Consignment shops are stores where people can bring in their used items (typically clothing and accessories) and let the dealer (the store) sell them. The dealer (the consignment shop) will then price the items and put them in the store for buyers to browse and purchase. The longer the items remain in the store, the lower the price becomes.  After a certain amount of time, if the items are not purchased, they are returned to the original owner and no compensation is given.  If the item is sold, a percentage goes to the owner and a percentage goes to the consignment shop.

The difference between a Thrift Store and a Consignment shop is that in a thrift store, the items are donated to the store to sell to turn a profit; or the thrift store might purchase items at very low cost and then turn around to sell them at higher prices.

Benefits for Consignment Shops during a Recession

Consignment shops do great business when consumers are feeling the strains of a poor economy.  More people are watching their spending and will visit consignment shops before shopping more expensive stores.  Additionally, consignment shops don’t need to shell out money for inventory since people provide the items in hopes of receiving a percentage of the sales if their items are purchased by someone browsing the store.

Benefits for Sellers

Having yardsales and garage sales are time consuming.  Many people prefer to simply drop off their used and no longer needed items to a consignment store and let someone else deal with the actual sales transactions.  They don’t have to sit around and wait for people to come in, and hope that someone buys their items.  They can just drop it off and the store will take care of the rest.

Benefits for Buyers

When times are tight financially, people look for ways to reduce their expenses.  After you’ve turned out the lights you’re not using, replaced the ones you are with compact energy efficient lightbulbs and turned your heat down – where else can you save some money to help stretch your income?

Consignment stores give people a way to still get something new, but without breaking the bank or going outside of their budget. When you need something, many times you don’t necessarily need to buy it brand new so it makes sense to pay less money for the items you need at a consignment store.

Tags: consignment stores, thrift stores

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 5:39 pm and is filed under reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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