Many (if not most) of the thrift stores in the US are owned & operated by Goodwill or the Salvation Army - both of which are charities. Goodwill provides day training and employment to individuals with developmental disabilities (among other things), and the proceeds from their sales go to support their work. Many of their clients are employed in the stores themselves.
Is this the norm outside the US - namely, thrift stores being run by charities, and the profits used to further the goals of the charity? Are there Goodwill thrift stores outside the US?
In the UK, many different charities run their own chain of small stores (the common term being just ‘charity shops’). They often occupy small high street shop units that would otherwise be vacant (I think it works so that the landlord gets some kind of tax break, and the charity gets cheap rent). They’re usually staffed by paid management and voluntary shop assistants.
They sell clothing, books, games, bric-a-brac, toys, etc. It used to be the case that you could scour them and find the occasional incredible bargain - such as valuable china, but those days are gone and in most cases, the cream is skimmed off and sent for auction, never even appearing on the shelves in store. The prices are starting to hike as well now - so secondhand books are often priced at half the cover price, instead of just pennies.
Some of them also sell a range of new items, such as fairtrade groceries, or craft items, cosmetics, gifts (also often fair-trade goods).
In the UK, loads of charities run their own shops… Barnardos (child care), Oxfam (famine) Marie Curie (cancer) Shelter (homelessness) others I can’t bring to mind. Sometimes a whole street will seem to be just charity shops…
Sometimes they open specialist shops - there’s a Barnardos Vintage Clothing shop across the road from me, and both they and Oxfam have their own bookshops…
When I visited Australia last winter, I had (deliberately) underpacked and planned to shop for whatever clothing I needed at a thrift shop–I found that they were called “op shops” (no idea what “op” means) and they were pretty well-stocked and very cheap. Any Ozzies know what “op” is short for?
In Italy, my region, they are called social cooperatives (without me butchering the spelling). Donated furniture, clothes, books, hosewares that get fixed and cleaned for resale. Our local one employes recovering addicts in half-way programs from the nearby prison. Fun to shop in for the occasional antique find or oddity.
In Germany used-goods stores run by charities aren’t unknown but they are not the norm.
AFAIK there are no nationwide chain-type charity stores, rather they are one-off stores run by a local charitable institution (which often is part of a nationwide organization, but the store would not be part of a nationwide store identity).
There are a lot of commercial (small business) used-goods stores, especially:
[ul]
[li]used clothes stores (known under the Germish appellation Second-Hand-Shop ). Patronized by people who want to wear name-brand clothes but cannot afford new, also by fans of past fashions. Most really low-income people prefer to shop for new non-brand clothes at deep-discount clothes chains in my impression.[/li][li]used kids’s clothes stores - a lot of parents shop there, as with smaller families there are less older siblings to hand clothes down.[/li][li]used-furniture-and-bric-a-brac stores - often run by household-liquidation businesses that display reuseable items in their store.[/li][/ul]
In Canada we have a national chain of stores called Value Village, which also operate in the US. We’ve also got charity stores run by the Salvation Army and such groups as the March of Dimes. In my home city, there are a few stores run by a local mental-health community living agency.
In my city in the Netherlands, I’ve found one “Kringloopwinkel” (‘Recycle-shop’) which seems to be run by a little commune or something, and one private second-hand women’s clothing shop.
Same here in Russia, as far as I can tell. Except that the ‘Sekond Khend’ shops tend to be no-name; the serious brand/ designer stuff goes elsewhere.
The second hand stuff isn’t necessarily that cheap, but a good place to pick up a fur coat (as long as you don’t care too much about the cut, era etc.) when you need one.
The best known in Australia would be Vinnies - the shops of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. But, as **vintageloveletter ** notes, the Salvos run them too, as do other charities.
Opportunity, I think. I may be wrong though. I’ve never heard anything but ‘op’ used.
This is so true, particularly with Oxfam, in my experience. I find it a bit sad, in a slightly nostalgic way, because I couldn’t help but think that they were drawing passing trade by the temptation of the absolute bargain, and in the process could make more sales of the regular stuff.
On the other hand, I’m quite happy with Oxfam having openened a dedicated second-hand bookshop in the town here, replacing the one which closed a couple of years ago…funnily enough, that one which claimed there simply wasn’t the demand was always empty, but the new one is always full. It’s better laid out, it’s not got dust on the books, and the staff are fantastic. Plus, although they’re volunteers, there’s one or two who seem to do it almost full-time, for which I have a huge amount of admiration.
Cancer Research UK used to be a client of mine - in fact, I did the redesign of some of their ‘flagship’ charity shops.
To see how these shops are run is quite an eye opener - we’re not talking about a few old ladies designing their own signage here. CRUK is one of the country’s richest charities and runs its store network on true commercial grounds. For starters, they have over 700 shops across the country (compare that with Sainsbury’s, the iconic British supermarket chain, which has slightly less than that), and their shops are often in wealthy high street locations.
All their shops are ‘zoned’ according to placement - the wealthier areas get the best stock. If it doesn’t sell, they get passed down the chain. Anything worth anything goes to auction. Anything in the least bit tatty goes for ragging.
Charity shops are renowned for being on the scruffy side, as the volunteers resent money being spent on decor. However, CRUK are more retail-savvy, and our store refits of their top 10% of outlets saw sales rise 150% in a year.
As with Oxfam and the other big charities, CRUK now have dedicated book shops, gift shops (all new stock) and vintage and designer seconds stores.
When I worked on the account, the stores brought in a profit of c.£25m per year. Quite the operation. I imagine the likes of Oxfam do a similar trade.
Well if it’s anything like Cancer Research UK, the store manager and often the assistant manager are full-time paid employees. Can’t run a sound profitable business with just a bunch of unpaid part-timers!
Back home, criminal Probation is handled through the Salvation Army. Is it like that all over?? If someone is sentenced to three months probabtion for letting his dog shit on a golf course or something, he has to go to the salvation Army once a month to see his Probation Officer, has to pay HUGE fees to the Salvation Army, and then do whatever community service the Salvation Army sets up for him.
Isn’t the Salvation Army a religious charity and organization? How the hell did they end up with a government contract like that? Is Probation in the US handled exclusively through the Salvation Army? Through similar organizations? Or something else entirely?
Also, the Good Will back home employs criminals on the work release program and has a serperate division called “Good Will Correctional Services” with an office around the back of the store.
Similar to UK here, charity shops for various groups.
St. Vincent De Paul and Mrs. Quin’s would probably be the most common. There are also Barnardos and a few others.
To add to wolfstu’s post about Canada, we also have Goodwill stores. Some religious groups also have their own stores; I lived in a town once where (IIRC) the Mennonites ran a secondhand shop.
In Spain they’re nowhere near as common as in the UK (Byres Road gives me a shopping high just driving through), but they’re also usually run by charities. Four that come to mind are Remar (drug rehab group, I’ve also seen them in Switzerland), Adepos (aka “the Patriarch,” again drug rehab), the originally-French Emaus (homeless) and Caritas (the Catholic Church’s Diocesan organization for general charity purposes).
Charity shops are quite often where we arrange volunteer placements for former residents of psychiatric hospitals.
They get social interaction, responsibility, out of the house for a few hours, the charity gets people to staff the shops and the taxpayer saves money on expensive psychiatric day hospitals and Occupational therapy…win,win,win, in theory.
Quaker Care (it’s care by Quakers, not care for Quakers) are a particularly good local charity for taking on our former patients.