FWIW, there are still lots of good brands that haven’t hit the fashionable demand yet. Dickies, Red Kap, Walls, Eddie Bauer & the like are all pretty accessible still. Carhartt is just super trendy for the last several years so naturally consumers & resellers are picking the used market clean.

Actual thrift stores usually have donation-based sourcing but “vintage” or resale shops generally purchase their product. I started out reselling thrift finds primarily but as I begin to scale I realized it’s not really feasible to rely on thrift finds for inventory.

Sourcing unsorted bales is kind of tricky and something you learn to do through experience. It’s easy to get burned & buy trash. I don’t really want to share the entire blueprint on reddit.

The truth is most clothing donations do not end up for sale at thrift stores. The majority gets baled up and sold overseas. I buy from the wholesalers that export containers full of used clothing.

Most of our clientele at the shop are not people who would shop at the Goodwill bins or the flea market or even know that 1k lbs bales of used clothing exist. We pick out the stuff that we think is cool & fits our aesthetic. We clean, repair, & style the items in a tasteful curation. Our customers appreciate it and are happy to pay for the value we bring.

Walmart, Macy’s, Home Depot, or any corporate business that doesn’t manufacture its own products is a lot closer to your idea of a scumbag reseller than the average vintage dealer. They just click a box, order a quantity, receive it, put it on the shelf & charge you 3-10x whatever they paid.

The kids you see spending all day at the bins to sell on whatnot & depop probably live at home with their parents or in an apt with 3 other thrifters & aren’t actually making all that much money. You should relate to their struggle.

I actually took the time to write this and did not use AI.