As the Public Relations chairperson for Assistance League of Inland North County, a non-profit thrift shop in Escondido, CA, I attended their annual members’ convention in Las Vegas in September 2019. While there and after attending many fascinating and thought provoking seminars, I and my team learned that there was an increasingly growing demographic that our thrift shop needed to start giving a lot more attention to. The millennials and generation Z are fast and currently becoming the majority of consumers and we needed to assess and develop what we would be providing them in our shop to attract their attention.
Upon returning home I started to have conversations with my own young adult children and that of their friends about what I had learned. I was given some really great input to help me get started. I started going to the malls and visited shops that young adults shopped at to get an idea of what fashions were popular. Ripped jeans and retro and vintage t-shirts, flannels, hoodies were popular at the time. I looked at online resale ecommerce sites to get further ideas of what brands and styles were popular and what was selling. Using the information that I learned I then developed a Young Adult’s (millennial/gen z used clothing department) for our thrift shop which we named “Re-Generation” and created a Poshmark closet and an Instagram account to increase sales in this new target demographic to increase sales for the shop, especially during closure due to Covid-19. The department was a big success and with social media presence I was able to get new customers in our shop. It was very exciting and fun to engage with our new customers and get the word out that we were no longer just an “older ladies” shop but had some fun, stylish clothing for younger adults!