Profiting from Out of Season Thrift Store Goods
Patience can pay off.
In December, in most of the country, flats, swimwear, shorts, or outdoor sporting goods aren’t very popular. In July people aren’t looking for Sorrel boots, cable sweaters, or Christmas tree decorated tumblers even though they are regularly being donated. That can be a competitive advantage for a thrift merchant.
Success in a thrift store is all about getting good value out of items that come in. One of the challenges being timing. Ugly Christmas sweaters aren’t much of a thing in July but are a hot, profitable commodity in November and December.
A thoughtful seasonal save program can increase customer satisfaction, sales and profit margins.
You and your customers can benefit by saving better seasonal items for a few months. Merchandise does have to be put away, so space has to be dedicated. There is a labor cost to packing away then unpacking.
It’s been my experience that saving a few key categories for the right time of year has a huge impact on sales. Where I live, in the US Midwest, the first day of spring that gets close to seventy degrees shorts, flats, and sandals sell like there is no tomorrow. Saving these is money in the bank. If they are preprocessed and ready to stock to the floor so much the better.
My shortlist of categories worth saving:
Christmas Decor
Crazy Christmas Sweaters
Clothing appropriate for Halloween Costumes or Accessories
Spring shoes and shorts
Winter boots
Winter coats - especially kid’s
This varies a lot between regions and climates. The goal is to ride the crest of the wave when it comes.
How to start:
Decide what categories make the most sense for your customer.
Dedicate space to store saved goods. How much is available will have a big impact on what and how much you save.
Set up a quality check process. You only want to save really good thrift merchandise, not everything that comes in.
Prep items being saved as much as possible. At a minimum, lay clothing flat in bunches of 6 to 12 so they come out easily to be hung and processed.
Depending on systems and supplies in place consider pre-hanging and tagging them so they just have to go out.
With calendar fixed dates like Halloween and Christmas schedule when they are to go to the sales floor.
With things like clothing and shoes, have an idea of when they should go out and be ready to put out features at the break in the weather.
Sales floors are best when they reflect the upcoming and current season with categories expanded and contracted to fit demand. I keep an eye on Target, Kohl’s, and Walmart and tend to follow their lead in merchandising seasonality. They spend tons of money figuring these things out, it doesn’t hurt to take advantage of that expertise.
There is something about having enough merchandise for customers on those first hot or cold days that buy customer loyalty. When they are confident you can take care of their needs at the moment they will shop more often.
If you just don't have much storage space:
The easiest thing to do is to adjust the sales floor to the next season a little early. It’s well documented that seasonal textile sales peak at the start of the season and decline steadily from there.
In my world winter coats were mostly taking up space by the end of December. Almost anyone that needed one already bought one. Shrinking that space and expanding spring wear took care of the stragglers and set the stage for spring.
If you can carve out a little storage space start keeping back next season goods a month or two ahead of need. A season forward sales floor with some reserve stock can be a real home run.
On that first really cold day I would have donation attendants pulling winter coats out of fresh donations sending them right to processing. The same for shorts and summer wear on the first warm days. We did that no matter how much backstock we had. That’s even a handy tool if the toy department is a little sparse, or denim and so on.
In Conclusion
As anyone that reads my posts regularly will know, I believe thrift stores are most successful when we merchandise, to the degree possible, like traditional stores. That very much includes seasonality.
Timely merchandising, having things in stock when people are looking for them is good business. It builds customer loyalty, sales, and profits. All good things!
about me
I am a thrift and retail business expert located near Chicago helping individuals and entrepreneurs grow and succeed. You can benefit from my twenty plus years of retail, and seven-plus years of thrift and eCommerce experience.
Check out my web site, thethrifter.com for lots of thrift oriented resources. You will find plenty of tips for retailers, resellers, eCommerce operators, and shoppers. I’m also always happy to connect on LinkedIn.
You might also be interested in my Thrift Merchandising ebook on Amazon. It’s about merchandising thrift stores more like traditional stores. It’s free with a Kindle Unlimited membership.
Tim Gebauer — The Thrifter