
// Development
How to Start an Online Thrift Store?
// Development
A thrift store is an enterprise, which is selling second-hand goods and raising money for a charity. This is also a great idea to use it when launching your online business. Today we’re going to talk about how to make a reality of this idea by starting your own online thrift store.
When thrift stores only came around in England in the late 19th century, they used to work under a simple scheme: people brought unnecessary clothes there; then a seller sorted, cleaned, and sold them at reduced prices. All income was given to charity except for the store expenses.
Businessmen have evolved over time, who have used this scheme to make money by keeping a small fraction of the income. Besides, they’ve also started reselling second-hand products and became ordinary stores, which give a part or all of the income to charity.
Modern online thrift stores use the same model or just sell second-hand products and spend little money on charity. Form of such trade organization can be one of several options:
People usually sell everything at once or choose:
Specialization is an important thing because when buyers are looking at clothing or shoes on the internet, they usually look for something more specific than a clothing store or a production brand. For example, users search for something like «blue business blouse» or «running shoes». The more specific the user’s query (niche) is, the more effective and cheap the marketing strategy will be.
Product quality. While searching for second-hand goods on the internet, the users might wonder about their quality. The products are usually divided into the following categories in clothing and shoe stores:
Here are the advantages of having a nonprofit status:
If the answer is positive, your business will obtain a provisional 501(c)(3) status and tax exemption if you submit a Form 990 (a report of the money taken in and the money spent on behalf of the charity) and fulfilling the IRS requirements.
After three years, you will be granted a permanent 501(c)(3) status if you’ll be running a nonprofit organization properly and if the IRS will be satisfied with financial records. Otherwise, IRS will withdraw your 501(c)(3) status.
Selling on marketplaces. The simplest option is to sell via social media accounts or websites like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. Under this approach, you can start a business right away and you won’t spend a cent. The disadvantages of this option are: the reach is limited to the audience of the marketplace or social network; you can’t stand out amongst the competitors; marketing opportunities are scaled back.
A store based on an e-commerce platform. The majority of thrift stores work on Shopify because it's very easy to launch your platform with its help and to implement a lot of useful features to it; for example, payment or inventory management.
But this isn’t the only option – here’s a comparison of the most popular platforms for today by Ecommerceceo.com:
Your unique online store. People turn to that option if they’re not happy with the features and design of e-commerce platforms, which happens a lot among the market leaders because other options have problems with scaling up. Besides, launching an online store based on e-commerce platforms implies a monthly fee, which is unprofitable over the long run.
Here’s the estimated cost of your trading platform development:
In case of buying from second-hand things suppliers, you either go to them and choose things you like or you just order large lots with a fixed fee for a kilogram, bag, or container. In addition, the owners of online thrift stores often look for cheap clothes on marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Craigslist, and other) and resell them on their websites.
Here are several well-known wholesale suppliers of second-hand things:
When you first start, a cupboard, spare room, basement, or garage work fine as a storage unit. However, be prepared that your significant other, parents, roommate, and even a cat probably won’t take too kindly to having your whole place overrun with stock. To avoid it, you better rent a self-storage unit beforehand. Here’s how much you’ll pay for rent in the USA:
Data are taken from lifestorage.com