The Real Reason Thrift Store Prices Exploded

I feel like a big component, the biggest component to this multifactorial issue that is the thrift store prices going up and up and up. The biggest contributor, in my opinion, is some of these thrift stores have lost their minds. I'm all for glass tupperware, but pricing this that you got for free for $7.50 is bananas, and you can get it new cheaper. These shoes are used, they are dirty, and they still are $9.50. A cute top in good shape. It should be $4, not $6.79. And this container doesn't even have a top. The cute skirt, I like the details. I'm like, oh, that's really cute. Let's see how much it is. Why the hell is it $75? The way these thrift stores have lost their effing minds just because something says like anthropology. If you've been thrifting for any length of time, you've probably had this experience. You pick up a pair of jeans, let's say. You expect to see $6, $8, maybe $12 at the most, and the price is $22. That stained Old Navy t-shirt, $15. A sweater that you know to be Walmart, $18. A beat up decor item that was donated for free is somehow priced like a boutique. Here's the thing. This isn't just happening at one store. People all over the country are showing the exact same trend at Goodwill, Savers, Value Village, Restore, and a bunch of local thrift stores. When I was furnishing this house, I went to one of the local thrift stores just to see what kind of furniture. I was looking for a big piece of furniture that my TV could sit on in the living room. Went to one of these stores and the price was higher than what I would find at Walmart or some other online store. It was insane. I never went back until I started thrift shopping for clothes. As someone who was relatively new to thrifting, even I can tell that I arrived a little past what people would call the golden age. Back when local thrift stores felt like community resources instead of trying to squeeze every last dollar out of donated goods. Today, we're going to watch some absolutely wild TikToks documenting these price increases. Some of them are funny, some of them are infuriating, and all of them raise the same question. What exactly has happened to thrift stores? Is this because of resellers? Is social media convincing stores that everything has hidden value? Or are thrift stores simply becoming another example of corporations chasing higher profits wherever they can find them? Stick around to the end because I put in some videos of creators who have more of an inside scoop. They have family members who are working at these stores or they work at them themselves. Their explanations help me understand what is happening and how multifactorial it really is because I do think the answer is much bigger than simply just resellers. Although they definitely play a part, at least the ones online. Isn't this cute? Why buy it from Marshall's for $13 when you can buy it from Goodwill for $14.50? This dress, okay, I was like, oh, this is kind of cute. And look, it's new with tags. Okay, so it was $17. You can buy it from Value Village for $11 for $10.99. But you could have bought it from the original store for $6. Just before we get off the clothes, I had to rearrange her post a little bit just because she started with the clothes and talked about the blocks and then went back to clothes. But I just basically just rearranged it so that we did that section with those examples from Marshall's and some other store where you get things cheaper than are at the thrift. And that's ridiculous. You have to wonder, always have to wonder when they're pricing these things, what is going through the mind of probably the corporation because I don't think the workers are really trying to squeeze every last drop out of us. I guess people are paying over the tagged price from the original store and that's why they continue to do it. You have to assume there's somebody who's doing this. Anyway, all right, so we'll go on with her and she's looking at the blocks. Mega blocks. There's three bags here. They're all $40. This is what they should be priced at for $4.99. Or you could get this bag for $20.99. They're both mega blocks. Probably about the same size. Let's look. Of blocks. $4.99. $20.99. This one's also labeled $20.99. I think what it was is that she went to two different, I think she went to Goodwill for the original, the one with the Marshall tags and then saw the blocks there maybe and then went to Value Village and saw the blocks there. $40 compared to the one in the original bag, which is $4.99. And then the other blocks that are just in plastic bags that are $20.99. Just to show you how ridiculous it is. And then it goes on. She's saying goodbye, Ray Dunn collection. I don't understand what that means, but hopefully one of you will. And that's the end of her video. Just introducing you to the weirdness, you know, Marshall's, these stores where things are pretty cheap already are