Savers opens its 8th Long Island thrift store amid more high-income shoppers

Savers opened its eighth Long Island store this month, as the thrift chain continues to get a sales boost from more affluent shoppers seeking bargains.

The retailer’s newest Long Island store opened Sept. 17 in Carle Place, at 260 Voice Rd. in Voice Road Plaza.

The store, which is the fourth Long Island location Savers has opened in nearly two years, occupies an approximately 22,900-square-foot space that was vacated by discount store Big Lots in 2024.

Savers' Carle Place store is among 25 locations the retailer is opening this year in the United States and elsewhere.

The retailer’s growth is being boosted by an increase in the number of shoppers from high- and low-income households that is outpacing customer growth from middle-income households, Mark T. Walsh, Savers Value Village Inc.'s CEO and president, told analysts in August during a call discussing the company’s second-quarter earnings.

"So, sort of a sandwich effect. You think about that dynamic. It's really wonderful from a universal appeal perspective. So, we're bringing in high household income, low household income, getting them in the shop," and increasing the frequency with which they shop, he said.

Savers Value Village Inc., which is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, operated 375 thrift stores in the United States, Canada and Australia as of July 4, the end of its fiscal second quarter. Savers is the largest publicly traded chain of thrift stores in the United States, where it had 185 stores as of July 4.

The company opened about 25 stores last year. Of the additional 25 it is opening this year, more than 20 will be in 11 U.S. states, Walsh told analysts.

Savers tends to open stores in areas that have a good "donor base" but also draw a cross-section of shoppers from various income levels, Jubran Tanious, president and chief operating officer of Savers, told Newsday in November.

Long Island has a high median income, but it also has a high cost of living, which is helping to drive Savers’ growth in the area, he said.

Among the four newest Long Island stores Savers has opened in about two years are a Bethpage location in November; a West Islip store in April 2025; and a Centereach store in December 2024.

In Savers’ U.S. retail, net sales increased 11.6% to $255.3 million in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, while net sales at stores open at least one year increased 6.6%.

Nationwide, the overall secondhand apparel market from 2024 to 2025 grew 13% to $55.5 billion, nearly four times faster than the broader retail clothing market, 3.6%, according to an April report by ThredUp, an online consignment and thrift retailer, and Manhattan-based market research firm GlobalData.

Secondhand retailers’ sales growth can be attributed partly to consumers’ growing concerns about the rising costs of goods, retail experts said. The growth also is being fueled by young consumers who prefer to buy unique items and who are more concerned about environmental sustainability, experts said.

Gen Z and millennial consumers will drive 71% of market growth in the secondhand market by 2030, according to the ThredUp and GlobalData report.

Savers is a for-profit business that collects donations of clothing and household goods "on behalf of local nonprofits." Those donations typically are tax-deductible, but that varies by state, according to the company.

Savers pays nonprofit partners for the items donated by the public based on the weight of the goods, and then sells the items in its stores, the company said.

For 29 years, Savers’ nonprofit partner on Long Island has been Big Brothers Big Sisters Long Island, a mentorship program for children and young adults that has offices in Islandia and Westbury.