9 Practical Tips For Thrift Shopping

Thrift shopping is good for the economy, it is good for your wallet, and it encourages sustainable shopping and manufacture in many diverse ways.

If more people turned to thrift shopping online and offline, then it would change the way the western economy functions in a way that would force manufacturers and retailers to focus on quality and lastability in the same way that Japanese companies do.

When you put your hand into your pocket to buy something from a thrift store, you are not just saving money, but you are doing your part towards saving the world.

Is Thrift Shopping Good From a Sustainability Perspective?

One of the worst things about the clothing industry is that it produces thousands of tons of greenhouse gases to create items that you may only wear once or twice.

People have an odd mentality when it comes to secondhand things such as clothes.

They will happily walk around in stuff they have owned for years, but will also shy away from wearing secondhand clothes that other people have worn.

Thrift shopping in person, or thrift shopping online, is all part of recycling and upcycling.

In essence, you are lowering the amount of wastage by getting more time and use out of different clothing items.

Your thrifty clothes will end up in a landfill eventually, but the time you spent re-using clothes and goods is time you “didn’t” spend buying new clothes and goods.

Some items are built to last, and yet people treat them with the same regard as disposable plates.

For example, jeans are the unholy grail of polluting products.

They cost epic amounts of water to produce, and yet some people throw them out after they get a little scuffed, or if they have gotten too fat to wear them.

Jeans can last twenty years, and there is still a fashion bias towards distressed jeans, which means you can confidently wear them until the end of their natural life.

Any form of thrift shopping or second-hand shopping will reduce your carbon footprint.

What few people realize is that by buying second hand, you are lowering your carbon footprint because of the things you are “not” doing.

Let’s say you buy a pair of second-hand sneakers.

If you had “not” bought them, you would have bought a pair of new ones, which would have produced large amounts of greenhouse gas in their manufacture and transit.

Is Thrift Shopping Online a Sustainable Solution?

If thrift shopping helps lower your carbon footprint, then wouldn’t thrift shopping online increase your carbon footprint?

The answer is relative to how you source your thrifty items.

If you run downtown to buy from a store, then offline shopping is far more eco-friendly.

If you are buying thrift items from overseas, then perhaps your purchase is not as eco-friendly on the whole.

Yet, if you were to buy something new, such as new sneakers, then they are probably shipped from abroad, so even thrift shopping from overseas may be less polluting than buying something new.

Tips to Help Improve Your Thrift Shopping Experience

Relax Your Attitude To Size

Shopping for shoes in your size is a pretty good idea, but there are many times when over-sized and undersized clothes look great.

Every so often, we see a fashion season where over-sized clothing is back in fashion.

Many times a coat looks better on you if it is a size too large.

You can adjust many garments to fit, especially pants and dresses.

There are also times when slightly smaller items look great.

For example, if you are a woman, you can opt for a bra or shirt that is one size smaller than your regular size.

Doing so will make a woman’s breasts appear larger or perkier, and sometimes make a woman's stomach look flatter.

Could You Sell It on eBay?

If you want to know if you are getting a good deal, then ask yourself if you could sell the item on eBay for a profit.

It seems a little mercenary, but it is a good measuring standard by which you may judge the items you find.

Nobody is going to do a Marge Simpson and find a nearly new marked down Chanel suit in a thrift store, yet one shouldn't assume that thrift stores are full of unwanted items.

Some people are easily able to sweep through thrift stores, bag tens of bargains, and then steel off into the night safe in the knowledge they made some good savings.

Take a Little - Buy a Little

If your local store buys clothes, then consider selling some items before you start shopping to buy.

It puts you in the right frame of mind and often encourages you to splash out a little more on something of good value.

It is almost like you are getting a discount because the clothes you sold have added to your spending fund.

Seasons, Trends, and Brands

Some of the best deals are a result of seasons, trends, and brands.

For example, Burberry was hyper-popular in the United Kingdom until the “Chav” trend tarnished it.

Suddenly, middle-class people were donating their Burberry items to thrift stores, and a whole world of fantastic thrift-shopping bargains was born.

Summer trends are often fleeting, which means what was once an expensive dress in summer is suddenly a mark-down thrift bargain by winter.

Bring an Eco-Friendly Bag

One of the biggest mistakes in thrift stores is to buy a bag.

Back in the old days, thrift stores gave away bags, but these days they sell them.

Save yourself a little money each time by taking your bags.

Take a bag big enough to accommodate a winter coat (because you never know!).

Don’t Shop for Full Outfit Sets

Pity the poor fools who walk out of thrift stores without a set of clothing because it was missing a piece.

The best bargains often mean a piece from a set is missing.

Maybe it is the shoes, the belt, the hat, or whatever, but do not be disheartened.

You can almost always find the missing piece on eBay or Amazon, and usually, it is at a great price.

Just How Serious is the Damage?

How noticeable are stains, snags, tears, pill balls, wear, and signs of damage?

In many cases, “Molly-too-much-money” has taken her coat or shoes into a thrift shop because they have the tiniest unnoticeable imperfection that most would need a magnifying glass to see.

Plus, many forms of wear and tear are repairable.

Your ancestors wouldn’t cry out in pain if you used a black permanent marker to color in that scuff on your second-hand shoes.

Test Them First

You probably know that you should test appliances before you buy them, but use your best judgment on other items.

Testing a coat is easy enough, but even though you cannot pressure-test a biking helmet, you can still try it on to see if it pinches your scalp or squashes your ears.

Plus, if you are buying things like stuffed animals, then make sure you run them through your washing machine before using them because such items often pick up dirt while in the store.

Thrift Shopping is the Way to Go

Try not to forget the byproduct benefits of thrift shopping.

Thrift shopping demands that items are built to last.

After all, if items of clothing fell apart after their first use, then they would never end up in the thrift shop.

Buying things from thrift shops takes customers away from retailers and manufacturers.

They have to do what Japanese companies do and start creating things of higher quality that are built to last.

Thrift shopping online, as well as thrift shopping offline, is a step away from a disposable-single-serving culture, and a step towards a more sustainable future.