undercutting the charity shops, right? The place where things are donated and that's pretty wild. I really hope that somebody just like happened to make a weird mistake when pricing these shoes. So I'm like, Oh my gosh, $26. What brand is this? Old Navy. Okay. I'm going to stop just in case you're listening to it. She says that it's Old Navy, but $26 for some Old Navy shoes that you can imagine were priced maybe lower than that, but definitely not much higher. But then it continues. You see that price tag, right? I'm not going crazy. I mean, maybe it wasn't a mistake. And who gave that kid a recorder? Okay. Low key. I had a recorder of course, when I was young, what is it like third grade, fourth grade? I thought I was really good at it. My brother reports that he was really good at recorder too. His son is playing a recorder right now and it's fun in that house. Okay. Going on. Back to my story. These are $13. They're from Walmart. We have another one. Let's keep going. $23. Target. It's crazy. I don't know. Freaking recorder. That freaking recorder. It is nuts. Like Walmart, Target, Marshalls. These are all stores where we can get things cheaply anyway. And they're pricing them pretty high Again, I'm always trying to figure out how is it that people are pricing it like this at a place where they get things donated for free. And I have to assume because a lot of that stuff was, I mean, she did zoom in on the second item, those checkered flats. They definitely had some stains on them and whatnot. The boots from Target looked relatively new. So maybe they're pricing based on that, but it just feel like it just shouldn't matter. More examples of outrageous prices. Unless you think it's regular stores that are in the area, it's also fraudulent items. I'm here at Goodwill and they have lost their freaking mind. Let's check out how much they want free. Counterfeit. Yes. Counterfeit bags. As you can see, here's a fake Chanel. Fake. Yeah. A hundred percent fake. Let's check. Okay. Cause it's a Goodwill. Keep in mind. Oh, $500. Let's look at the fake Louis Vuitton. That's pretty, right? Just $800. There's another fake Louis Vuitton. Falling apart. Keep in mind. Fake Gucci. Fake Coach. Fake Louis Vuitton. This one, there it is. Probably from street in New York. Cause they don't even come with this thing on and the real ones don't. And they only want $800. What a deal. What a deal. People are insane. Paying this price. Something that they got for free. What do you guys think in the comment section? Let me know. Did you buy this? I think that's wild. The writing on his TikTok shows where he is. And I'm wondering if they're trying to catch those who would come into Orlando for vacation at Disney world or something. And then either think these are real or wouldn't mind buying a fake, but it's just like go to DC, New York, anywhere for the price of that ticket is probably less than the bag. Even in this time, this economic climate, the price of flying to New York to go to canal street or go to DC and go to Georgetown and buy a fake bag. You could probably do all of that for cheaper than those purses are priced. And that is wild. It's all kind of labels, fake bags. Everything is being overpriced at these thrift stores. And it looks like it's even more egregious at maybe just because Goodwill is a nonprofit 501c3 organization. I know that there's been videos made or TikToks made about how the CEO makes $700,000. And in our minds with Elon Musk's of the world and all these CEOs who make ridiculous amounts of money while their employees are on food stamps on Medicaid, even those services are being taken away so that the people who can truly afford nothing are getting less and less and less. It's pretty amazing that the CEO is getting $700,000 working on a not-for-profit. And the only reason that sounds like compared to Elon Musk compared to all these other CEOs, you know, it's chump change, but it is a not-for-profit organization. And you also hear stories about how the people who work at Goodwill are underpaid, overworked, all that kind of things. And they're taking advantage of people with disabilities and whatnot. So yeah, it's not looking good. And it just doesn't explain, I mean, it explains very much this greed because everyone, everyone in this capitalistic society wants to keep growing their business year of a year, even if it's a not-for-profit organization that's supposed to help people in theory is supposed to help people. I went to the ReStore the other day and I'm sure I'm gonna get some hate for this video, but oh my God, ReStore has lost its frigging mind. They think everything they have in there is an antique and they are completely wrong. Look at this little thing. It's broken, broken for $25. Are they on crack? Who's pricing this crap? $100 each for these. Somebody please tell me what these things are. I was thinking, is this like a, I don't know. I have no idea what that is. I can't even