I come from a long line of hard bargainers. My grandmother used to propel my young father through stores on sale days, chanting, "Sick boy, sick boy!" to clear the way to her desired purchase. My father in turn raised us to be cheap. For me, the term "grounded" meant no rummage sales for the weekend—the worst punishment I could imagine.
I grew up, in other words, in the thrift store and garage sale world, and went on to spend a few adult years in the mid-'90s working for the Chicken Soup Brigade in its thrift stores. So I consider myself uniquely qualified to declare to one and all that the thrift store is dead, killed off by greed, ambition, and the American lust for merchandising.
According to Webster's, the term "thrift shop" was coined in 1944 and is defined as "a shop that sells secondhand articles and especially clothes, and is often run for charitable purposes." The concept preceded the name. The Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul, and Goodwill have been doing good works for the past century, and around 1900 began selling used merchandise at reasonable prices as a part of their mission to supply goods to the poor. Until my tenure at Chicken Soup—during which I watched thrift stores drift away from their original mission and turn into profit-taking retail outlets—thrifts remained admirably true to their calling: service to the poor.
Nowadays the mission of a thrift store is to make money by selling overpriced used merchandise to middle-class shoppers. Current garage sale and thrift store prices are ridiculously high, making me pine for the days when a thrift store was a bargain hunter's paradise rather than a clean, well-lit place that appeals to mall-conditioned consumers. Value Village is the most shameless of the new thrifts, airing TV ads that lure uncommon thrift store shoppers to "America's Thrift Department Store." The name fits; at these and other chain thrifts (privately owned, profit-taking businesses rather than charity-owned nonprofit operations), prices of used goods approach those of new merchandise in discount houses like Kmart and Target. If you want to buy a bedsheet, for example, you can pay $6 for a new one or up to $4 for a used one that only a few years ago cost $1 or less.
More and more, thrift stores are going retail and upscale, painting their buildings (inside and out), adding dressing rooms, and hiring clerks (some of them gregarious). Many thrifts will now exchange purchases as gladly as Nordstrom and The Gap. This is blasphemy that cuts to an old thrifter's soul—in the days when thrift store prices weren't so dear, the solution was simpler: Give back what you bought and buy something else.
One step below the Rack
Time was, thrift stores relied on donations for their stock. Now, for-profit thrift stores buy all their stock, and some thrifts are buying clearance remnants from recognizable retail venues. It is not uncommon to see Value Village carrying post-clearance clothes from Nordstrom.
The fundamental change throughout the thrift store industry is in the desired customer: Stores want the moneyed middle-class shopper more than the penniless poor. Savvy shoppers, regardless of their income, have always known the rewards of avoiding retail, but prices today elbow out the indigent, and ad schemes lure those with fatter wallets. At charity thrifts, the truly needy can still shop with vouchers supplied by the management, but what about the dignity of being able to buy your own things?
This demographic shift has engendered a change in inventory, from donated hand-me-downs to clothing purchased either from charities who collect them or from wholesalers and retailers. Whether they buy exclusively from charities, like the chains Thriftko and Shop & Save, or whether they buy both from charities and other suppliers to retailers, their drive is to lure the middle-class shopper at the expense of the poor. The only exceptions to this dismal trend are Deseret Industries and a few church-basement thrifts. Even established non-profits like the Salvation Army, Goodwill, Chicken Soup Brigade, and St. Vincent de Paul have followed the lead of for-profit chains by dressing up the business of thrifting. The result: higher prices and production values.
As a lifelong sifter through junk in search of treasure, and as a dedicated cheeseparer, I am appalled at the investment of charity dollars in fancy retail displays. As a former thrift store worker, I know that money can be made the old-fashioned way: By tossing the mounds to the crowds and letting them dig.
How do we do it?
Volume, volume, volume: That was my preaching and my practice when I volunteered and worked for Chicken Soup Brigade's thrift stores over a period of three years in the early 1990s, an era when Chicken Soup's thrift store program grew from a rummage sale under a roof to a grown-up secondhand store with full-size prices. I spent much of my time fighting to save the thrift store ethic as I understood it. "Shop early, shop often, a little buys a lot," was my motto.
My customers never left the store emptyhanded because, I believe, our prices were reasonable. Noncollectible used glasses should never be more than a quarter, I argued, since people could buy them new for less than a buck. Five dollars was enough for a worn shirt, in my book.
