Lessons from Thrift Shops: A Good Hype
the-read Special Covering on Marketing
I’m gonna pop some tags
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket
I, I, I’m hunting, looking for a come-up
This is fvcking awesome~Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: Thrift Shop
Remember those lines from a catchy 2014 song? The artist who wrote that tells the press later that he’s had enough of peoples’ hype on consumerism. Thus, the song articulates his feeling and campaigning on thrift shopping.
You must’ve heard about it, or maybe you are addicted to it. Yeah, thrift shopping nowadays has become more and more relevant to the Y and Z generations, and this article is the-read special covering on the basic of thrift shop itself, its hype, why it is a good hype, and some other insights (marketing insights) on the growing trend of online thrift shops, parted in this article and its ‘page two’ — you can read the ‘page two’ here: Lessons from Thrift Shops: Game Theory Adaptation.
Thrift Statistics
Thrift shopping nowadays becoming more and more relevant. Through my own observations from 2014–2019, I saw a growing demand for thrift shopping, especially in the latest generations. But if you don’t believe me and kind of a stat nerd, here are some stats from the US Census Bureau and BPS (Central Statistical Bureau) of Indonesia:
“Goodwill Industries alone generated $5.9 billion in retail sales from more than 3,000 Not For Profit resale stores and online sales in 2017.”
“According to America’s Research Group, a consumer research firm, about 16–18% of Americans will shop at a thrift store during the given year (2019). For consignment/resale shops, it’s about 12–15%. To keep these figures in perspective, consider that during the same time frame; 11.4% of Americans shop in factory outlet malls, 19.6% in apparel stores and 21.3% in major department stores.”
“By the end of 2020, Indonesia imported used fashion products, clothes scraps and rugs for $ 41.6 million, equals to 6,5 million tons, compared to $15.0 million in 2019, its almost a 300% spike in just one year.
Prologue: Fashion Industry
Nonetheless, thrift shopping is just a tiny fraction of the fashion industry worldwide (about 3%), the case goes the same or scripted in a bit different way as for most developing countries, this industry accounts for 3% to 10% of the fashion industry, for African countries the stat may go up to 30%.
But we need to take a step back, just one or two feet, to discuss a fraction — a tiny fraction — relevant information of the fashion industry that in order for better understanding in this thrift shop things,
Fashion in A Nutshell
Fashion style is the person itself in a nutshell. This is my own definition but I believe that many will find it true, as we can easily label someone ‘jamet (metalhead posers, I can’t find a proper word for this, sorry) or ‘cool’ based on their looks, their fashion style in specific. Now I'm not a fashion expert or something so I wouldn't revolve the discussion on any topic in that industry other than the hypes. What hype are you may ask? Here’s a simple recap of what it is…
The Hypebeast Facade
Remember when there are Supreme knockoffs everywhere from 2015 to 2018? These knockoffs are the byproduct of the hype of streetwear itself; an everyday outfit style, a casual one, that gained traction through various clever marketing around 2010' (even the streetwear trend starts in early 2000) thus resulting in a hype, people waited in line, for KILOMETERS, blocks and blocks of people camping & waiting, just to get a pair of shoes, t-shirts, keychains, crowbars, and even a brick, red-clay bricks; all slapped with the famous Supreme logo, I mean, people are craze about these Supreme or Vetements, or Stussy, or Off-White, Vans, or any kind of streetwear things.
The craze of the streetwear however, comes at a cost — which somehow benefitted streetwear brands —you see, these brands don't mass-produce all of their products (its part of the clever marketing that they’re doing), for example, those bricks that Supreme sells are limited (no one ever built a house with it), they sold it for $30 a piece in retail price, and it march up to $300 in secondary market, for a piece of brick, the same goes for other collaboration products they made with artists or public figures.
And it somehow defies the very idea of the streetwear itself, wearing an original streetwear brand becoming a ‘status’ among its wearer, “Berapa harga outfit lo? — How much your outfit costs you?” is what in minds when we talked about these hypebeasts in Indonesia, quite contrary to the concept of what streetwear used to be; a casual attire as a substitute of mainstream fashion products that's affordable for skaters and surfers.