in my, my mind come up with anything. Have no idea. Somebody must tell me. All right, we'll keep going. Are they, oh my God, they've lost their minds. They have lost their minds. This little bowl, it must be an antique. So the thrift store is selling it for $30. What the heck? $26. Have they lost their frigging minds? I couldn't even, I had to leave. And the greatest part is other people were over talking about how ridiculous the prices were. I don't know why she would get hate for that video since everybody's talking about this, but it's interesting because when I watched this originally, I was like, I would clearly just go to HomeGoods, my former home and buy the items I need. Like how are you going to do a wood cutting board for $30? You could a hundred percent get that cheaper at HomeGoods and these vases and everything. It's, it's just so weird. It's like they saw one video or something of somebody who recovered some real antique with real value and they're hedging their bets and making sure that doesn't happen again by pricing everything so high. I don't know. Like they're afraid that they didn't realize the value of something. But again, it was donated. We've had clothing examples. We've had toy examples. We've had bag examples and now more HomeGoods. And it's just like things that you don't even know what they are or I don't. Anyway, somebody, somebody out there does know what those wood things are, but it's crazy that it's so pervasive and everything is increased. And we'll see later some men's clothes. It's, it's always crazy when it hits the men's items. Why is nobody talking about how expensive the thrift store is? I went to the thrift store to purchase this meat cleaver. Why are they selling meat cleavers for $8 in the thrift store? That's way too much. Um, the thrift store is supposed to be for people who, I'm not going to say are less fortunate, but for people who don't have it like that to where they splurge all the time and spend possible for a price or regular price on items. But not if the thrift store is going to be selling items for the same amount that stores are selling it for, then it's no longer a thrift store. And it's really crazy. I saw these sandals and I'm going to put the sandals here on the side. I saw these cute sandals and I thought to myself, Oh, these are cute. And I was like, you know what? I think I'm going to go ahead and get them. I wasn't familiar with the name. Uh, it, I think it says Kurt Giger or Gerger Giger, Giger, something like that. I'm just going to pause. I don't, I don't know this designer. I did look it up a little bit when I was looking at these Tik Toks, but might be Kurt Geiger. And I might've been that those shoes are sold somewhere like Nordstrom like stores. I saw, I think some for $99, maybe up to a hundred something. I don't know. Just to go back what she was talking about, the meat mallet. I think I bought my meat mallet from like a home goods like store for maybe $8, maybe even less. And I mean, that one's used, you know, it looks like a little like dingy. Maybe. I don't know if that's just how it looks in general. Hers looks, it just looks a little yellow in some places. I don't know. Could be a tag. I'm not sure, but I would just say she's right. And this is ridiculous. So let's see how much these shoes are. That's neither here or there. The price. Let me show you the price, honey. $69 for a pair of Kurt Giger. Why? I don't even know who that is, but even if it's somebody that's really popular, why is the thrift store selling these shoes for $70? That's crazy. Like we're going to the thrift store because obviously we don't have it like that to pay for a price at a regular store. But why are y'all getting stuff from people for free and jacking the price up like that? Like y'all are so wrong for doing that. And nobody is talking about it. You almost have to wonder if the thrift stores are getting like a kickback from a Walmart or like Target or these other stores that are underpriced. Are they coming together or something and asking the thrift stores to increase their prices and giving them some amount of money to do so since they're not for profit in many cases? I mean, Savers and Value Village, like I said, I think I said that they are for profit entities. So it makes sense that they're jacking things up, but goodwill. