Cheap goes chichi
There’s something so cleansing about unloading a pile of worn jeans, shrunken T-shirts and beat-up leather jackets at a Goodwill store. Once relieved of those closet-cloggers, you might feel unburdened enough to browse, and with any luck you’ll find some broken-in jeans, retro shirts and distressed leather jackets.
Thrift stores, the final resting place for old stuff, were once dingy, depressing depots frequented by intrepid hunters of cool who took pride in having the fortitude to ignore eau de mildew, or shoppers whose priorities didn’t include style. That was before clothing that wasn’t new acquired some fancy new names, before it was called vintage, pre-owned, gently used or recycled -- and before Goodwill mounted a slick new marketing campaign.
In a series of radio and newspaper ads that have been running since the beginning of the year, Goodwill has recast its image to reach the shopper whose idea of thrift stores hasn’t been updated since the first time bell bottoms were hot. The nonprofit is after anyone whose desire for clothes exceeds his or her budget, and attributes double-digit sales increases to the campaign. “The primary goal of the ads is to establish Goodwill Stores as a destination of choice, rather than one of need,” Mike Navarro says.
Executives of Goodwill of Southern California came to his West Los Angeles ad agency, J.R. Navarro & Associates, a year ago seeking to make businesses aware of the charity as a source of trained workers, an effort that was accomplished with radio spots. Navarro had access to consumer studies Goodwill had conducted, including some that examined the public’s perceptions of its thrift stores. “From the research, it was clear that people thought the stores were shabby and filled with merchandise that wasn’t desirable,” says John Navarro, who works with his uncle. “When we visited them, we saw that wasn’t the case.”
The younger Navarro lives in Los Feliz, near the striking glass-and-steel building Goodwill commissioned and built three years ago on a lot formerly occupied by a car dealership. Light floods the roomy, high-ceilinged store, where clothes and the domestic succotash familiar to any garage sale devotee are well organized and clearly marked. Women’s overalls occupy two round racks. Men’s exercise pants hang separately from jeans and dress trousers, and every clothing category is arranged by color and size. Late on a weekday afternoon, a man in his 20s carried a campy framed B-movie poster to the cashier. It might have been a reproduction, but for $5.99, who cares? “My friends shop there for jeans, shirts and work boots,” Navarro says.
After the ads aimed at businesses were in play, the agency suggested that Goodwill could retool its image and attract new buyers if it produced print ads that looked as good as the stores did. In the new series of ads Navarro created, a multiethnic cast of fresh-scrubbed, regular folks tout the bargains Goodwill offers. “The people in the ads are intended to look like someone you’d like to know,” Mike Navarro says. “These are nice people, and they give the message that nice people shop at this place.... Essentially, Goodwill is a fashion store. The clothes are used, but they’re selling fashion, so that’s what we wanted to communicate.”
“Come to where the VALUE is!” shouts a newspaper ad that appeared recently. A smiling blond model poses in a stylish straight skirt and sleeveless top, but her wholesome appearance is more striking than anything she wears. There’s a woman anyone could bring home to mother, a past-perfect homecoming queen still in her prime. Twice a month, the model, headline and featured item in the ads change -- from men’s short-sleeved shirts priced at $2.99 to women’s blouses for $4.99. At the bottom, the addresses of Goodwill’s 42 stores in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are listed. (By contrast, there are 82 Salvation Army stores in L.A., Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation operates 16 Out of the Closet thrift stores in Southern California.)
“When you see how many Goodwill stores there are, it suggests a bigger entity than most people knew existed,” Mike Navarro says. “What we’re saying is, it isn’t just a little thrift shop around the corner. It’s part of a bigger entity. Bigness suggests success, success suggests that it’s a desirable place where you’d want to go.”