Fast Fashions
Is the product of Bangladeshi sweat, western capitalism, good branding and consumerism. The hype for this type of subsequent fashion also builds up around 2010 to present, although — or should I say, because of — the idea of fast fashion started from two simple premises; [1] To mass-produce what Balenciaga or Gucci or YSL (Yves Saint Laurent, spelled in Indonesian; ives songt leuhrong, can’t stress enough on this 😅) or whatever designers product, [2] and sell it unfathomably cheap — compared to the original — with a bit of modification so they didn’t become knockoffs.
These premises, combined with again, some clever marketing are resulting in; [1] A subsequent industry of fashion that worth $36 billion in 2019, [2] A Contribution to 10% of human carbon emissions on the Planet, [3] Providing you a good look with significantly fewer costs than it supposed to.
I got a mixed-up feeling for this hype because obviously, although the fast-fashion trend is efficient and providing consumers with lots of good deals, the impact is so pestiferous, and the industry itself hardly shut down — meaning that the industry have a solid product market fit with huge demand, and its still growing — its hardly shut down, if one person or even one million person stops buying it (one million may change them though, maybe, a bit).
A Good Type of Hype
These three things; Thrift Shops, Preloved, Sustainable Culture, becoming more and more catchy to younger generations in recent years, thanks to the complex supporting ecosystem that built around it over the years, including the Covid19 and online shopping. Actually, I got to say that this concept of thrift shopping is good, it really is good because it preserves and provides a lot of things, to name a few of them;
[1] Reducing global waste in the fashion industry by extending clothes lifespan, or fully using it, making it some kind of sustainable culture application in its tiniest form.
[2] Preserving the value (materially and immaterially) of the brands, it controls you to buying knockoffs like Supreme Magelang, (although it is possible for you to buy one, but really, are you going to buy a used knockoff?). Thrift Shopping is kind of ‘getting a branded clothes in a reasonable price with good manner’.
[3] Reducing the bias on consumers spending in basic needs, clothing is essentially human basic needs, good marketing and consumerism drives people to buy it irrationally, often ends up being a conspicuous consumption, like those crowbar-buyer hypebeasts (Even though I am a fan of consumerism, in a way that it drives innovation and economic cycle, but sometimes it’s just too much and hurting a lot in an ‘unintentional-way’, I may cover this view on some of my articles).
Pops Some Tags, Online
Recent trajectory in thrift shopping culture is a unique event that worth examining. The way that latest generations craze and hype over it has something to do with the readiness of online shopping infrastructure. So in this section, I will try to explore the reasons why thrift shopping (especially online) flourished among the younger generations.
Conditions:
[1] Flea Market Full of ‘Fleas’. Indonesian don’t have Goodwills or any kind of major vintage/thrift shops, with the proper display, lighting, or even airflow. Thrift shopping in Indonesia is mostly taken place in a flea market.
But flea markets full of ‘fleas’ — its a metaphor by the way — means that sometimes people are reluctant or discouraged to do thrift shopping due to peoples’ prejudice on flea market; frowsty-dusty air, dimmed lights, cramped place, which unfortunately, in the case of Indonesia, most of it are true.
One of my best friends even describes it as a place to contemplate about poverty because it basically its the place where poor people selling things to other poor people, not to mention the extra attention to avoid theft on personal belongings and ‘zonks’, (zonks = not realizing the defects and flaws of the product since its a used product bought on a low-light, cramped flea market).
[2] Social Media as a Marketing Channel. As explained before, offline thrift shopping also offers bad experiences, but it changed drastically when it comes to online thrift shopping, here's why…
Sellers adopting major brands’ way of presenting products.
Their photos are well-presented, with a mix and match that appeals to the buyers’ creativity, one that brick and mortar thrift shops aren’t willing to do, which also complementary with basic marketing strategies that they impose; price discounts, bundling.
These things caught the attention of potential buyers, poised as a new way to look at thrift shop products which are; inexpensive and attractive, (if you can mix and match it well), it’s almost like bringing the good of thrift shopping offers minus all the ‘flea’ factors.
