Lifestyle & Culture

For Thrifty Shoppers, Resale Stores are a Steal

When Lars Bregonje, 23, heads into a thrift store, he trusts that he’ll luck up on a good find.

“If there was something nice you saw three years ago at a retail store that they don’t sell any more, you might stumble upon it at a thrift shop,” said Bregonje, while flipping through a rack of button-down shirts at East Village Vintage on Second Ave.

It is filled with sounds of metal hangers sliding across metal racks, Top 40 music playing over the radio and the low murmur of shoppers contemplating their purchases out loud.

“Oh, that looks nice,” someone nearby Bregonje said that recent day.

Thrift shops dot New York City. Some use their proceeds to support charity organizations. Some don’t.

The National Association of Resale Professionals reports that nonprofit thrift, for-profit consignment and others stores that resell a range of items are a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. According to latest data by First Research, the resale industry in the United States had annual revenues of approximately $13 billion. Revenues from larger resale chains such as Goodwill Industries and Buffalo Exchange are included in the national data, which First Research released in June 2013.

“Yeah, now that that Macklemore song came out, people are beginning to notice it more,” said City College freshman Barry Landa, who was shopping at a Salvation Army store on Fourth Avenue and Twelfth Street.

He was referring to Macklemore’s hit, “Thrift Shop,” which lists the benefits of buying used stuff.

Laura Rodriguez, manager of Vice Versa, a vintage store in Williamsburg, said the influx of bargain-minded hipsters into that Brooklyn neighborhood seems to have helped sales. Many of her shoppers, she said, cannot afford the pricier, new merchandise stocked by retailers who are relatively new to neighborhood.

“People that used to live here are used to normal prices so they appreciate our good prices,” Rodriguez said.

Cheap prices aren’t the only factors that make thrift-shopping popular among some consumers.

“Thrifting is more of a journey,” said Robert Davis, 22, holding two button-down shirts in his hands while at Vice Versa and deciding whether to buy both of them. They cost $5 each.

“I’m a pretty big guy so it’s hard for me to find clothes that fit at thrift shops,” Davis added. “So, I buy shirts that look too big and try to make it work,” he said.

Joey Carmello 22, searches thrift stores for outfits for his band, Bridge the Boarders, a pop/punk band. “Usually the crowd likes something weird instead of just a black t-shirt,” said Carmello, who also was at Vice Versa.

“When you live in New York, you mix styles,” said Vice Versa shopper Aimee McNally, 35, who is drawn to thrift stories because of the offbeat stuff she finds there and because older clothes are better tailored to fit her body.

Thrift, McNally said, “is a gratifying experience.”