Do you like to thrift? Do you think there is any problem with the "thrift haul" trend of buying lots of second hand clothes, and re-selling them on retail sites at a marked up price?

@aprildawnsunshine4326

2 жыл бұрын

Tbh people are acting like this is a brand new thing, and maybe it's grown due to things like depop and Poshmark, but I remember back in the 90s going thrifting with my mom and her friends and plenty of them would be hunting for rare or special pieces they could resell. Yard sales were big for the same thing. Tbh my issue now is that I can't ever find anything I like anymore. Used to be able to find really nice skirts, dresses and blouses; but now it's all t-shirts and jeans with few other things and I swear most of it originally came from Walmart or Target! Maybe it's just this area, maybe it's better in a city, but I don't even bother going anymore unless it's for something for an event like buying stuff for a play or movie my kid's acting in. Spent 4yrs looking for a leather trench coat and only found the 4 small business thrift stores closing and the quality of clothes at Goodwill go down. In the end I just bought some fabric glue, bc I can't sew, and started turning old clothes and linens into new items that'll hopefully last long enough to hand down to my grandchildren when the 50s inevitably comes back again 😆

@aprildawnsunshine4326

2 жыл бұрын

@@adwoaboakye1684 dtert?

Oh, that’s a good point about thrifting being more sustainable than fast fashion. Glad to hear that it doesn’t really have a huge effect on prices (I kinda still am a bit meh about middlemen resellers, but I guess they’re not as bad as corporate middlemen businesses). And from other comments, maybe the plus sized options can get especially hurt by resellers which is an interesting bit of nuance I’ll keep in mind. Anyways, this reminded me that I’ve been wanting to go thrifting and that I should just go when I have time lol. Thanks for looking into this! Glad to have more info on it. Sick thrift haul btw hahah

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for watching, and yes! Get into thrifting! No matter what, it beats buying new clothes. But yes, it's important to be a conscious buyer and re-seller and think about the communities impacted by your actions. And thanks for the compliment on the thrift haul! Lol.

Thrifting that pisses me off. I had all my life been poor. I could only shop at 2nd hand stores. These people would come in, the second the doors open and scoop up all the plus sizes and resell them at prices I couldn't afford. I now have the privilege of being able to buy new, but those still in poverty, suffer for this practice. My local workers at St Vinnies and Goodwill told me that's what happened.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing your personal experience and perspective. That sucks to hear that this is happening. We definitely saw this critique out there, but when we investigated actual impact on prices at thrift stores we didn't find a lot of evidence of prices rising (much). But, sounds like it IS happening in some communities and having a negative impact on people who really need 2nd hand retail stores to stay affordable. Thanks for watching!

@user-vn7ce5ig1z

2 жыл бұрын

Yup, it completely defeats the purpose of thrift-stores, they're meant to help people who can't afford to buy fancy, expensive, new, high-ends stuff. Goodwill, Salvation Army, United Way, etc. are specifically meant for the poor, not for people who can afford new stuff but want to (ab)use them to make a profit. 🤦 Thrift-stores are NOT pawn-shops. ¬_¬ You can blame the rise in non-poor people "thrifting" on KZread which makes it popular and fun. 🙄 It's the same reason prices for old video-games have gone through the roof, so people who couldn't afford games when they were kids and figured they'd just wait until they're older and have more money _still_ can't get them because KZread zoomers who have absolutely no personal connection to those old games keep driving the prices up. 😒

@PrinceDuCiel7

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise They were talking about the resellers being too expensive. Not the original thrift stores. If there's a small fraction of clothing that will fit you to start, and it gets bought up by resellers. You're out of luck. Keep wearing your old stuff till it falls apart. I gave up on thrift stores because of this. I buy less from fast fashion now. Cuz at least I can find my size but I buy new clothing once or twice a year now, hoping nothing wears out too fast or gets ruined.

One thing I think you forgot to consider here was, a lot of thrift stores are owned by charities and raise money for that charity. So with an increase in demand for thrift clothes, there's an increase in money for those charities, which goes back into the community through that charity's services. Unless we end up with an extreme increase in demand, (similar to toilet paper in 2020), I think that an increase in demand for second-hand products through thrift stores would be more beneficial to the low income Communities than problematic. Additionally, an increase in demand doesn't necessarily require an increase in demand. Atleast, not immediately. Say, a thrift store sells shirts for $2. Suddenly, the demand for shirts doubles. If the thrift store were to then offer ¢50 per donated shirt, they could hypothetically motivate more people to donate. Therefore, allowing them to increase their sales and earnings without increasing their prices. This doesn't break the rule of TNSTAAFL, the new money coming in from new customers. And the one losing out in this situation would be clothing manufacturers. Especially the ones who make cheap clothes by cutting corners and exploitation.. ya know, the bad guys

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Great points. Yeah, we didn’t make that connection with how many thrift stores are attached to charities - thanks for bringing that into the conversation!

