Thrift-store shoppers are getting younger and hipper.
“They’re really looking for those items donated by the older generations, as opposed to those looking for deals to get their family clothed,” said Kolbi Jamison, retail project manager for Goodwill of the Heartland. “It really is so widespread and fun to see what they come out with.”
Not that you can’t outfit your family at one of the 17 thrift stores Ms. Jamison supervises in eastern Iowa and western Illinois.
“We really see all kinds of shoppers,” she said. “Our traditional shopper may have been looking for clothes for their kids to go back to school.”
While liquidators deal in new merchandise, thrift stores are stocked entirely by donations. Ms. Jamison said she’s noted the younger crowd at Goodwill of the Heartland’s first thrift outlet, opened in July at 8200 6th St. SW in Cedar Rapids.
“They have them across the nation, but this is our first one,” she said. “You pay for everything by the pound. You won’t find anything hung up on racks, you won’t find any shelving.”
Instead, outlet shoppers hunt through big, wheeled bins of unsorted items, some from other Goodwill stores, some directly from donors.
“It just gives us one more opportunity to recycle, and get those in the hands of shoppers,” Ms. Jamison said.
In the wake of 2020’s COVID restrictions, the August derecho, and other disruptions, “business is great,” Ms. Jamison said. “Through the pandemic, our donors had a lot of time on their hands, and they have been very, very generous. That has kept our stores full through the pandemic, and once we were open it has given those other demographics an opportunity to shop us.”
The pandemic shuttered most of Goodwill’s stores about two months – about a month longer for the three Illinois locations where state mandates were in effect. The nonprofit employs about 450 at its stores and two donation-processing facilities.
When the facilities reopened, “donations came in so, so fast, because everybody had been cleaning,” Ms. Jamison said. “They had two months of backlog, really.”
Staff initially quarantined donations for three days before handling items, a practice they dropped as vaccinations spread.
“We’ve gotten through all that quarantine product, and it’s still very strong,” Ms. Jamison said. “With those generous donations comes a lot of really great stuff, sometimes items with tags still on them.”
