Thrift Retail Big Ideas 2023

5 Ideas for 2023

Photo by Andy Li on Unsplash

Number 18 in LinkedIn Big Ideas 2023 is about the mainstreaming of second-hand goods, more specifically textiles. The big business takeover of second-hand resale from community thrift stores is accelerating.

Quickly. 

BoF insights estimates re-sale will exceed 67 Billion by 2025. That’s too big a market for the corporate world to ignore. Community thrift has to adjust to the realities of today’s marketplace or be left behind. 

5 Community Thrift Ideas for 2023

1. Make it quicker and easier than ever to donate. 

Convenience is a key factor in consumer decision-making. For-profits continue to add convenience and choices, from trading, to easy listing, selling, and shipping. The whole experience of donating has to be so simple and seamless the convenience exceeds the value received from other avenues. 

How can we make donating even easier?

2. Better connect the why to donating versus selling or trading in.

For-profits are attacking from this angle as well. Patagonia for example has a worn-wear option on the top bar of their home page. Trade-in shipping is even free as of this writing. Consumers can feel good three times, get something for their used goods, and expect their used clothing will get another life. Their long history of environmentalism adds to the motivation. 

I have long been impressed with how well Savers messages their not-for-profit partnerships. They do such a good job, it is easy to assume they are not for profit themselves, rather than a supporter of a cause. They also have a consistently quick and easy drop-off process. 

Not-for-profit thrift has an amazing story to tell as well. How do we do it better in 2023?

3. Identify value in donations more accurately and quickly

It’s no longer enough to focus on donation volume to skim the good stuff off the top, sending the rest to secondary salvage markets. Identifying and extracting value will be a key to the future. 

Bailed goods shipped from Europe and the US sent to second and third-world counties contain plenty of missed value. Enough that some of those goods end up shipped back to Europe and the US.

There are lots of videos on YouTube showing the international path of used clothing sent to second and third-world countries. Some of them are disturbing. I find this one produced by France 24 (in English) quite instructive.

Another Youtube: Inside the Massive Second-Hand Fashion Market | The Business of Fashion Show is also interesting.

How do we prioritize finding value over sorting speed?

4. Reach a larger audience with online platforms, including operations like Postmark, Threadup, Real Real, and so on. 

Brick and mortar aren’t going away, but it isn’t enough to hope the right person shows up to purchase those better, specialty, or unusual items. Selling online across multiple channels is core to even local family owned one off stores. 

How do we expose goods to the widest possible audience to capture the best value of some items?

5. Have a business mindset. The end goal is funding for a cause, getting there is all about running a business. 

Priority 1 has to be generating net revenue. For-profit, not-for-profit the first goal has to be money in the bank. 

The likely two highest volume thrift stores (there are 7) in the area I live in are Savers and Goodwill. Both apply business metrics and technology across the enterprise. Others, while passionate about their mission and often volunteer-driven, don’t appear to have a business mindset at their core. 

Some thrift operations exists mostly as a training platform, maybe to help people gain job skills, or re-integrate into the workforce. If that’s the primary mission, the balance is different. Even then, the rent has to be paid. 

How do we up our business mindset in 2023?

Conclusion

For-profit companies see an opportunity to make money, a lot of money. That’s their motivation and reason to exist. Nothing wrong with that, it’s what free enterprise is built on. 

Community thrift operators that don’t adjust tactics to the current realities of the marketplace will struggle. 

Donor focus, capturing value, and business metrics will win the day. 

How badly do you want to win?

Thanks for reading!

Thrift Retailer