A friend and I are thinking of starting a new thrift shop. I was wondering what type of ideas should we consider first in this venture.
Overhead, store space, location and inventory.
What are the most important things in starting this type of business and it's longevity

These are my ideas I have for if I ever start a second hand store.

1. Make sure you have plenty of parking space. There are about 3 second hand stores that I love but I can't ever go to because there is absolutely nowhere to park and they have at least 80 parking spaces.
2. If you can get a large enough place (like the country)with a large open area you could maybe even have flea markets. I have other ideas if you had enough space.
3. Advertise: UPS, Kinko's and other places will do a color flyer for about 35 cents color copy or 10 cents black & white. They might even go cheaper by the 100. Include specials & coupons and that you are accepting donations
4. Have coupons for people who donate. Maybe even have a discount card the more they donate and/or spend the more discount they can accumulate.
5. Have a section for things like baby car seats, bike helmets and blankets that you can give to new mothers, kids with bikes and homeless. If you don't know anyone that could benefit from these things donate them to a pro life organization and homeless shelters.

6. This is what I would love to do if I could ever start my own.
I would like to have a barter system for poorer people and
Even have a bulletin board or flyer for them so that they could advertise that they will cleaning, babysitting, jitney, cooking, baking, yard work, painting and misc odd jobs, etc...
But make sure if you were to do something like that that you include a disclaimer that you are not responsible for anything but trying to provide a community service to help benefit others.

7. Hire me since I doubt I will ever have enough money to start my own.


Sorry I can't help with the other stuff.

You also might want to check out the links to questions on the bottom of this page to questions that have been similar to yours.

Very old and archived thread that has been sufficiently answered and also to which the original poster has never returned to respond.

Thread is now CLOSED.