@ginnyjollykidd

2 жыл бұрын

Thrift stores I know won't pay for anything. They will only give you a scrip that has the amount you declare the item to be worth so you can take it off your taxes. (That's tough. I never could make enough contributions to take anything over and above the standard deduction.)

Yes. The end.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Can you elaborate just a *little*?

I'm old AF and have a sentimental gene so I've been hanging on to things since the '70s. But in the last decade or so I've been letting go and on occasion I'll run across something to throw away or donate. The closer to my fate I sail the more I let things go. Last year I donated a 39 year old pair of quality designer white cotton flair-bottom denims (worn only in the summer of '81) to a thrift shop and I'd hate for an affluent person to have found that and flipped it for a profit. That's the kind of thing I want a youngster with a yen for the retro to find and sport as if the poor feller had money to burn, but in fact would be poor as me.

Seems to me like prices on secondhand clothes wouldn't skyrocket until there's a shortage of secondhand clothes. And with 84% of clothing currently being thrown away, that's not a danger we have to worry about anytime soon.

If degrowth is going to happen to combat climate change, a secondhand and repair economy is going to be essential to it. Since identifying or creating high value items takes work and knowledge, there is going to be a price up. I haven’t seen any good evidence that this is having a lot of effect on everyday items, except maybe ones in unusual size ranges (especially plus size). There’s so many donated clothes and so much turnover of items that there’s almost always something new.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Yep, if you watch the whole video, that pretty much sums up what we found out reporting on this.

@AUTISTICLYCAN

Жыл бұрын

Electronics are most affected by gentrified thrifting because some electronics sold at Goodwill for a few dollars can be worth 100's if not thousands of dollars. A used but working 1970's War Of The Watts Receiver can sell for thousands of dollars. If you find an old 1970's Silver Faced Marantz or Pioneer receiver, cassette or reel to reel tape deck at Goodwill BUY IT because they sell for big money on Ebay especially if working! A working Pioneer SX-950\SX-1050 can sell for $2,000 or more on Ebay. I live in a nice area with a Goodwill so items are often far nicer. You can get great deals when nearby posh estate sales dump stuff at Goodwill.

Dang, this just made me sad about being too tall for thrift store clothes…

Here’s a comment for the algorithm gods. Want to see this channel grow.

The quality of your videos is beyond exellent! Great job, keep it up!

buying a coffin from goodwill: thrift hauler does an unboxing video

Where I live in the PNW, thrifting is really popular, so, especially with respect to men's clothing, the big thrift stores just have very few options at all. And, the small independently owned thrift shops are priced at normal retail or higher. So, at least where I live, thrifting has been effectively gentrified for men's clothing, because the affordable options are essentially nil, and the better options are unaffordable

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Interesting perspective -- we've noticed that some specialty thrift stores in the Bay Area are also super high priced. That said, there are still lots of affordable options at Goodwill and other bigger thrift charitable thrift franchises. Definitely harder to get those good hauls there, though.

Thank you for making this well considered video. I hate seeing all the doom and gloom about thrifting being bad. They should look at the literal miles of clothing that spontaneously combust in the open sun in developing nations. Those people have to directly confront the realities of our over consumption. I say anything that helps to reduce and reuse is a net positive. There's probably the one off thrift hauler that will take advantage but those people have always been around even before the internet and prices usually stay low enough that you can still find some gems. Obviously for certain sizes, thrifting is difficult but if you are one of those people, you are probably buying less and cherishing your possessions more, meaning that you are contributing less to this global problem of clothing waste. You may even save money, saving up to buy nicer things that last longer is cheaper in the long run for your wallet.

@AboveTheNoise

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for watching and your perspective!

✌️🍀✌️🍀✌️🍀✌️🍀😑 Sadly real deals are getting harder to really find these day... Everyone thinks thrift stores are now antiques even then jezz chill out... It all get old and ends up falling apart eventually....

It would be better if companies made higher quality durable items then sold them for more money. So you can buy something and it will last, or you can by used. This applies to a lot of things, not just clothes. One example is tech. Now tech is so advanced that you don't have to keep upgrading, except companies will design things that break and fight right to repair, so you have to buy new stuff when it breaks.

