Are you searching for “the best thrift stores near me” ?
Or perhaps you are on the look out for “goodwill near me“?
Well rest assured you are in the right place.
While most people like to look at thrift stores as places where they go to because they do not have the option to buy the items they would have otherwise needed because they are expensive, I take an entirely different perspective. I look at these shops as an opportunity to buy good products at a cheap price.
Of course, I am not saying that people cannot buy new products just that they underestimate how much they can do with thrift shopping if they learnt the tricks of the trade.
Consider an artist for example, rather than go buy canvas, you can instead buy a painting at a store, polish it with white, and you will be good to begin on painting your own.
And so, part of my intention in this article is to share with you the many hacks around the trade. You will find a discussion on what thrift stores are too, how they work and frequently asked questions too.
Note that beyond the pricing advantage, there are other reasons for you to choose to shop at thrift stores, at least for some of the time. High on this list is environment concerns.
By buying products that are already in circulation we help prevent them from going to waste on the disposing end as well as reduce the level of manufacturing on the side of production so there is control on the carbon going into the atmosphere as well as responsible usage of the resources that go manufacturing.
From there, you may proceed to read the specific article written about your state to find out the names of thrift stores you can trust, their contact information, addresses, and opening hours. Lets’ dive in then.
Best Thrift Stores Near Me/ Goodwill Bins Near Me
Find a Thrift Store Location
Click your state to find the best thrift store closest to you
Thrift Stores Finder appreciates your support by shopping on Amazon through our affiliate link here.
What are thrift stores?
Thrift stores are the place to find all kinds of products at prices that are very much reduced from what you find at say a department store. These include sports items, book, electronics, flowers, clothes, jewelry etc.
Some people refer to them as charity stores or Salvation Army Thrift Stores.
To be sure, it is not always that such goods will be out of fashion as many tend to think. Thrift stores know that if they cannot find stuff that is trending then they would be outcompeted and so they will certainly have things that you will like. Again, it goes back to whether you know how to look.
One thing that you will have to contend with in many of these cases however, is the fact that the display is not always the best and so usually there is a degree of combing that is to be done on part of the customer.
Note that thrift stores differ from vintage shops in a sense that whereas their emphasis is on low prices above everything, vintage shops collect items from a long time ago.
And most certainly, vintage shops are very expensive even when compared with the usual places where we go shopping.
How thrift stores and goodwill donation centers work
Charity: most thrifting stores run as charities with the money that is being charged mostly going into covering logistical expenses e.g. rent, paying workers (for those that are not volunteering) etc.
This is in recognition of the fact that giving back to society is virtuous and that some people’s lives literally depend on it.
It is for this reason that are run by churches, not-for-profit institutions and other people of goodwill. Indeed, these institutions will go as far as donating direct money should there be profits to spare off their operations in a given timeframe.
Cleanliness of the products: often, thrift stores will not have washed or cleaned the products on sale. It is instead the people that make the donations that would have done that prior to bringing the items to the stores.
There is certainly nothing wrong with cleaning them again upon purchase but before usage. I would encourage you to take this route.
Pricing: for most thrift stores, the prices of the different items are going attached on the products. This is a process that they go through prior to being displayed to the public.
Again, because these are way below what you would normally purchase these products elsewhere since this is a thrift store.
There are is nothing wrong with bargaining though if you still consider something that you are interested in to be overpriced or when you really love it but cannot raise the money asked.
Note though, that there are stores that do not allow bargaining in which case you would have to follow through with the policy.
Another way to find good items for low prices is always being on a look out for when there are promotions as well as special discounts at your favorite shop.
Quality products: one thing about thrift stores is that you will almost never find a product matching one that you bought from there previously. Instead, consistence comes through quality i.e. a good store will always look out for great stuff.
So, what a customer is to do is revisit the section where they bought the item they liked and see what is on offer this time round.
Now, there are stores that specialize in a particular aspect of products and they can be a good place to find top notch displays since they will be deeply immersed in one practice making them good at knowing where to find the best. Examples of products that have specific stores include; furniture and clothing.
Donations: most thrift stores/ charity stores depend on communities for their products i.e. either people within a locality or brought together by a common cause (if they go to the same church for example).
The stores thus are always looking to establish more trust with these stakeholders e.g. through accountability since without them they would likely collapse.
As times change, there have been more diversification to include online sources for instances, as well as consignment stores. In the latter aspect of things, a store finds a source that has items to sell upon which they agree that they will help with that part and then the profits would be shared.
That said, donating is for everyone so if there is something that you have and believe that it could be helpful to another person out there, then clean it and please take it to a trusted store near you.
While it might seem to you that doing so depends on the mood you are in, engaging in practices like these can change other people’s lives in ways that we might ourselves underrate.
Quick Thrift Shopping Tricks and Hacks
Now that you appreciate what thrift stores are all about, let us go ahead and look at the information pertaining to how you can do your shopping with ease.
