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I finally got the nerve to dig into someone’s trash on the street to look for inventory!! I found a beautiful plaque and some Disney VHS tapes. Not sure if it’s worth anything but I finally overcame my fear. At first I thought the people might come out and yell at me. Then I thought maybe they’d feel bad for me thinking I was homeless or something. But nobody bothered me lol. I’m so proud to be able to call myself a trash picker now!😊
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Now I’m picturing Jay responding to a homeowner saying “Don’t worry sir, I’m a professional!”. Lol!
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I am a trash picker from way back! It embarrasses my husband, but I don’t care. He has ridiculous tales of his Grandpa’s trash picking.
I guess we just grew up in a way that accepted it. Grandpa-in-law was a child of the depression. In my urban neighborhood, people would put “good stuff”/reusable stuff by the side of the dumpster. In my new urban neighborhood, we have designated days for “Bulky Item Pickup” and people will put their stuff out early to allow for others to pick it. I’d say that only 25% of bulky items remain, and no one cares as long as you keep it clean. -
LOL it’s addictive. My first trash pick was this really nice 3 piece sectional when I first got married. We had one old couch and it was in awful shape, saw the sectional and went over it from top to bottom before I brought it in, but we had it for 5 years and it served us well. I tinker with stuff and haven’t bought lawn equipment, vacuums, lamps, bikes, etc in years now. Get a nice black light (it shows stuff like cat pee, bugs, stains that you might not see or smell), a couple pairs of gloves, a magnet and straps if you have a truck, and have fun. I’ve found some awesome stuff and made some great sales over the years. I’m quick, don’t leave a mess, wave, and if someone’s in the yard I ask first, and I’ve never had any problems.
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I got up the nerve to do some dumpster diving behind some big box stores at a local mall. I drove by them one day just to see the lay of the land. The next day I stopped and looked in. I saw about 50 brand new sealed dog chews in the Petsmart dumpster, but it was a long way down and I wasn’t ready to actually get inside. Then I found a plastic bag full of “deflated” soccer balls in the Dicks Sporting Goods dumpster which I quickly grabbed and dropped in my trunk. Later I checked them and discovered they had all been slashed so they can’t be sold. Lesson learned. Didn’t think to check for that on the spot.
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I once found a beautiful, mahogany Victorian vanity table in the dumpster at my apartment. I actually climbed into the dumpster to rescue it. That was almost 20 years ago, and I still have the vanity table in my hallway now.
I’ve gotten a lot of free things lately. I know someone who is about to sell their home and be a full-time RV family. They have given me books, towels, nice Crate & Barrel cloth napkins, plastic totes, games, so many things. I’m only half-way through scrubbing out the 50 plastic totes they gave me (!!!)
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Sell trash! Be Free!
Exactly.
…and don’t forget to peek in those random curbside boxes if they look interesting.
A couple months back I picked a box of drafting/drawing tools…protractors, calipers, etc. Mostly Starrett (might want to familiarize yourself with that name if you don’t know it). BIL’s eyes lit up when he saw them, so I lost a few. LOL Nice $$, easy shipping, and fast sellers.
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Please don’t kill me. I’m only the messenger. This youtuber comments on the dying opportunities to source/pick at thrift stores. I just discovered this youtuber. Not clickbaiting for him. His videos are very helpful. He is honest about having a profit component to his videos, but what he provides free seems very helpful to me. And he is talking about an issue I don’t often see discussed among us online resellers. Thrift stores have all but completely stopped putting anything that can be profited from by selling on ebay or amazon on their store floors. I know there are still a few thrift stores where resell-able items can be found. But nothing like ten or fifteen years ago – and it’s getting worse. Can’t blame the stores. Most have a profit motive veiled behind a veil of helping the disadvantaged. But when they close stores, in many cases it means the loss of those jobs for the handicapped they promote themselves as benefiting. They’ve probably opening more donation centers than opening stores. Here’s the video. I will not post any more from this youtuber. I only post it because I find almost no one else talking about this in forums or youtube.
Major Thrift Store Issue
This guy’s site will never replace scavengerlife. I’ve been a regular listener for five or six hears and really enjoy every episode.
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People have posted YouTubers here before. I don’t think there is any issue with doing so. Sometimes they have good points.
The issue with selling clothing has been discussed here many times before. That area is very competitive. Many here will sell only vintage or upscale brands.
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There’s lots of Youtube channels with different kinds of content fr resellers. More info the better.
Sellers have discussed here how Goodwill and other thrift stores are skimming off the quality items to sell in auctions or online. There’s also the “glass case” that many thrift stores have that highlight they’re more expensive items.