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. There's no world in which that makes sense except for the world we live in, this capitalistic society where everyone wants to just keep growing. Every business thinks they need to make more and do more and pay their CEOs more. It's crazy. All right. I included this next one because, you know, the kids. To the employee who priced this, shame on you. Hitting the toy section at the thrift. And I just found a basketball plushy wearing shoes. But after checking out the tag, I just found my first jelly cat. Behind him, there's even a huge lububu. How much they want for him? Forty dollars. Whoever priced this, shame on you. It's kind of crazy. Forty dollars for that. I guess it's a great brand or something like that. And they are pricing it accordingly. But it's just ridiculous. It's not worth forty dollars. And now it's at a place where maybe some kid could get a toy that makes him happy. And it's not worth it. So even if you have the means, you're not buying that. It's got to be a conspiracy. This has to be conspiracy. They're working with the other stores. It has to be the case. So I'm currently at the Goodwill racks here in my city. And so far, it's been pretty dry. I found one vintage gray sweatshirt. But I did want to show you guys this. This is one of the craziest things about thrift stores nowadays. So I see the coat section back here and I decide to walk back here and start checking things out. And as you guys can see right from the jump. Oh, 80 dollars must be a Carhartt, right? Redhead jacket. OK, well, here's a nice flannel. OK. Twenty five dollars. Well, must be it can't be on all of them. This is a nice camo jacket. Cabela's. Ninety dollars. So a lot of this. It gets even worse, guys. You get back here and you get to these redhead like tundra camo jackets. You get a price on these. One hundred and thirty dollars at Goodwill. Now, I don't know if Goodwill's and thrift stores look like this in your guys' area, but I'm pretty sure this is a trend happening everywhere. That's crazy, too. It looks like those jackets are nice quality. And I'll look up online to see how much they are. If you're looking at something that's eighty nine, ninety nine, been used, been, I guess, hunted in or something like that, you would go to just Walmart, get the unused thing for about the same price if you really needed it that bad. They're really taking away the ability for people who have less means to buy things that they might need. And that's that's exactly. I'm a value village and I'm going to show you some things in here that I cannot believe that they're selling. And for the prices, insanity because this video is inspired because I just got a lady in here shopping for her grandson, a toddler, and she found a shirt that was sold for eighteen dollars. I don't think of myself like that is crazy because you can buy brand new things for less than that. Starting off strong, this platter or this bowl, like, are you kidding me, guys? It's beautiful and everything, but not eighty nine dollars. Like, are you high? They're really cute, like green shorts, but like fifteen dollars, 16. Like, are you kidding me? Here's a perfect example of like branding. But then also just because it's a recognizable brand, like this is a polyester mesh top, like it's not even fully finished. This guest sweater, you guys, seventeen dollars for like a little tiny mini crop guest secondhand sweater. This jacket, though, yes, leather jacket, you guys, but thirty five bucks to me. That's crazy. This vintage Jenny, a leather coat as well. Very run down. So used up. Fifty dollars. These suit jackets, that's you guys. Minimum is forty five dollars. Fifty dollars each. Like, are you kidding me? This trench coat is literally so ugly and it's so run down just because it's Tommy Hilfiger, you guys. They posted it for almost forty bucks. Somebody was literally smoking something when they priced this at almost thirty dollars for this secondhand hoodie just because it's Adidas. Yeah, that's wild. The Adidas thing, because, you know, you see those at Marshalls and TJ Maxx all the time. There's whatever name brand athletic brands that are there for like eleven dollars, sometimes less, you know? So I don't know. I was really interested to see, of course, the men's things like the suits and whatnot being priced so high as well. I mean, I see it in my own thrift store, my own goodwill that you go to the women's blouses or whatever shirts. They're consistently higher than the men's. But I think at my goodwill, everything, blouses are a certain amount of money. Coats, no matter what the brand, certain amount of money. Jeans, no matter what the brand, certain amount of money. But the men's shirts and whatnot seem to be generally cheaper than the women's. And that's true, I feel like, wherever I go. So when it's affecting the men's, these suits, these no name suits are so expensive. It's really interesting. And let's hear about this white shirt. I'm sorry, but for a white button up that's literally stained from sweat, 15 bucks is insanity. Literally get brand new things, you guys, for that price, okay? Especially for a white button up. Here's like a rundown men's American Eagle. Jeans, $22. Sorry, but like, no. Jeans, if it's not $10 or less, like, gotta go. Okay, but for secondhand clothes that they get for free and donate it, I think it's a little bit off-putting, especially when it's like free. Value Village and like, what is it called? What's the other one? Salvation Army. Like, Salvation Army is