Resale Shops Help Dress Kids for Less

Kathy Williamson rifled through racks of pint-sized parkas while her 2 1/2-year-old son, Tyler, banged out an unintelligible tune on a toy piano.

“We’re going to Yosemite,” explained the El Toro mother. “So we came to look for snow clothes.”

Instead of going to a department store, Williamson went to Kid’s Things in Mission Viejo, one of Orange County’s growing number of consignment and resale shops that sell secondhand clothes for children.

For parents of small children, buying hand-me-downs makes sense. They can outfit their offspring for a fraction of what they’d pay in a retail store and sell back to the store the clothes their children outgrow.

“Kids’ clothes can cost as much as adults’ clothes,” said Kay Willcuts, owner of Kid’s Things. “This is a way of dressing your children well for less.”

Williamson, for example, found a blue snowsuit for Tyler that cost $22, the kind retailers sell for up to $100--even in toddlers’ sizes. When she gets back from Yosemite, she can take the snowsuit back to the store to be resold, and she’ll get half of the proceeds.

Kid’s Things is crammed with tiny terry-cloth sleepers, dresses, overalls, jeans and jackets, some of which look new.

“A lot of things haven’t been worn or they’ve been worn only once,” Willcuts said.

Young children outgrow their clothes so fast that the outfits commonly get little wear.

“Sometimes relatives give them things, and they don’t know their size,” Willcuts said. Over-indulgent grandparents will shower newborns with more sleepers than they can possibly wear.

Someone recently brought in an expensive red wool coat with a black velvet collar, gold buttons and a matching cap that looked like new. Willcuts put a $50 price tag on it. A wool coat gets little wear in Orange County, she said, but it’s perfect for a little girl visiting her grandmother back East for Christmas.

At Children’s Orchard, a resale boutique in El Toro, a mother of two small girls recently delivered three crates overflowing with dresses--most in mint condition.

“Sometimes you can almost see the children grow up” by what their parents bring in, said owner Norma Towle.

Yolanda Alinaya, with her howling 6-week-old, Matthew, and his 12-year-old brother, Eric, in tow, found a red Santa Claus sleeper for Matthew at Children’s Orchard for $3.50. She’d seen a similar sleeper at a discount store for $12.99.

“That’s too much money for something he’ll wear one day,” she said.

Secondhand shops usually have plenty of holiday clothes, particularly party dresses worn only once. Children’s Orchard carried a red velvet dress for a 6-month-old girl for $8.50 and a cranberry-colored velvet and lace dress in size 3 for $9.50.

Most used children’s clothing sells for under $10. At Kid’s Things, a fuzzy pink sleeper with built-in feet sold for $3.50, a yellow plastic raincoat for $5 and green velvet overalls with matching top--perfect for a baby boy on Christmas Day--for $8.

Secondhand garments sell for about 25% to 50% of their original retail price.

Children’s Carousel, a consignment store in San Juan Capistrano, recently carried a green cotton dress with a white eyelet collar by Malley & Co. for $40. That sounds steep, but an upscale department store sold the same dress for $100.

“We get anything from Neiman Marcus to Penney’s, and a lot of handmade clothes,” said Dee Lorenz, owner of Children’s Carousel.

The better items sell quickly, and wise shoppers check stores regularly for new arrivals. Kid’s Things takes in 50 to 500 garments a day. Merchandise changes all the time.

Joan Doran of El Toro periodically rounds up stacks of clothes from her friends and daughter-in-law to sell at Kid’s Things. On her last visit, she brought in 20 dresses and tops and could easily make $50.

“This is the way to go,” Doran said.

Consignment stores sell the merchandise, then return a share of the proceeds (usually 40% to 50%) to the seller. Clothes that don’t move after 90 to 120 days can be returned or donated to charity.

Most children’s boutiques don’t accept clothes larger than size 6X.

“After that, kids become more fashion-conscious and the clothes get real trendy,” Willcuts said. Bigger children also tend to be harder on their clothes.

Those selling their children’s hand-me-downs quickly discover that the adorable velvet frock they paid $70 for at a retail shop might bring them only $10 or $20 from a second-hand store.

Most sellers, however, happily take what they can get on clothes they would otherwise have given away.

Leslie Warner of Trabuco Canyon allows her two boys, Kyle, 4 1/2, and Kevin, 2 1/2, to pick out old clothes from their closets they want to sell, then lets them decide how to spend their earnings.

“You guys got money!” she told them as she picked up a check for $19 at Kid’s Things. As more parents catch on to the benefits of recycling children’s clothes, secondhand boutiques have lost their “stigma,” Towle said.

“For the longest time people thought of resale as the Salvation Army or the Goodwill,” she said.

Lorenz said that when tourists discover that her quaint San Juan Capistrano shop sells used clothing, they “sometimes get offended. But the locals never do--that’s what they’re looking for.”

Shop owners carefully cultivate a boutique atmosphere. Children’s Orchard, a national chain based in Newburyport, Mass., decorates its stores with white latticework. The franchise has expanded to 45 stores, including one in Fountain Valley and another that opened Saturday in Laguna Niguel.

The shops are popping up all over. Kid’s Things opened a year ago just down the street from Children’s Exchange, another consignment shop.

“It’s definitely a trend,” Towle said. “People have a real need for affordable children’s clothing.”