
Post which, there is a lack of communication between the store and the customer, leading to a low brand recall. Once an order does get placed, thrift stores have to manually reach out to the customers with information like tracking numbers. That’s why so many of these thrifting stores are often dealing with disgruntled customers reaching out to them for order status, refunds and cancellations. You need to deliver an experience and that means packing the orders well with small things like thank you notes, etc.ĭoing this at scale and then walking to the nearest post office or getting a delivery partner to come pick up orders once ready, can be time consuming. Packaging and shipping thrifted products is a whole new level of overwhelming tasks. While this may seem easy to do when you receive 1-2 orders a day, doing this at scale is going to result in losing track of orders and eventually, the money. This typically includes Google Pay, UPI, PayTM or bank transfer in most cases.īut either way, there is a back and forth, asking the customers which payment method they’d like to place the order with, sending them the details and then asking them to send a screenshot to confirm the order has been paid for. Once an order is confirmed with a consumer, the store owner is required to reach out to them and let them know of the available payment modes. The entire process is too time consuming. Managing orders this way is not just inefficient, but also compromises the shopping experience you offer to customers because they keep waiting for your message right from the moment of wanting to book a product to paying for it. If the order is not confirmed, the second person to book the product in comments gets contacted.īut imagine having to sift through all the comments that get posted within close seconds or minutes, then reaching out to people one by one to get the order confirmed - it gets overwhelming all too soon and sometimes it takes these store owners 24-48 hours to get in touch with customers. They post the products available, asking consumers to drop a comment to book them the first one then gets contacted through messages to confirm the order. Most thrifting stores follow the traditional way of taking orders. Here are a few areas we see most thrift stores struggling with: 1. But if you’re thinking about running a thrift store as a business, there are some possible challenges you should be aware of. Status quo: Current challenges for thrifting stores

Seeing the number of thrifting stores coming up every week and the number of consumers interested in their products, the future looks promising for this business model in India.īut like every new opportunity, there are some challenges when it comes to running and growing the business. We have also noticed some thrifting stores follow the same process above on chat apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.

#Thrift and thrive meaning how to#


Purchasing and owning upcycled or seconds is no longer being looked down upon. What started out as a result of the pandemic to raise awareness around sustainability, has now become a huge phenomenon in the country as per Femina. This only goes to show the rise of thrift culture in India that is leading to consumers making more sustainable choices. If you start searching for #thriftindia on Instagram, you will see 475k posts (as of December 18, 2021), and the number is increasing by the day.