[3] Matured Online Shopping Ecosystem. multichannel payment system; COD, e-wallet, bank transfers. The adoption of mainstream online marketplace (in Indonesia) such as Shopee, Tokopedia, Bukalapak. The impact of comments and reviews, forcing online thrift shops selling to always maintain consumer trust, even including defects in the product description is a must (contrary to the offline thrift shops that oftentimes hide their products' defects in order to sell it), all of these are the effect of the adoption of matured online shopping ecosystem, enchanting right?
[4] Perfect Competition Market, Somehow (This point should recall your economics 101 lessons from high school). Most products that we use on a daily basis are FMCG products (fast-moving consumer goods). FMCGs are in a monopolistic market, in fact, a lot of goods that we consume today are monopolistic.
What does it mean? It means that there are too many buyers and sellers that sellers have to ‘differs’ their product on something, even though the products serve the same purposes. In a nutshell: A shampoo is essentially a shampoo whether it is P&G’s or Sunsilk’s or TRESemme’s, therefore they differentiate it through some kind of branding, prepositions, etc-etc.
But online thrift shop products are different. They are basically random-imported-used-clothes — oftentimes bought in ‘bal’ (a sack contains hundreds of kilograms) so sellers can’t exactly tell themselves what’s in it, whether it contains a lot of original branded clothes or not, what color the products is, etc. Thus, the only differentiation would be the grade that the sack owned, whether it is grade A, B, C, etc.
So to differentiate based on the ‘brands’ let say; Adidas, or Gucci, would be inefficient and exhausting. Sellers’ branding themselves also would be redundant, someone can, for example, open a thrift shop called Silksun while his/her competitor named his’/her’s as G&P, but the fact that their brand shared the fundamental randomness of the product itself, making it hard to place your product prepositions except through the mix and match of any marketing efforts.
In sum; the product itself viewed as a broader ‘preloved or thrift shops products’ making it a perfect competition market with nothing to differentiate the products of seller A and seller B. This makes them (sellers) choose to cooperate with each other rather than competing. which is a fascinating thing to tell, I cover the analysis of this phenomenon in the next article of Lessons from Thrift Shops: Game Theory.
[5] Scarcity. Another thing to consider is that the nature of the product itself, which is limited. You may find it hard to buy the exact same Nike sweater on thrift shops unless it’s a twin’s sweater that somehow ended up in that exact seller or a factory rejects, but the possibility is so petite! Its obviously not an outlet of Nike, nor producing clothes, it's just selling all kind of clothes from all part of the world with all brands mixed in.
Results:
The section opened with the quest of “Why thrift shopping thrive amongst latest generations”, these conditions explained above make up a simple conclusion, which is:
Good shopping experience. to derive it accordingly on how:
[1] The matured online shopping ecosystem provide consumers convenience when it comes to payment and reliability of the sellers,
[2] ‘No flea’, as explained before.
[3] Hype; the game theory, the scarcity, the appealing presentation of preloved/used clothes build up the thrift-shopping hype, along with other factors that explained before (reducing global waste, preserving value, etc), to do something that others do, be a part of a hype (especially a perceived ‘good hypes like this or climate causes things), creates a good impression on latest generations, which often described of the generations of FOMO (fear of missing out).
[4] Affordable yet appealing, don't forget about this too!
[5] Combined with other things explained on the ‘page two’ of this article, Lessons from Thrift Shops: Game Theory.
Epilogue: Yay for More Insights!
The full examination of this topic would require you a lot of reading — to be true, I planned to write on this topic in one article, but it’s too lengthy so that I decided to split it into two parts. Those who are interested in a more in-depth analysis on a specific marketing strategy that these online thrift shops — or rather the market itself, are welcomed to extend their reading to the ‘page two’ of this article; Lessons from Thrift Shops: Game Theory Marketing.
Another good material for further reading would be the McKinsey Global Report on the fashion industry: The State of Fashion 2020. I believe a lot of my analysis aligns with the factsheets and insights included in that report.
Happy reading! 🤟🤟🤟🤟
