Goodwill Online Retail Shop Also Offers Luxury Brands Like Gucci and Prada
It’s been a long time coming, but Goodwill, the 120-year-old non-profit organization, has finally launched an online shopping site, bringing with it an initial inventory of 100,000 donated items available for purchase.
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GoodwillFinds was launched on Oct. 4 and offers browsing by category rather than by square-foot section in one of its 3,300 stores in the U.S. and Canada. GoodwillFinds will list items commonly found in its stores — like clothing, electronics, books and Halloween deco and costumes — but the enterprise is looking to compete with resale sites like Poshmark and TheRealReal by stocking higher end items like Gucci bags ad Prada shoes, Bloomberg reported.
The company will eventually accept donations directly from the public, but for the time being, it will be up to store workers to deem which items will be more desirable to online shoppers and which will stay for sale in-store. The company wants to stock over 1 million products in a few years time, according to Associated Press.
GoodwillFinds has expanded its parent corporation’s second-hand marketplace greatly by modernizing the Goodwill resale shopping experience. Previously, Goodwill’s online presence was restricted to a few independent wired storefronts and selling through third-party vendors like Amazon and eBay.
The venture comes at the perfect time, as the current surge in popularity for second-hand store shopping is coinciding with consumers wanting to stretch their dollars during this seemingly endless period of high inflation. Couple that with a change in spending patterns stemming from the pandemic and you have a “recommerce” market that is booming and expected to grow exponentially over the next few years.
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An August report by OfferUp claimed that 272 million Americans buy and sell at recommerce outlets. It is expected that the recommerce markets will reach a revenue of $187 billion this year — and $289 billion by 2027. With close to a 15% rate of growth in 2021, recommerce is outdoing traditional “new” retail, according to CNBC.
Goodwill stores are magnets for treasure hunters and product flippers, but the shops also provide a much-needed alternative for those living in low-income communities who cannot afford to shop for new items in-store or online. Goodwill stores raise awareness and aid for the communities in which they are located and that is something that will continue with GoodwillFinds. Sales proceeds from GoodwillFinds will benefit local programs for workforce development and job training in the communities from which the items were initially sourced.
This multi-win situation — selling in a much larger market and the opportunity to push Goodwill’s principles — is what excites newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of GoodwillFinds Matthew A. Kaness.
“Our new social enterprise makes it easier for the conscious consumer to shop sustainably online while heightening the thrifting experience they’ve come to love at Goodwill,” said Kaness in a press announcement.
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“I’m confident that this venture will accelerate Goodwill’s mission of transforming lives through the dignity of work, raise awareness of the immense sustainability impact of thrifting at Goodwill, and increase net donations to each Goodwill region. Good for the consumer, good for local communities, good for society and the planet,” Kaness added.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Goodwill Online Retail Shop Also Offers Luxury Brands Like Gucci and Prada