decent, but Value Village is pretty up there because they are for profit. So I would highly recommend just shopping at like church thrift stores or like non-profits, okay? Definitely support them because they do put back and like literally everything, proceeds go back to the community. Yeah. What he says and the examples of things that he's seeing the prices increased on, the ones in his store, it's not like the $700 fake bag one, but these are just higher prices. These jeans that aren't that great, even the labels not that great are $15. And he does make the great point that basically everybody's pointing out that they're getting these things for free and then turning around and doing this. And that's just wild. At some point, thrifting makes no sense. You go to Walmart instead, you're going to Target instead, you're going to HomeGoods, wherever else, instead of going to the thrift store, it doesn't really make any sense. So I guess there needs to be a new model for the charity store. Or like he said, go to the church thrift stores, you go to the local things. Of course, you hit up the estate sales and whatnot. But I mean, honestly, at this point, you'd rather support the resellers go on eBay and buy something, go on these other places instead of going to these stores that are acting like they're corporations. Cause I mean, I guess in some ways they are, and they are trying to really maximize their profits in a place where people can't really afford higher costs. So next we'll look at the more insider perspective about these stores. There's two creators who have either family working for them, or in the second case, I think it's the second case, the woman just overhears the employees talking and asks questions. And then we'll look at the comments because I think there are some employees in the comments shedding light on what's going on. But yeah, it's just, it's very interesting and definitely multifactorial. My mother-in-law works for Savers Thrift Store and she used to work for Goodwill. And my father-in-law actually works for Goodwill currently. So I had a lot of questions for them this weekend. Let me tell you what I learned. My number one question is why are they pricing things so flipping high here in Arizona? And she said they have a spreadsheet they have to go off of for pricing. And if you go too low, you will get called into the office and you will get in trouble. So they have to abide by those rules. And they also Google Lens things to see how much they are. However, on half-off days, they kind of try to price accordingly. So if something is like $6 on half-off day, it's going to be $3. So they don't want to go too low because then they'll be like really cheap on the bad end of things. Why do they price things where you live? Here in Arizona, every different item is a different dollar amount. They don't have just t-shirts or $7.99, pants or $5.99 or whatever. Every item can be priced to whatever they Google Lens and however high they really want. It's interesting because you would also wonder if the employees, they're not often rolling in money, you know? So why would they price things the way that things are priced now? And it's because of this, because the corporate overlords are trying to probably giving them some quotas they have to meet, like she said, and then if they don't make them, they get in trouble for it. So these people feel a lot of pressure to keep pricing things like this, even though a lot of people can't afford it. Just to look at some comments and there weren't as many people in the comments talking about their experience like working for or insider knowledge for these stores, but there's a couple. One person asks, does each store have a different spreadsheet? Because there are certain locations where things are cheap and others where they're way out of hand. This also varies at the store too. Some weeks are better priced than other weeks. And then the creator answers that and says, yeah, it's up to the management of that specific location to determine the pricing. I think a while ago, I looked at the corporate structure of Goodwill and it looked like there's a definite, you know, CEO making $700,000 a year and some other high level manager types too. But then it's almost like each town, each city, whatever has one or more Goodwills that are kind of run by that area, I don't know, and have their own little corporate structure within that town. So I guess that's why things are priced differently. So my smaller town, everything has a price. Every category has its own price and it's not really label based, but I imagine soon with the internet doing what it does, that'll change. And it definitely has changed with regard to home goods, just not as much clothes. Next comment, why are they selling Walmart kids clothes with the $4.98 tag still on them and they make it up to $6? Creator answers because their managers want to make quotas and are greedy. Just seems like