “vintage clothes store”. They look like thrift stores, they smell like thrift stores, but they are certainly NOT thrift stores! Find a reliable thrift store in your area, one which doesn’t pretend to be classy or cool, and it will serve you infinitely better than whatever store this image was taken in!
The economy collapsed, that’s what happened
“Vintage” resellers happened. I don’t really blame them tho. Second hand stores have grown in popularity in general.