ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702070008
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 BUSINESS EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
THE thrill of the hunt is what brings them back.
Finding, on a rack of ho-hum frocks, a sky-blue Dana Buchman silk slip dress for $56.
A Liz Claiborne silk pullover for $12.
A brown suit, with calf-length skirt and cropped button-up jacket, from Worth - a company so exclusive its clothes are sold only at private showings - for just $75.
And then, wonder of wonders, discovering it's the right size.
Or close enough. When you're saving $150 on a pantsuit, after all, being completely comfortable is secondary.
"There's an excitement about shopping in a consignment store because you want to hit pay dirt," said a woman grazing the racks at the Golden Shoestring, near Townside Festival shopping center in Roanoke. "It's like a game."
She won this round. Her prize: a short-sleeve, knee-length little black dress. Price: $25. She couldn't have sewed it herself for that.
"I'm a single mom and struggling," said the woman. "But we have looked as middle-class as anybody by shopping at Goodwill and consignment shops."
If you don't mind wading through racks of clothes that are almost the right color and almost the right size, it wouldn't be too hard to outfit a family in once-worn - a genteel euphemism for used - clothing. A dozen or more second-hand shops are listed in the yellow pages.
Such stores didn't used to be so plentiful, said Mary Betty Sellers, who with her partner, Toni Moore, operate the Golden Shoestring. They opened the store 20-plus years ago to sell their kids' outgrown clothes.
Back then, the valley had several thrift stores but only one other for-profit consignment shop, she said. That shop has since closed.
"I guess you could call us the grandmother of consignment stores," she said.
Consignment is just one breed of resale, but it is becoming increasingly popular. At these stores, customers bring in used clothing, which the shop displays and sells, usually for a quarter to half the retail price. The shop and the consignor share the profits, usually 50-50.
Those basics aside, there really is no "typical" consignment shop. Some are housed in space so cramped there's barely room for a few racks of clothes; a few, like Act II House of Consignment on Roanoke's Brandon Avenue, are spacious enough to sell couches and dining room sets. Many specialize in women's clothing and accessories, although more are branching into men's and kids' clothing, both in high demand.
"Each shop is totally different," said Sharon Morris, who in August opened the tiny Second Looks Consignment Boutique next to Towers Shopping Center. "The owner's taste and fashion sense and sense of adventure really show in their inventory."
Nationally, the number of consignment and thrift stores has topped 25,000, and membership in the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops has increased by 15 percent over the last several years. The Michigan-based trade group has no national sales figures, a spokeswoman said. |n n| Shopping habits have a lot to do with the growth. Traditional retailers have trained consumers to wait for sales and bargains, to never buy anything at full price. Wait a week or two, and it'll go on sale.
Even upscale shoppers who don't need to pay discount prices are in search of steals these days; witness the successes of Filene's Basement and Nordstrom Rack, the bargain-basement cousins of big-city retailers that base much of their image and panache on stocking expensive goods.
For the fashion-hungry masses who live in Southwest Virginia - where there's neither a Bloomingdale's nor an Urban Outfitters within credit card-tossing distance - consignment shops offer one-of-a-kind apparel that may have been originally purchased during New York or European vacations.
The emphasis on recycling doesn't hurt, either. For people who faithfully lug their green bins out to the curb every two weeks, recycling what they wear also makes sense.
But perhaps most important has been a change in the public perception. Thanks to exposure on national TV and the emergence of upscale boutique-style resale shops, shoppers have discovered that second-hand doesn't always mean clothing of questionable heritage sold out of dark, musty stores.
"People have become more aware, more educated to the values of resale shopping," said Jane Baldwin, who with her husband, Homer, owns Act II.
But many of them are still hesitant to let the general public in on their bargain-hunting secret. That's why most shoppers interviewed for this story wanted to remain anonymous.
"All the girls I work with know I shop consignment," said a shopper at Act II. She told them only because they know how much she makes, and they know she could never afford the clothes she wears if she shopped at full-price stores.
"But I don't really advertise it," she said.
Sellers, nodding toward a well-dressed woman who had ducked into a side room at Golden Shoestring, lowered her voice to a whisper.
"They don't want people to think they have to shop in second-hand stores," she said. "It's kind of funny."
That attitude is changing slowly, said Sellers and Baldwin, especially among younger customers and transplants from larger cities, where resale shopping is de rigueur among the urban hip.
But as long as any stigma remains, store owners guard their clients' secrecy. Sellers won't divulge who used to own the clothing on display, or who her regular shoppers are. But if a customer worries that she'll show up at a Mill Mountain Theatre fund-raiser wearing a fellow committeewoman's old duds, Sellers will tell her enough about the gown's former owner either to ease her mind or to steer her to another choice.
Many consignment shops are quite picky about the merchandise they'll take. Apparel typically has to be clean and in season, and it can't show any wear.
Baldwin said she turns down a fair amount of merchandise because it doesn't fit the store's image as an upscale boutique. That doesn't always sit well with consignors.
One woman said she recently spent $28 to dry-clean a load of clothing she wanted to sell at Act II. But Baldwin would accept only a few items, and the rest were priced, the woman thought, far too low.
Said Baldwin: "They just can't believe that everybody wouldn't love their clothes as much as they do."
Baldwin said she refers customers to other consignment stores when she doesn't have what they're looking for, or when they want to consign items she doesn't accept. Any competition that exists is between resale stores and traditional retailers, say shop owners, and not among second-hand stores themselves.
Even when the American Cancer Society's Discovery Shop, billed as an upscale thrift store, moved into Townside Festival just over a year ago, Sellers said her business wasn't hurt. If anything, traffic picked up because the new store brought more consignment shoppers into the area.
But because some charitable groups rely on sales of donated goods for income, the growth of these resale shops someday could hurt not-for-profit thrift stores.
"I really don't see a direct hit to us," said Capt. Stephen Long, commanding officer of the Roanoke Valley Salvation Army unit. "Not yet." He credits loyal donors who care more about funding the Salvation Army's programs than about getting a few dollars for an old dress.
But he doesn't deny the possibility of increased competition for second-hand goods. That's one reason the Salvation Army has begun accepting non-traditional items, including cars and boats. The organization will hold an auction of 20 vehicles in a few weeks.
"If consignment shops are opening up, we have to find some other kind of in-kind donations," Long said.
Most consignment shops are sticking to apparel and accessories, although since moving Act II from Oak Grove Plaza to the former CMT Sporting Goods Co. building in October, the Baldwins have been selling furniture as well.
But don't expect to find college-apartment eclectic. A prize piece at Act II is a stately Duncan Phyfe sofa. It is half a century old but still wearing its original, golden-yellow upholstery and priced at $1,499. Displayed behind it is an antique rose-hued camel-back sofa for $599.
Homer Baldwin said their policy for accepting furniture is the same as for clothing: "If you wouldn't give it to your best friend, we don't want it."
LENGTH: Long : 150 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. Jolina Goad examines theby CNBclothes at the Act II consignment store on Brandon Avenue Southwest.
2. Act II is one of the few consignment shops in the Roanoke Valley
that also sells furniture. 3. JANEL RHODA/Staff. Mary Betty Sellers
(left) opened the Golden Shoestring along with with her partner,
Toni Moore, over 20 years ago to sell their kids' outgrown clothes.
"I guess you could call us the grandmother of consignment stores,"
she said. 4. The store has a large selection of used shoes. color.