Continuing on with Thrift Tips Thursday, I decided to showcase one thrift store in the San Antonio area once a week. To make it more interesting, I will give myself a budget of only $10. Follow me every week to see what I can buy for $10.
Disclaimer: I am not sponsored by any thrift stores. Everything I am about to share is my opinion. I plan on combining my years of retail management experience, with my years of thrift shopping, and e-commerce selling/shopping to help both thrift stores and thrift shoppers get the most value for the inventory that is currently available.
This week I decided to visit Texas Thrift since it was voted San Antonio Current's best thrift shop of 2019. You can read the full article here: https://www.sacurrent.com/sanantonio/best-thrift-shop/BestOf?oid=21678820
I have shopped at multiple Texas Thrift stores in the past. Would I say Texas Thrift is the best thrift shop in San Antonio? It depends on what you're looking for. I love that there is something for EVERYONE whether you are a baby or in your 100's. The prices vary so you really have to pay attention.
I personally love shopping at the Texas Thrift store near I-35 during their Monday $.99 special color tag sale. I decided to go shopping on a Sunday afternoon because I figured that was when most people would be able to shop. I know I know, I said on my Great Day SA interview that the best days to shop are Saturday or Monday mornings. I ended up shopping on Sunday because that was when my husband was available and I really wanted to shop with him. He and I decided to go to the Ingram location because it was close to our house and it had been a while since we shopped there.
Before going into the store, I knew it was busy because there were limited carts outside the store. I loved that they had compact carts to help navigate through the madness.
Upon entering, I looked for the color of the week signs. It was 50% of white tags and 30% off blue tags. With those color tags in mind, I decided to survey the store to help gauge how messy the store was. To my surprise it was not that bad. I immediately decided to go to the shoe section.
From far away I spotted a unique pair of shoes that ended up not being my size. (UUUUUggghhhh why do I have to be 5'1" and have size 10 feet? I blame my ancestors.) I thought the shoes would be unreasonably priced at $15 but to my surprise they were $4.98.
Even though the shoes were not name brand or good quality, the design was perfect for a night out look.
After going down the aisles of shoes, I couldn't find a style, size, or price that fit my budget. I then moved on to the purses.
After looking through the purses, I noticed many were priced with emotion rather than priced to sell. The Tommy Hilfiger crossbody shown above was priced at $6.98. A similar new with tag crossbody is available at Ross for around $10. A more reasonable price for this crossbody would be $4.75. I am basing the price on the size, the brand, and how quickly I would want it to sell. This will mostly stay in the store until it has an additional 30% or 50% off.
Another example of an item priced with emotion rather being priced to sell is the Vera Bradly purse shown above. It was listed at $49.94. While the retail price for new Vera Bradley items are still high, the value for second hand items has greatly diminished over the years. Unfortunately, I can go to a Goodwill and find a similar purse for $10 to $20. I also noticed that it was placed in the corner close to the floor. Utilizing my retail merchandising background, an item at this price point should be at eye level or somewhere visible to the public. I found this close to the floor in the corner of the store. I know, some of you are saying "Maybe someone was hiding this for a later date" which could be the case. Either way the ideal location for something like this should be a high traffic area so more eyes can see it.
After getting discouraged by the high prices in the purses section, I decided to go through the clothing aisles. I finally found a skirt that I liked. It was a Worthington skirt for $4.98. If you are an avid JCPenny shopper like I am, you know you can get a similar brand new skirt for the same price or cheaper during their clearance sales (which is all the time). I decided to pass on the skirt and continue to look. The prices in the clothing section were all over the place and I could not find items that were part of the special color tag that I wanted to purchase.
I decided to move on from the clothing section and head to the electronics and home section. I found an iHome tablet sleeve for $1.98. I checked ebay to see if I could buy it for cheaper and I saw that the thrift store price was a good deal.
With $8 left to spend I kept looking.
I finally saw a beautiful jewelry box in the wood decor section for $6.99. I liked the glass and rose detail. It reminded me of my sister who passed away earlier this month. It was the perfect addition to my closet. I was looking for something to keep the vintage costume jewelry she had given to me. This was the perfect thing to "spark joy" in my life and it was within my $10 budget.
I decided to walk through the entire store one last time to see if there were any better deals. After not finding anything else that "sparked joy" as much as the two items in my cart did, I decided to check out.
There was a sign next to the register reminding customers how much we have helped keep items out of the landfill by thrifting. It was nice to see how much of a difference we were making by choosing second hand first.
Here are some of my take aways from this visit:
1) It was hard to find multiple items to buy within my $10 budget. I know I would have no problem making the most of my $10 during $.99 Mondays or when the entire store is 50% off.
2) For prices, make sure you check to see if the tag is part of the color of the week. If not, check online if you can find it for cheaper or wait until the next color tag sale.
3) They do not have a rewards program like other thrift stores in the area. I am part of their program where they email you about their weekly promotions but they do not have a rewards system where you accumulate points for future purchases.
4) Go through every aisle. During busy days, there are items that are in the wrong section of the store. The iHome tablet sleeve I bought was in the home decor section but had a hook similar to the ones that were in the purses section.
5) Shop with a friend to help you keep track of time. Texas Thrift is HUGE. I could have stayed there all day trying to look at every little thing in the store. I was there a little bit over an hour before I had to go.
6) Put everything you like in your cart, then sort through it one more time before checking out. You may realize you do not like something as much as you thought you did when you first saw it.
So is Texas Thrift the best thrift store in San Antonio? For the best value on clothing, no not unless you're shopping their $.99 Monday sale. (I will share with you in future posts where I think the best clothing thrift shops are). For unique items for your home, you definitely have a wide range of items. I do love that it is generally organized and easy to shop.
Until next week, happy thrifting!