I dont think this is anything new. I think there’s so much waste being generated that there will always be plenty to scavenge. Does it make it more difficult? Sure but its not impossible. Its the free market.
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Ugh, that youtuber. Not a fan.
I clicked through that video to his youtube page. His featured video is “1 hour $1,400 thrift store haul ebay amazon big money thrift haul.” That video was posted 2 months ago, while the video linked to in this discussion was posted back in April.
Does he believe that thrift stores are bad for resellers? Or is he doing just fine with “big money” hauls and thrift stores are great?
Seriously, do not believe what people on YouTube have to say. They post contradictory information all the time in order to get views and I doubt a lot of them believe half of what they gibber on about for hours.
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The thrift bookshop I volunteer at tries to sell online, via eBay, Amazon and the national charity’s own website. However it takes so long for a volunteer* to research, value, photo and list the item that I doubt if they get more than half-a-dozen items online in a good day. Also they find it difficult to prioritise. For example, I’ve been asked to go through what looks like 3,000 mass market fiction paperbacks to sort out what can be put online. Meanwhile the “rare book” stock piles up (literally).
*not me- I’m too useful as a sack mover and sorter 🙂
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At the thrift store where I used to volunteer they used a professional eBay lister who would list high $ items on eBay for the store. The lister charged a flat fee for each item listed. The criteria was that the item had to be something that would list for over $100. I think the fee charged by the lister was $25 per item, no matter what the item sold for. I believe the lister used their personal established eBay account to do this, not an account that was tied to the thrift store.
I don’t fault the store for doing this. Sales and storage space is very limited in a thrift store and in my experience it was rare that anything would sell in the store for $100 or more, unless it was furniture. The store needed to have quick selling items on the floor- we were completely overwhelmed with donations every single day. We needed to put items out on the floor that would sell quickly and get them out the door ASAP to make space for more stuff.
Only a very small amount of items donated met the $100 or over criteria so I don’t think the practice of selling thrift store donations on eBay had much adverse effect on resellers who shopped at the store. There were still plenty of high $ items that weren’t recognized as such by the employees and volunteers, and those items were sold in the store for cheap.
Like Jay always says: there’s such an abundance of stuff in the USA – I don’t think resellers need to worry about a scarcity of things to resell.
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It is getting much harder to find stuff in thrift stores as it was say 15 years ago, but there is still so MUCH stuff that even the best watchdogs can’t spot it all or keep up with trends, so I never give up in defeat in the first 2 aisles. LOL
Here, even the local church run thrift store and a few local rummage sales now have appraisers that look stuff over before it’s put out…and sadly one has raised prices to “eBay averages” so now they throw more stuff away/donate to goodwill then they sell.
Their rummage sales used to draw huge crowds, and make good money for repairs/updates for the church with people buying and even donating extra when they found a good deal, by day 2 of the sale they wouldn’t have anything left for day 3. Now you walk into full tables even on the last day of the sale, 5 customers 30 minutes after the doors open, and complaining about the lack of sales.
I wish someone could whisper in their ears loud enough for them to hear…RESELLERS SPEND MONEY.
They make money, we make money, and the more we make the more we spend or are willing to contribute to their fund drives. Start seeing resellers as the customers we are, and stop viewing us solely as competition, there is NO shortage of stuff, we have a TON of waste, and way too much greed in what I think could be a win=win situation for us all.
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I hope that the market will work itself out. That the delusional manager realizes that to make eBay money, you have to be willing to hold onto items for longer. And that with as much stuff as they get for free, they need to keep things moving.
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“with as much stuff as they get for free, they need to keep things moving.”
Two of the thrift stores I go to (one Salvation Army, one independent local charity thrift) have finally figured this out. The Salvation Army used to be overflowing with stuff, and now that they’ve lowered prices back down, things keep moving and there’s at least 50% less stuff in the store. Which is great, b/c that means I’m not looking over the exact same stuff over and over again for months and months. The indy thrift’s new manager now has a 70% sale running almost continuously on almost everything in the store, and it’s still packed. I think it’s going to take a while for people to catch on and start coming back in to this store again, b/c prices have been high for so long.
Hopefully this reversal of the pricing trend will catch on in other places, too .
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Thinking about it, if I buy or sell at a flea market, car boot, antique fair, the items aren’t marked with prices (tried that, bad idea). So the seller has to verbally state the price, and deal with the face-to-face reaction of the punters. Keeps the prices realistic.
Thrift shops have stickered prices. Also there can be restrictions on staff and volunteers lowering prices for customers; stops family and friends getting bargains.
However, on the principle that not everybody knows everything, even in an overpriced thrift shop there’s probably going to be one or two items that are cheap for what they are.
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