Ford has been
doing more second-hand shopping during the down economy as the
cancellations for his construction business have piled up. But it
wasn’t just a deal that Ford, dressed in shorts and work boots, was
after at the store. “It’s recycling,’’ he said.
The
increased interest in saving money and rising awareness of the
environmental benefits of reusing products, combined with a growing
trend away from conspicuous consumption, are adding up to big business
for resale shops. As a result of this frugal shopping trend, the number
of resale stores opening has soared: There are about 30,000 resale
shops nationwide, and the number of new stores is increasing by about 7
percent a year, according to estimates from NARTS: The Association of
Resale Professionals.
Poised at the forefront of the local resale market is Winmark Corp.
The parent company of Play It Again Sports and three other brands plans
to open 38 stores in the Boston area in the next few years. Savers,
which bills itself as a second-hand department store, has opened three
stores in Massachusetts this summer and is relocating a West Roxbury
store to a bigger site in Dedham in the fall. Goodwill opened its 23d
store in the state, in Amherst, earlier this month. And even big-box
retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy are selling pre-owned video games.
The chains are taking advantage of a trend towards frugality. In the
last three months of 2009, the latest data available, more than
two-thirds of second-hand shop owners reported that year-over-year
sales increased by an average of 35 percent, according to NARTS.
Overall retail sales, on the other hand, were up just 2 percent during
the same period.
“Consumer
confidence has hit a brick wall,’’ said Chris Christopher, an economist
at IHS Global Insight, based in Lexington. “That would lend itself to
consumers going to second-hand goods.’’
Winmark,
the Minneapolis-based company which has about 900 franchises throughout
North America with store revenues topping $600 million last year, is
planning to license a flurry of new stores across the United States and
Canada in the next few years. Currently, Winmark has just a handful of
stores around Boston, including six current and soon-to-open Play It Again Sports locations and one Music Go Round. Its other brands are
children’s apparel store Once Upon a Child and young adults’ apparel
store Plato’s Closet.
