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Thrift good fit for many

February 8, 2009 12:36 am

John Sharp of Fredericksburg had planned to donate his outgrown shirts, khakis and jeans to Goodwill.

Then he heard the ad for Plato's Closet, which pays customers for gently used teen and young-adult clothing that it can resell.

"I thought I might as well get some cash for them," said the Hampden-Sydney College freshman, who'd never been to a Plato's before.

Last week he lugged four bags and boxes of clothing into the chain's location in Spotsylvania Crossing Shopping Center, then shopped as assistant manager Kelsey Bond examined the labels to see if they met the requirement that items be in style and a year or less old.

"We can tell by the label design," said Bond as she stacked up the qualifying polo shirts in one of Sharp's bags. "A lot of the labels right now are done in cursive and the jeans' labels are attached and not looped."

The Plato's Closet store on Plank Road has seen a 12 percent increase in sales since this time last year, said owner Donna Saylor, who also has Plato's Closets in Virginia Beach and just opened one in Newport News.

"I thought that was pretty good considering the economy," she said. "What I'm seeing is some new people, people asking more questions about selling their items and what we do. I've been pleasantly surprised."

The resale industry is one of the few recession-proof segments of retailing, according to the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. Consumers cutting back on spending are attracted to quality merchandise that thrift and consignment stores sell at a fraction of the original price.

And, as Sharp discovered, they also can pick up some extra cash or tax deductions by selling, consigning or donating their unused or unwanted items.

"More people try it, and they get hooked," said Adele Meyer, executive director of the St. Clair Shores, Mich.-based group. "We're also seeing more people sell, consign or donate their items because they don't want to throw them out on the curb any longer."

According to her organization's most recent survey, members saw sales increase an average of 35 percent in September and October 2008 over the same time period in 2007.

The study also found that 89.9 percent of the stores experienced an increase in new customers and 79.3 percent had an increase in new suppliers, with 54.7 percent reporting a higher quality of incoming merchandise.

Marisela Paone, who owns Sequels at 971 Taskforce Drive, near the Gander Mountain store, said that she started seeing a larger-than-normal increase in sales of women's clothing and accessories at the beginning of last year. Her customer base has also jumped from around 650 women to about 1,000 in the last six months.

"With the economy the way it is, people are looking for another source of money-making," she said. "It's nice to come in here where we can put a value on things that they have and give them the money upfront."

Paone said that her customers run the gamut from women with mink coats and Coach bags to sell to those who can afford to buy them only at shops like hers. She also gets women who've had gastric-bypass surgery and don't want to spend a lot on clothing as they lose weight, as well as environmentally conscious types eager to recycle.

"Definitely at the beginning of the summer when gas prices were high, women were talking about going green," Paone said. "Some were making commitments to buy from secondhand shops for a year."

Area Goodwill stores also are seeing an uptick in sales, but donations are down, said said Rappahannock Goodwill President Woody Van Valkenburgh.

"We need to encourage people to bring in that little black dress that friends say you'll always wear but, hmm, is sitting in the back of your closet," he said. "That's our latest ad."

Goodwill stores both here and nationwide have teamed up with Dell to recycle donated computers and peripherals. All parts remain in the United States instead of being send to developing countries for reuse.

"What we're working on is getting people to donate stuff instead of dumping it," Van Valkenburgh said.

Clothing and computers aren't the only things to be found in thrift and consignment shops. Charlie Fagan, for example, has been buying and selling used furniture and home furnishings at the the Corner Thrift Shop, 2619 Princess Anne St., for about 30 years.

Lately, he said, customers are looking for functional items they really need, such as tables and chairs, instead of decorative antique pieces they simply like.

"A lot of people I talk to are saying things like, 'My TV is 5 years old and I want a flat-screen, but I'm going to wait,'" Fagan said. "They're hanging on until things, hopefully, get better."

Cathy Jett: 540/374-5407
Email: cjett@freelancestar.com