Thrifting takes a lot more effort and energy than going to a department store or clothing store. I think one of the turnoffs is the warehouse look of some of them like Goodwill. But they don't pay so much for overhead like department stores do: decor, nice interior decorating, window dressing, putting stuff on mannequins, and keeping up with the buildings. Thrift stores only put stuff on racks. They don't look uniform like racks of the same item in clothing stores. But the place is clean. But I can see how the atmosphere can turn people off, and the haulers make it easy to envy them. But putting something in a shop, whether brick and mortar or online, takes time, effort, and management. Same as any other business. So resellers have their own problems you don't. I've never had problems when I have the time and energy to search for stuff. My one piece of advice, though, is make buying jeans a separate trip. It is a phenomenon all unto itself. I don't know why, but it is. It might be trying to fit style to taste, color, prewashed, sanded, slashed, or jeans that are so barely touched that they still have enough sizing in them that they could stand up and walk out of the store by themselves. I have to have a list of things I'm looking for: a suit, a jacket, jeans, microwaveable glassware, etc. If I don't find, I don't force it. Retail therapy is cathartic, but what are you going to do with the junk you bought? I got finds over the years that were very good, like 4 pairs of black jeans I needed and lasted me years, several blouses, even a dual tape deck. And a bread maker for $6.00 from which came wonderful loaves! You have to keep blinders on. Don't look at what everybody else is buying (unless it's your size). What haulers buy aren't what you're looking for. You also have to accept surprises and the occasional "well it goes with my Hawaiian pants, and everything goes with black or navy." Be sure you can pair it with at least 3 of your closet items. And make sure you will wear it. I can't stand polyester blouses that are the least bit scratchy inside. I wear normal wool like scratchy wool blankets next to my skin better than that. So I leave every one of those alone (same as in a clothing store). And just like in a casino, decide how much you will pay for. But when you get to that level at a thrift store, you have to really think about that extra blouse. Thrift stores are enticing, but they are a different animal. When you do it several times, you will get the drift. But they are not good for retail therapy. For therapy, go get an ice cream bowl at Baskin Robbins.

i went to a brand new thrift store in Oakhurst, Ca yesterday; very gentrified, the prices were not the prices of 2010.

Plus if you're not as under a size 12 you can't barely find anything that is worth getting because all the clothes still you have to weigh 150 or less pounds in order for it to look good or being good condition and tell you that you most of the clothes that are nice I usually sizes under 10.. so to this day they still don't have that many things that are worth getting if you're not that type of size they've gotten better more organized cleaner but yet they also price here in that sucks for the people that are not millionaires I didn't think you had to be a millionaire to shop at the damn solution on me a Goodwill in fact I don't even see a salvation army anymore! Peace out

What is gentrified?

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

The verb form of "gentrification": the process whereby the character of a low-income urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, buying housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process.

@frzzzzz

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise thanks

@AlessandroRodriguez

2 жыл бұрын

The normal definition is related to how the population in a physical place "gets old" and how this changes the needs of goods and services.

@frzzzzz

2 жыл бұрын

@@AlessandroRodriguez thank you AR

For a channel called "Above the noise", this video was pure noise plain and simple.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Ouch! Can you give us a little constructive feedback on why you felt that way?

@imalebowski

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise Sure. The video jumps around vague questions like "is it [thrifting] as cool as it seems?", "are thrift-haulers ruining thrifting?", "Is thrifting being gentrified?" - because there's no solid point to create a video around. Your first comment starts, "Do you think there is any problem with the thrift haul trend" because you can't articulate an actual problem worth making a video. You couldn't find out if thrift hauling leads to higher prices because nobody cares enough in the real world to collect that data. You raise accessibility for low-income families but there's nothing in the video about them, let alone any impact it may have on their lives. That's a clear sign you dropped into a bougie fake social media debate. It's influencer stuff, there's no meat on the bones. You're left with a vid made for KZread thrifting search results with content that won't offend thrift shops diggers and resellers. Above the noise can and has been better than that. Look at some of your other videos like "Should zoos exist?", "Is College worth the time and money?", "Is there a right way to protest?" - these tackle real actual issues, not middle-class influencer Tiktok "debate" for klout. That's what I mean about this video being noise.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

@@imalebowski points are well-taken. Thanks for sharing more specific feedback - we appreciate it. We're definitely serving up diverse content that's not for everyone's taste on this channel, but we hope you keep up with us - we might come around to something you are more interested in soon.

So... no?

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

What do you think? Myles sort of came to the conclusion that no, but others commenting here do see a negative impact on low-income folks who now have to pay more for the good stuff in thrift stores (or have less inventory for plus-sizes)

@franklyanogre00000

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise Pretty sure that products are sold for a price agreed to by the buyer and seller. I don't see racism or classism here. If anything it's environmentalism.

🌶️Enorme style!🔝 Te va a molar el canal de #Darko_Dixit 🖤

Anyone who uses the terms "vintage" or "rare" on a listing should be sentenced to being punched in the face for 5 hours for each offense. ¬_¬

so you couldn't get an interview with a re-seller? Instead you get a non-reseller who provides anodyne non-answers. This video becomes nothing more than clickbait. It reminds me of basically any show on NPR: a left-leaning echo-chamber of self-righteousness (and hyphen abuse!).