a really weird way to make quota because you have to imagine somebody's buying it. Maybe somebody doesn't see the tag or the original tag or something, but they wouldn't do it if it didn't work, I guess. I don't know. Or I guess everything from Goodwill will go to the bins at some point. I don't know. The next comment says greedy leadership then. Got it. And the creator says, yep. The last comments, I just look for hidden treasures that they don't scan, I guess. But yeah, I guess that's, isn't that what we're all doing? Here's the deal. The workers don't give an F. Stuff gets through that doesn't follow the price. And then the creator says every time I've changed tags to cheaper, the cashiers cared and told me that's not the price and reprinted the high priced ones. Somebody under that says boycott Goodwill until they stop ripping us off. And I would say just boycott them because it seems like they're not really doing what they used to do. They are taking donated items, increasing the price, keeping the profits, and we'll see what else they do in this next one from this next creator. I just heard some very interesting tea at Goodwill. So I was just doing my thing, like shopping around. And all of a sudden, one of the employees sort of started panicking. And she was like, where's the Supreme hoodie? Where's the Supreme hoodie? Like you weren't supposed to put that out to her coworker. And he of course was like, well, I didn't put it out. And she was like, yeah, like the Supreme hoodie and the two babe shirts, like those were not supposed to be put out. Like, where are they? We have to find them because now they're on the floor and they were supposed to be sent out. In my head, I was like, sent out? Like, what do you mean sent out? So then all of a sudden, a bunch of employees are trying to find these like missing goods. And my curiosity got the best of me. So finally, like I just asked one of them, I was like, where are you sending the Supreme hoodie? And he said, oh, like we're sending it off. I was like, you're sending it off like to the showcase? Because I go to this Goodwill all the time and they have like a showcase where they put nicer things. And he was like, no, no, like we're sending it off to headquarters, like to be sold. I was like, headquarters? Like, what do you mean? And he was like, yeah, like, you know, like if we ever get like designer bags or like really nice jewelry, we just send it off to sell it online. So I automatically, I'm like, what about the stuff that you're marking up in the showcase? Because they always have good ---- in the showcase. And he was like, oh, well, like, you know, if it's like lower end stuff, like it might be real. But like, anytime you see something designer and they're like, it's fake, it's fake. The designer stuff in the showcase is marked at like 50, 60, 70 bucks. So in my head, I'm like, let me get this straight. Every single thing that Goodwill is receiving is free. It is a donation. They are taking the expensive designer pieces, sending them off. So not even the consumer can get them, but sending them off to be resold online. And then you're marking up the prices of things that you either cannot confirm are real or know for a fact are fake. That's crazy to me. And this same location, again, I go here all the time, recently marked up all of their prices, like a long sleeve used to be I think $7.99. And today, when I went in, it was $12.99. I was like, I was in here two days ago, and you marked it up that much. So I don't know what to do with this information, because I'm a big thrifter. I'm an avid goer to Goodwill. And now I just feel like pissed. Yeah, it's kind of sad and annoying in that she's been thrifting for a long time, and it's changing so much. And huge percent increases on price within days is wild. But yeah, I mean, Goodwill wants to compete. Goodwill wants to maximize the profits. And it's very clear that they have something going on. They can just send off the known good designers. And so it kind of behooves us to not like the designers as much. But yeah, really look for the good materials, look for the good value, and hope that it's not a designer item. Because they're getting real hip to this. I think that's why you got to do some small town thrifting, right? Her comments. I work at Goodwill. That's why I selected this one. I work at Goodwill. They send high end items to ecom. It's our online selling website, kind of like eBay. Oh, interesting. And then under that, or items like Uggs or Gucci, we have to send to our boutique to get authenticated to make sure it's legit. At least at my Goodwill, we do that. The next person says, or why don't you just do the right thing and simply ignore the policy, because you know what's wrong and just put the stuff out for the people to buy. It's really not that hard. And somebody else in response to that says, because real adults can't virtue signal their way through life and expect to