Are thrift stores being gentrified?

Read this before your next trip to the thrift store.

The situation

Shopping at thrift stores has become more popular than ever due to several factors: popular social media trends, a growing population of people concerned with sustainable and affordable consumption, and vastly shorter trend cycles. According to a 2020 resale report by ThredUp and Global Data, the second-hand clothing market is projected to become worth $64 billion in 2024. These days, fashion trends only last a few months rather than years and many consumers are turning towards thrifting to keep up. This cycle of consumption—buying new trendy clothes, donating them when they go out of style, buying newer trendy clothes—is not, in reality, sustainable. 

NPR reports that the majority of new thrifters are members of Gen Z who are not shopping at thrift stores out of financial necessity. This influx of new upper and middle-class shoppers has led to concerns about whether thrift stores are being gentrified. The logic goes that these shoppers buy large quantities of items, which leads to scarcity that drives prices up, and boxes out low-income customers. Allow me to dive a little deeper.

Are thrift stores running low on inventory?

In a word, no. The vast quantity of clothing being produced, bought, and then donated, is keeping thrift stores’ inventory quite high. Accusations that well-off customers are buying all the “good” items and causing price increases are mostly unfounded. In fact, during the pandemic, thrift stores across the country were receiving more donations than they could handle and had to turn people (and their items) away. Sure, there are plenty of resellers who comb the piles and racks for vintage Harley Davidson tees, but there are still far too many items to go around.

Where does overstock inventory end up?

Only about ⅓ of items on thrift stores’ racks sell. As for the other ⅔ of the inventory? Ezra Marcus for the New York Times reports that thrift stores normally sell it in bulk to clothing exporters and it is shipped to Pakistan, India, Kenya, or Malaysia. There are sellers, in countries like Malaysia and Kenya, that dig through imported clothing from Western thrift stores for name-brand items that they can sell on the internet. Marcus continues highlighting the global shipping footprint of overstock inventory stating that “nowadays, a given clothing item—say, a Nike hoodie—may be made in a factory in Taiwan or Bangladesh, sold to the United States, donated to Goodwill, shipped in a bale to Malaysia, and then sold back to the U.S. on Etsy.” Certainly, it should be noted this practice is reported to be hurting the local textile industries of these countries and is pushing out traditional wear. BBC reported in 2016 that The East African Community took a stance on the matter by suggesting banning second-hand goods to support their domestic industries. Since then, the UN has confirmed that Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania have successfully levied taxes against used clothing imports.

Are prices at thrift stores higher?

Yes, for a lot of reasons. For one, business costs have risen in recent years as the number of donations received increases—thrift stores are having to hire more employees to work longer hours to sort through the massive amounts of items they are receiving. Another factor behind rising prices at thrift stores is the growth of resale markets. Normally, individual thrift stores set their prices and if employees recognize vintage or luxury items, they are more likely to price these higher to cash in. However, Salvation Army executive Greg Tuck assured the Wall Street Journal that they are committed to maintaining low prices and accessibility for low-income shoppers. WSJ’s Jacob Gallagher writes that “those dollar T-shirts and five-dollar jackets will always be there.” In short, prices are increasing in thrift stores nationwide, with luxury and vintage items seeing the greatest likelihood of markup.

Let’s settle it . . . are thrift stores being gentrified?

The bottom line is that yes, thrift stores are now aiming to draw in upper-middle-class shoppers who can afford to pay higher prices for luxury or vintage goods. Keep in mind that external factors like inflation, social media, shorter trend cycles, and a rising public consciousness of textile overproduction are also contributing to the phenomena. The upper and middle classes have proven to have higher carbon footprints, which also means that attempts by members of these classes to implement more sustainable practices—like secondhand shopping—will also have the most impact on the environment. A sustainable economy is one where all income levels want to shop secondhand and take public transit because these are the best options available. While it is positive that more people are shopping secondhand and the space is becoming destigmatized, the effort to pull in middle and upper-class shoppers should be done so in a way that all socioeconomic classes can participate without knocking out lower-income households from the market.