As they say, usually it is really never about how a task complicated a task is but rather our knowledge of how to get around it.
Keeping in the know: because the nature of these shops is such that one day they will bring in something but then may not have it thereafter for months given their supply chain, it is always good to be looking out for what new items have been added.
That way you can always go pick them even when you otherwise had no plans of shopping that day.
You can do this by following your favorite thrift stores on social media. Luckily, we will tell you on this blog which shops are good so your only job will be having accounts with the different social platforms.
I especially recommend Snapchat, Instagram, and Tiktok (if the ban does not pass that is) for this purpose.
Another really practical approach to achieving this objective is to befriend persons that work at these places. Introduce yourself to them, let them know the kind of products you would be interested in and sure enough, rapport will no doubt be established once they have seen you come in a few times.
Shop in wealthier neighborhoods: as shared already, thrifts heavily rely on the goodwill of their community. This means that whereas all serious shops are going to have products on display, those located in affluent areas are much more likely to be resourcing much more quality stuff since it would be dropped off by individuals that buy their day-to-day products from high end places.
The only downside is that these items are going to be considerably priced highly if compared to your average store.
It is certainly worth it though. Nonetheless, if you insist on getting the cheapest items available, then you know the shops may not be your kind.
When to shop: the time when you go to the store actually makes a huge difference if you did not know. This is true both in terms of the large scale picture as well as time in the narrow sense.
In regards to the former attribute, I would encourage you to shop off season. I know that this might sound surprising for folks coming to this for the first time but then the way it works is such that when the summer is done for instance, that is when people will drop off the clothes they have used to the stores.
In regards to the days and time of the day, working days as well as early time in the day is most fruitful respectively.
The reason here is that not many people will be around so you have all the store to yourself to comb through everything there is.
Wear tight clothes: especially following pandemic time, most thrift stores no longer have fitting rooms so it can be tricky to try out clothes before settling on how they look on you or not.
That is why I recommend that you wear something fitting every time you set out to buy clothes.
The alternative to this would have been to gauge the size of the clothes with your eyes and then go on to buy them but then you really want to be sure. Moreover the sizes indicated do not always help since different manufactures often have varying measurement ways.
Look out for promotion days: this aspect somewhat fits into (1). Beyond trying to know always what products are available, you should be on alert so promotion and discount days do not escape you.
That way you can get to enjoy the products on offer at even lower prices– which is really the whole point of thrift shopping.
So you know, prices can during these days go for as low as 50% of the usual tag. A common example in this regard is “color of the week” which is a phenomenon where thrift shops will decide to subsidize all items that appear in a particular color for that week.
Temporary items: getting right the question of the products that one should shop from thrift stores can be difficult and yet it is important to answer because while we will cover thrift stores at length on this blog, anyone who tells you that everything should be purchased from these stores does not have your best interests at heart.
One certain category that you count on however, is items that are either not to be used for a long time or ones that intend to replace after a while. Take for instance, if you are moving in to a new house and have not yet bought most of the usual household items.
FAQs
Why does Gen Z tilt towards thrift shopping?
In the recent years, data on people shows that as Gen Z has come of age, thrift stores have grown as a business because of the abundance of customers. In 2019 for instance, a whopping 46% of American Gen Z were frequent visitors of these shops as opposed to 37% of Millennials.
There are a couple of reasons for this one of which is the fact that Gen Z has redefined fashion. Rather than wear something trending, this age group has decided that uniqueness is the key.
Who should go to a thrift store?
There are these stereotypes around how it is just those in need that go to shop at thrift stores. I hope that by this time I have given you enough reasons as to why such an outlook is mistaken at best or if worse off, completely wrong. So do not feel guilty going out and grabbing something good at an affordable price.
The only caveat that I would add is that if you have the means of living a comfortable life, then please carry something to donate with you as you go out.
Where can I thrift shop online?
While there are obvious advantages to stepping out and visiting a store physically (you will recall for example that we talked about establishing connections with the workers as being a hack), it is okay too to order for products online if you feel lazy.
Moreover, the online space allows you to explore stores which are not in your immediate neighborhood and therefore you would have otherwise not known about them.
The option is yours then to try them out or stick to those that you are already acclimatized with. Examples of the best places to start your exploration are Ebay and Etsy.
What is the Genesis of thrift shopping?
The practice of exchanging items between people has been around for as long as the science of economics is known to have first existed. Thrift shopping as we know it however, only began to take effect during the early years of the 20th Century.
These were times of catastrophe and scarcity with events like World War II as well as the Great Depression that forced society to rethink most of its ways of life. One of the things that was enforced then was rationing meaning that when it came to the items that one could own, there was a limitation on just how much high it could go.
People thus started experimenting with direct exchanges which was something that was still within the rules and yet gave one a sense of owing something different.