Secondhand Success

Andrea Marden regularly detours to her sister’s house after a gratuitous shopping trip to hide purchases from her husband.

The rustic birdcage for the pet she isn’t planning to get, the antique chair (that, a year later, still sits in her sun room with fabric waiting to be refurbished) and the Django and Juliette heels that she insists were ‘practically given to her’.

Undoubtedly, there are many secret spenders in the same boat as Andrea, however, this clever cookie has discovered the trick to convincing her husband that she had, in fact, had that pair of Moochi pants in her wardrobe all along.

Andrea is a self-proclaimed, secondhand shopaholic. Her last visit – two days ago.

The building consultancy company administrator says 30 percent of her wardrobe is pre-loved and every two to three weeks she’ll visit her favourite Hamilton haggle hideaway, Remains to be Scene, to see what’s new. Her husband mustn’t be pleased with the fact that she works next door to McElwain’s Auctions, too, which she visits weekly.

Andrea says shopping secondhand is the perfect option for buying exclusive designer goods without the price tag that often goes with it.

“My budget doesn’t really stretch and [secondhand shopping] allows me to get good quality things without having to pay big prices.”

Andrea also promotes the fact that her method of shopping is environmentally friendly.

“Rather than everything going into a landfill somewhere, it’s better that we make use of something that someone else may not need.”

The tough economic times of months passed have seen a heavy influx of keen bargain hunters like Andrea finding a bounty of bargains at secondhand shops throughout the country.

Selling clothes and shopping for clothes at secondhand shops is not unlike raiding a friend's closet. The clothes are often no more than a year old, clean and in good condition. The stigma that thrift stores are filled with mothball stung shoulder pads is quickly dissolving as shop owners choose quality over quantity.

Although major retailers like The Warehouse, Pumpkin Patch and Fisher and Paykel are reeling from slumping sales, secondhand stores throughout the country are capitalising on this shift to frugality, proving that the disadvantaged economy is a big advantage for secondhand and thrift stores.

“I can honestly say the recession has helped me,” says Lorraine Ward, owner of the iconic Second Trends store in Fitzroy, New Plymouth.

“More and more people have been coming to me for selling and buying clothes; either to get a little bit of cash to help them out or to buy some nice clothes at reasonable prices.”

For years, gift recipients have enlisted their local secondhand dealer to give superfluous summer dresses, foot spas and singing fish to more deserving homes.

Cindy King of Inside Out in Dunedin says her customers are predominately students who are discovering that you can resell your clothing and get a return for it. Cindy has owned Inside Out for over 10 years and opened a second store in Palmerston nine months ago. Driving past the empty shops of Mornington, Dunedin, Cindy is also now contemplating opening a third store saying there is definitely a need for recycled clothing, especially with Dunedin being a student town.

“With the economy the way it’s been, people are definitely thinking to recycle and why wouldn’t they? There are some amazing things to be found – different styles, colours and fabrics. Recycled clothing is in vogue.

“And it’s pretty exciting when someone asks where you got an item of clothing and you tell them. People have started to realise you can dress beautifully for a fraction of the price.”

However, with 18 years experience in the industry, Marie Turtle of Portrush Antiques in Wakefield, Nelson says the entire trend of the business of selling on behalf of has changed.

“When I first started, the retro, seventies items had interest but not to the same degree that they have today.

“We didn’t have The Warehouse for a start,” she explains. “I could sell pots and pans and furniture very easily because they were good quality. Then these chain stores popped up around the place; bringing a lot of cheap, poorly made home wares. People would come to me and ask if I would buy them after they found out they were no good but I had to turn them away because it was rubbish.”

Along with the chain stores, Marie says a myriad of other new enterprises have made business harder for the humble secondhand trader.

“When I first started, people didn’t have a clue and then a magazine came out called Collectable Trader and I knew it was going to make our business harder. All of a sudden, people knew exactly what their items were worth. Not that I was trying to rip my customers off but they would want the prices that were in the magazine which was retail and I could only give wholesale prices in order to make a living.”

Most notably, Marie says the advent of Trade Me has proved a double-edged sword for secondhand dealers.

“On the one hand, people are learning they can sell items themselves, making the need for secondhand stores obsolete. On the other hand, store owners are using the net to buy and sell items themselves.”

Lorraine Ward often uses Trade Me to sell items her customers have bought online that don’t fit. Furthermore, if she has an item she feels wouldn’t be of interest to her local customers, she lists it online to increase the chance of a sale.

Trade Me is one of New Zealand's most trafficked sites, with well over one million unique browsers visiting the site, on average five times each week.

Browsers like Andrea (who describes her relationship with Trade Me as “intimate”) visit the site weekly and search their favourite designers in the quest to nab a bargain.

But Debbie Stirling, owner of Finders Keepers in Napier says there are a lot people in the industry who go red in the face when you talk about Trade Me.

“There are people who have been in the business for a very long time and they’re used to selling a Royal Dalton Trio for $65 and now they’re lucky to get $25 for it because the average Joe is trading that stuff online. As most of them aren’t computer savvy, they haven’t set themselves up to compete with it and a lot of them are shutting down.”

However, Debbie does not believe the internet will ever make antique stores obsolete.

“People who slam on the brakes when they see an antique store sign are tactile. They want to see it, they want to touch it, they fall in love with it and think ‘I’ve got to have that’. I can’t imagine myself buying my antiques all online. I love going into a shop where you get a sense of history about the item.”

You’d probably be lying if you said finding a Chanel bag in a bargain bin doesn’t give you the goose bumps but if you’re still not convinced pre-loved can be just as good, a couple of budding internet entrepreneurs have created another alternative.

www.iSwish.co.nz founders Victoria Penney and Karin Sjosten believe their service is the ultimate way of updating your wardrobe with designer brands and quality items without forking out for new clothes.

“We may be reluctant to admit it, but many of us, me included, are guilty of buying too much,” says Karin. “My wardrobe is bursting full of clothes and accessories that I don’t wear. Some have never been worn thanks to impulse buys and unloved gifts! Our site is the place where people swap fashionable items they have lost interest in wearing but would be proud to pass on to others.”

Using their unique ‘mirror match’, the Auckland-based pair are helping connect people by finding their ‘body doubles’ throughout New Zealand.

The idea for the ‘mirror match’ function came about when Vicky, who is a 5’6” hourglass and wears a size 12 tried to swap clothes with Karin, who also wears a size 12 but is a 6’1” column shape.

“Mirror match gets around this age-old problem by giving iSwish members the opportunity to, in-confidence, provide more detailed body measurements,” Vicky says. “These are used to create networks of ‘mirror matched’ people with similar body sizes for easy one-to-one clothes swapping.”

So remember, next time funds are low and that dreaded ‘nothing to wear’ feeling arises, think of the abundance of options available to you. Finding a diamond in the rough is easy. You just need to know where to look.

www.secondtrends.co.nz
www.finderskeepers.co.nz
www.iswish.co.nz