Are you down with OPC!

Some folks swear they would never wear the clothing of another person. From my experience of a running thrift store there are thousands that will, some folks look for pre-owned first. Avoiding the mall at every juncture.

I was warned when I got in the business I would get a lot of clothes. Boy! That was the truth man! There was a plus in this; a huge plus I learned clothing is one of the biggest sellers on the planet. Who do you know that doesn’t wear clothes?  Exactly!

I have a friend that owns a consignment shop and she does a phenomenal business selling mostly clothing, in this recession her business went up 30% if you know anything about having a store you know 30% is like unheard of in increased business without increasing you store size, marketing or something. Call it a sign of the times. Cost containment is sexy.

A much unexpected byproduct of being a storage unit addict is how much new gear you can get for yourself. There is nothing like opening a box of new Polo gear in your size with tags still hanging. Christmas on Tuesday!

To this day I do not understand why someone would buy new clothes, never wear those new clothes and then put those items in a storage unit to only lose new clothing they never wore. Damn strange if you ask me! From tops to bottoms I have seen it all.

Boggles my imagination to no end…

This is happens far more than you know. We are a society of clothes whores, many people have a closet or two with clothing they have not worn in years! I dated a chic that had a spare room full of clothes, I am not kidding! If you do not have a spare room to house your couture where does this stuff end up?

In a storage unit of course, with the white xmas tree and the large white stuffed animal that guy you kinda of sorta liked but he was popcorn, so you ditched him but kept the bear for some strange reasons. We have got to be the biggest nation of clothes whores on the planet!

Some auction folks throw the clothes away or donate them. We actually had someone go through everything; you would be amazed at what sells. It can be funny what you find in those clothes, cash, jewelry, letters (I love letters) guns, a lot of chain and gum….tons of gum. The cats from Philly were good on the mints!

I use to be very casual about clothing, during the course of cleaning out units you rip soil and just really wear out a lot of clothing.  I would wear my best gear, because I knew I could replace it faster than I wore it out!  When you know sooner or later you are going to get some wonderful stuff it makes you flinch when you see a pair of jeans in the mall for $120.00

“120.00!!!! for some jeans! I can a whole new wardrobe form $120.00” I have done that a 100 times in my mind, storage unit auctions can make you very thrifty. Sometimes extremely thrifty to the point of comedy, many long time auctions hounds have not seen the inside of a mall or store in decades.

I remember one cat saying “if it was not in a bin I don’t want it”- scary!

One of the joys of living in the A, is so many people regardless of their social economical status are going to have some rocking gear. I cannot count how many units I bought for $10.00 dollars or less that I got 30-50 pieces of fly gear to rock. Once I got bored with it, I would recycle it through the store.

Apparently I had really good taste; the stuff I recycled usually would sell within a few days of hitting the sales floor. Most of my former storage locker gear sold the fist day. Sometimes I would hide it to see if the regulars would find it. Yes, I am twisted like that.

Women are the most beautiful and caring creatures on the earth unless you are talking about shoes! I can not count how many women would get in a tiff or worse because someone would be trying to get an item they had set aside.

We got a fashonista’s unit and the girl was a 10-12 and shoe size 8.5-9 this is a really sweet spot in terms of the sizes that sell. Sista girl must have had well over two thousand articles of clothing in her units and maybe close to hundred pair of shoes.

CHA- CHING!

She had a pair of leather boots that were wicked, never heard of the name and she must have picked them up in Europe. They were black, with laced backs and sliver toe clip and heel point. Had a very chic urban feel, two women almost came to blows over those boots!

I am at the counter wondering who should I put my money on, the skinny girl with the tats or the short fire plug of a woman. I was thinking slim would pull it out she had a young money criminal  look about her and you know that saying it is not the size of the gangsta chick but the size of the gangsta in the chick, slim looked like she would shank you quick.

It was getting ugly, so I stepped in and suggest they try the shoes on before they got into thrift store smack down. The short one could not get the boots over her large calves and the skinny one started doing the happy dance when she saw this. Shorty just walked off hissing “bitch” lil bit was like “I am the bitch with the fly boots!”

There is a lot that happens in a store, believe me.

We got a lot name brand items form the units. Some of the price tags were eye popping. I have held in my little pudgy fingers $120 t shirts, $450 dollar jeans, $1000.00 dollar shoes, $ 450.00 scarves and the list goes on and on.

If this stuff was not 100% straight in terms of style, be defect free it did not go on eBay. I will say some eBay buyers can be a pain in the ass. They want perfection and speed for a penny. It does not matter if it is clearly noted in the listing that there is scratch, spot or some other defect.  Some will gloss over it.

They received it and want their money back; this is HUGE on the clothing side. So be warned if you want to sell clothing on eBay, it is profitable but know you will be dealing with some personalities.

In a word OPC makes money.

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