be anything but other than a professional victim. I know that's enticing. However, it's not the underpaid workers responsibility to risk their job to write an injustice. That's so true. Oh, so true. Next comment. And then somebody else says also write W R I T E and injustice come the F on. So I take it you don't stand up against anything political because that's what you just told me that you do what you're told. If you get paid like that, the F is wrong with you. Gross. It's really not up to the underpaid worker to stand up to them. It would be up to you to stop shopping there. I think. Next, let's all just throw our hands up and salute to effing capitalism. That's true. Because I don't want to lose my job. L M A O O. And then next I agree. It's not your fault at all. And I wouldn't want to lose my job either, but how would they know y'all received something high end? Just curious. And that's a great question because that's what I want to know. If somebody answers to that, each tag is attached to a barcode and that barcode has our employee ID and the name and name comes up. So if management saw it, they could see who put it out. Oh, that's really interesting. So then it really behooves you to price things appropriately. So you're not brought in by management for under coveting the value that they could get or the profit that they could get from these items that are nicely labeled. Huh? All right. I once heard the Goodwill employees at the store near me, talk about how they pull almost all the colored tags that are on sale that week from the floor. The creator says, that's so strange to me, like pull them to put them in the back. And then the says they get pulled off the rack and then put in bins to go to the outlet stores. When I worked there, they also had us marking up Shein. They're not a good company. Somebody else. Oh, the creator says OMG. Yes. Why is Shein priced higher than on its actual website? Yeah, that is conspiracy territory. There has got to be a reason for this. And I think they're all in cahoots. That's my, that's my final thought. They're all looking to profit and maximize their profits so that people who can afford more expensive things are paying for them. And again, the people who really can't afford anything, no one cares about nobody in politics, nobody cares about, and they can't afford the increases on these clothes in general. And they're the ones who suffer the most. It's really sad. I feel like a big component, the biggest component to this multifactorial issue that is the thrift store prices going up and up and up. The biggest contributor, in my opinion, is that corporate greed is our life under capitalism. I think while resellers, social media, inflation, corporate greed, operating costs, rising overhead costs all play a role. I keep coming back to the same conclusion. The biggest shift isn't economical. It's philosophical. Many thrift stores seem to no longer view themselves as primarily charitable organizations or community resources. They increasingly operate like retail businesses trying to maximize revenue from donated goods. Nowhere is this more obvious or evident than a goodwill. When customers see donated items at or above retail value, it becomes harder and harder to think that these organizations are serving the purpose that they once did. Do I think that resellers had an impact? Yes. When social media is filled with stories of people finding items for $5 and reselling them for $500, it shouldn't surprise anyone that thrift stores start wondering whether they're leaving money on the table. But I really think that reseller influence only explains part of the problem. The larger story is what happens when every organization, whether it's a traditional retailer, a nonprofit or a thrift store is pressured to grow revenue year after year. Eventually the mission starts competing with money and the money always wins. And I think that's what we're seeing now. I'm really curious what you think. Do you blame resellers? Do you blame social media? Which I think is to blame more than just the resellers. It's like the resellers on social media maybe that are a part. Do you blame inflation and operating costs? Or do you think that corporate greed is the reason why thrift shopping has become so expensive? Let me know in the comments what your thoughts are because I am going to use this when I make a video eventually about resellers. And again, I want you to know that resellers to me, it's not the biggest piece, but I would really like to see a dialogue and see what people think in the comments. Lucky for us, those who are watching this video and have the internet and are watching hopefully from the comfort of their home on their couch or in their bed. If you are shopping at the thrift stores for wants and not needs, you're already in a pretty fortunate position. Thank you for watching. Please subscribe, especially if you've made it this far and have a great day.