Thrift store chain Savers growing on Long Island, drawing more 'affluent' shoppers

Secondhand is getting a second look.

Thrift store chain Savers, whose seven stores on Long Island include three that have opened since December, is pulling more affluent shoppers seeking bargains, the company said.

It's a national trend, as secondhand retailers are attracting more consumers who might not have considered buying used goods a few years ago, industry experts said.

"In general, I think consumers are prioritizing affordability and sustainability. And you know, secondhand retail sits right at that intersection. People are looking to stretch their dollars, but they don’t want to compromise on quality, and so ... secondhand satisfies both of those things, right?" said Jubran Tanious, president and chief operating officer of Savers Value Village Inc., which is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.

Savers, which has more than 360 stores in North America and Australia, is the largest publicly traded chain of thrift stores in the United States, where the retailer had 176 stores as of Sept. 27.

Savers will have opened 25 new stores by the end of this year and plans to open about the same number next year, Tanious said.

On Long Island, the chain opened a Bethpage store on Nov. 13, a West Islip store in April and a Centereach store in December.

"And we actually plan to open another couple locations on the Island in the next couple years," Tanious said.

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, Tanious said.

Savers tends to open its stores in areas that have a good "donor base" but also draw a cross-section of shoppers from various income levels, he said.

"So, for us, a wonderfully placed store is one that is flanked on one side by, you know, relatively affluent donors who are going to be good, consistent donors of high-quality things ... and they may also be shoppers for us," said Tanious, adding that the chain also considers the visibility and ease of access to and from a site, population density and per-capita income when deciding where to open stores.

Mid- and high-income shoppers are not the only ones helping to change the image of thrift stores as places to shop that are more mainstream, he said.

"Landlords now see secondhand as a part of their sort of portfolio and retail mix. And I’ve been in this business for 15 years. And I can say that was not always the case," he said.

Nationwide, the overall secondhand clothing market last year grew 14% to $49 billion, which was five times faster than sales in the broader retail clothing market, according to a March report by ThredUp, an online consignment and thrift retailer, and Manhattan-based market research firm GlobalData.

Thrift stores’ sales growth can be attributed partly to consumers’ growing concerns about the rising costs of goods, including prices being affected by wide-ranging tariffs on imported products that went into effect this year, retail experts said. The sales growth also is being fueled by young consumers who prefer to buy unique items and who are more concerned about environmental sustainability, experts said.

Savers’ new 21,000-square-foot Bethpage store was bustling last week as shoppers checked out clothes, puzzles, bedding, dishes and other items.

Freeport resident Melissa Pierre-Louis, 31, is a frequenter of thrift stores, she said while in the Bethpage store.

"I’m too frequent. ... I thrift probably like two to three times a week," she said.

She prefers church thrift stores because their prices are more reasonable than for-profit thrift stores, said Pierre-Louis, adding that she shops at secondhand stores because she likes unusual items.

Woodbury resident Lisa Wolk, 50, regularly seeks out vintage items at estate sales and thrift shops, she said while in Savers.

"I prefer old things that are made well, things that have a history," she said.

Partnering with Big Brothers Big Sisters

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 local 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 28 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.

The partnership was formed "to really create an additional funding source that could support and help the agency grow and be able to serve more kids and impact more children with mentoring services," said Mark Cox, chief executive officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters Long Island.

The nonprofit’s donation center receives money from Savers in two ways, one of which is from payments from Savers for the public’s donations of goods made directly at the thrift stores.

Also, Big Brothers Big Sisters solicits its own donations of goods by email, phone calls and other means. The nonprofit then picks up the items from donors, and sells them to Savers, said Cox, who declined to say how much Savers was paying per pound of donated goods.

In fiscal year 2024, Big Brothers Big Sisters received $1.7 million in net proceeds, after expenses, from the donation center, which accounted for about half of the nonprofit’s $3.3 million in total revenue, Cox said.

Those funds help support Big Brothers Big Sisters' career mentorship program for high school students, college scholarships and other programs, he said.

Savers growth among 'more robust'

In Savers' third quarter, which ended Sept. 28, net sales increased 8.1% to $426.9 million compared with the same period a year earlier. Sales at Savers stores open at least one year increased 5.8% during the quarter.

The chain's growth has been among the "more robust" in the retail sector, said analyst Lauren Slade, associate director of U.S. Retail for S&P Global Ratings.

Savers’ average retail price per item is about $5, which is an affordable price point for a consumer whose budget is being stretched, she said.

“And you combine that with increasing adopting of thrift, whether that happens to be more of a trend or just consumers wanting a more sustainable way of shopping, or maybe it’s a little more of that treasure hunt experience. You know, all of those things seem to be coming together for [Savers] in this environment,” she said.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.