Goodwill has expanded steadily, opening 13 local stores in the last four years. Revenue from goods donated to the 1,900 stores in the United States, Canada and 22 other countries was $1.2 billion last year. The Los Feliz location on Hollywood Boulevard is a standout, but systematic makeovers of the whole chain began nine years ago, when Tracy Powers became director of retail operations. An experienced merchandiser who’d held the same position in Boston, Powers’ goal was for the nonprofit thrift stores to be indistinguishable from profit-making businesses.
He brought in experienced workers, including Peter Duda, the current director of retail. “Two-thirds of our business is women’s apparel,” Duda says. “Our predominant buyer is a woman with children who’s looking for something attractive but inexpensive. They tell us they couldn’t afford to dress the way they do if they had to shop in regular stores. We’ve found that we don’t need to locate our stores in impoverished areas. We do better in more mixed areas.”
But not every neighborhood welcomes a Goodwill, and resistance is strongest among those who fear that thrift stores mark an area as a low-rent district. “We wanted to open a new store in Whittier,” Duda says. “The word got out that Goodwill would be moving into the central city. The City Council objected and kept us out. They were afraid we’d be detrimental to the community, but when we’re in an area that’s sophisticated, like West L.A., we get people who donate and those who buy. People often tell us that they do both -- they come to drop things off and wind up buying something. I guess they believe in the process of recycling.”
For every teenager who craves celebrity-sanctioned labels, there’s another adolescent in revolt against consumerism. Cameron Shaw has been shopping at thrift stores since she was a junior high student at the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. Now 22 and a graduate of Yale, she is driven by a combination of creativity and economy. “When I buy things at thrift stores,” she says, “I can afford to play with fashion in a way that I couldn’t if I were buying at a regular store. I’ll see a picture in Elle magazine of an outfit that costs $10,000. I certainly don’t have that kind of disposable income, but I can go to Goodwill or the Salvation Army and find a blazer, a nightgown and a piece of old costume jewelry and create the same kind of look.”
A tall, lanky size 2, Shaw has had good luck finding children’s T-shirts at Goodwill. Her favorites feature the names of day-care centers and preschools. “In a funny way, I feel shopping at thrift stores is something to be proud of.... It’s neat when you get a compliment on something you paid 50 cents for.”
Shaw’s best friend from high school is a dedicated thrift store shopper too. She found a pair of Charles Jourdan silver pumps in Shaw’s size at a Goodwill in Hawaii. “They’d never been worn,” Shaw says
Goodwill spiffed up its stores in time to benefit from several cultural shifts. The spectacular success of EBay and other online auction sites and television shows such as PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow” have made millions of packrats aware that dross can be gold. Vintage clothing devotees have long known that, and their ranks have been joined by more true believers. “We have a large group of dealers who buy in our stores and then resell,” Duda says. “There are people who specialize in just tennis shoes, or T-shirts. It’s surprising how many foreign tourists shop our stores, because they’re looking for something retro.”
The passion for vintage has not been an unmitigated boon for Goodwill. Some people who might have donated in the past are now more interested in collecting cash for their old clothes. But while there is certainly more 5-year-old Jones New York to be found in thrift stores than classic Chanel, surprises happen. Since 1999 Goodwill has operated an Internet auction site, www.shopgoodwill.com. Store managers from throughout the country channel the most collectible donations to the website.
Since it was founded in 1916, Goodwill’s mission has been consistent: The profits from its stores finance education, training and work experience for people with disabilities. Although the organization helps many people with physical handicaps become self-sufficient, Goodwill’s current definition of “vocational disadvantages” recognizes illiteracy, homelessness, long-term welfare dependency, substance abuse and former gang involvement as well. In a radio ad that details “tremendous bargains,” the announcer ends with the reminder that “the big winner in all of this is you, because when you shop at Goodwill you don’t just help others, you help yourself.”
No one knows what part of an appeal directed at self-interest and altruism hits a mark. It’s doubtful that a shopper who finds an authentic souvenir T-shirt from AC-DC’s “Back in Black” tour hidden in a rack of old Gap tees is motivated by helping the disadvantaged, but why not?
