The TRUTH About Chain Thrift Stores

most people assume that when they shop at a thrift store or drop their clothes off for donation that they're doing a good thing that this action is helping a charity in need unfortunately that's not always the case now before we get into what's happening today with thrifting it's pretty important that we jump back a little bit to see how we got here people have been swapping used goods with one another arguably since the beginning of time but the thrift store as we know it couldn't have been possible without a major development industrialization back in the day the average person couldn't afford to throw money away on arbitrary fashion trends and a steady supply of new clothes so they would often wear their clothes to tatters not like yeezy but like literally to shreds but even then the garment wasn't totally tossed because those tatters would be used for something else like stuffing cushions in a couch for example in the previous video we talked about how the industrial revolution spawned fast fashion enabling the middle class to purchase new clothes all the freaking time and if you're interested in that you should check out our video about xi'an they are the craziest fast fashion company on planet earth and it's pretty depressing immigrants to america were among the first to take advantage of this clothing surplus at the end of the 19th century jewish immigrants in particular who often didn't have a lot of other job options at the time turned to going door to door collecting and selling used goods out of carts although there was a lot of stigma around this profession these dealers apparently made enough money to attract another group of people to the used scene christian missionaries these missionaries put two and two together they saw the opportunity to combine capitalism with charity by raising money for the social programs they wanted to launch while simultaneously employing the underprivileged and providing desired goods to the community the salvation army was a pioneer for this business model and started its salvage brigade back in 1897. this brigade ran out of the basement of a men's shelter and provided the impoverished with food and shelter if they went around collecting used goods similarly just a few years later a methodist preacher launched goodwill which hired poor and disabled persons to collect and repair goods you're starting to see what's going on here now in those early days a lot of people still didn't want to buy used stuff but these early organizations managed to overcome that having thrift stores associated with a reputable charity helped breed trust in the consumer base for this type of thing more and more people enjoyed spending money at these stores because they felt like they were benefiting the community by doing so and they got a little bit of shopping in on the side within decades both salvation army and goodwill expanded across the nation and started modeling their chains after department stores the problem with these organizations is that they're just too good both of these organizations started out as small scale charitable endeavors and without question have provided an immense amount of service to the communities they've been a part of over the last 120 years but they've grown almost out of control after creating such a lucrative market recent estimates value the second-hand market at 33 billion dollars globally and it's expected to get up to 77 billion dollars by 2025. today goodwill is a multi-billion dollar company with an international presence in many ways that could be a good thing but the problem with this kind of money is that it tends to attract all the wrong kinds of people power corrupts within goodwill we've seen instances of ceos being paid well into the six digits while some employees were being paid well below the minimum wage an obviously controversial move that was met with significant public backlash a less talked about story is the cases where goodwill board members were using their position to make a profit through their ties to other companies see even the thrift stores are getting into capitalist channelings similarly higher-ups often benefit from goodwill programs as well part of the goodwill charity of course is to award scholarship money to people who need it to go to school but weirdly enough some of those scholarships went straight to the children of goodwill vps which seems like a problematic situation now these kinds of financial details aren't all that easy to find reporters have to scour through pages and pages of tax forms to find this juicy stuff this is because obviously the executives have an interest in keeping their financial gains hush be quiet everyone including me who's making that noise oh it's me again and this is sadly commonplace business practices at many businesses not just goodwill which sadly makes it all the more difficult to determine exactly how much of goodwill's revenue is actually going back to the people they claim to support with all of these complicated money loopholes taking place it does sort of compromise the overall goal of a charity overall though goodwill is far from the worst yes it gets worse and what do you know it's the for-profit sector now there is nothing wrong with making money but things can get a little deceptive when it comes to thrifting see thrift stores have been long associated with charities and most people assume that shopping at one benefits the community in some sort of way in the uk they don't even call them thrift stores they're actually just called charity shops now imagine for a moment that you're a savvy business person with little to no social conscience you see people out here in the streets just giving clothing to these charities for free not even just giving it to them delivering it to their door and then after a quick wash the store puts them on the shelves and sells them for a hundred percent profit i don't know if you went to business school but i'm telling you right now there is not a lot of businesses in which the cost to make your product is literally zero dollars and so of course the for-profit titans that you likely know as your local thrift stores entered the scene businesses like savers rake in millions or even billions of dollars by selling free items that generous souls donate to their business and despite what their marketing efforts try to lead you to believe most of that money just goes straight back into their pockets now they've actually gone to court over this issue in the past and they were accused of false advertising wouldn't you know it dressing up like a charity organization while truly being all about the moolah is not a great look miss hillard the water's boiling hello now don't get me wrong they do partner with charities but sales revenue doesn't really go to these causes directly now i'm going to be talking about savers and value village they are both owned by the same company so i will be using those terms interchangeably basically savers pays charities a monthly fee to use their logo and solicit donations on their behalf this all makes them look good on the surface and convinces shoppers that aren't privy to this information that they're doing good by purchasing stuff from savers but the business is essentially just taking advantage of consumers good will in order to make a pretty penny isn't that just sheisty on top of this as if making money off of free clothing was not enough value village has started releasing their own personal brand of specialty clothing they got like ugly christmas sweaters and halloween costumes that come out at seasonal times of the year but this is perfect of course because they're a business whose purpose is to serve the environment by inspiring a future where second hand is second nature oh yay they love the planet with thrifting becoming increasingly popular we expect to see more stores capitalize on this increase in demand in less than charitable ways sadly already there are complaints that goodwill has started marking up their prices sometimes and this is true exceeding retail value in response to demand created in large part by the d-pop crowd people who buy from brick and mortar thrift stores and then resell these items online at a much higher price which you might have known if you had already watched our video about them i don't want to say that you should have subscribed already but i'm just saying if you were subscribed you would have seen that video and then you would understand what we're talking about so just just kidding i'm not i felt really bad there you if you want to subscribe that would be amazing we make really awesome content at least with goodwill some of those extra profits do go back to good causes but you can bet some of those also goes back to the execs who have those kids who really need those scholarships now you know if you've been watching this channel for a while that we are advocates of buying stuff secondhand and you should do so rather than buying something brand new but this is important stuff to know because as we all try to do the right thing when we shop more and more brands and companies are going to be fighting for your dollars and as we have seen they are clearly not above dressing up as something they aren't to get that sweet sweet candy candy being a metaphor for money your money now in summary please avoid the big chains yes they are the easiest to find they are everywhere all over the world but do a little bit of leg work try and find something in your area that's independent in my experience these places are filled with really awesome and passionate people who are there for the right reasons and your donations could actually make a difference for the organizations that they support hopefully this video was interesting you gained something from it uh if you like what you're seeing here subscribe to the channel like this video share it with your friends join us on reddit and instagram and other platforms and we would love to have you there but otherwise if you are subscribed we will see you in the next one thanks for watching

Channel: Future Proof

Views: 934,319

Keywords: goodwill, thrift, thrifting, thrift shop, thrift with me, thrift store finds, thrift store haul, thrift haul, thrift store, savers, value village thrift haul, value village canada, savers thrift store, goodwill bins, goodwill thrifting, charity shop, value village, value village haul

Id: -VtoWzDN0LA

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 16 2022