Thrifty Gen Z-ers and millennials drive demand for secondhand goods
Outside the trendy resale shop Pavement in central Houston’s Montrose neighborhood — the city’s thrift shop corridor — I sit down with Kaiya Krikstan, who shows me what goodies she’s got in her reusable shopping bag:
“I got some tank tops, Free People, you know …” She got a t-shirt, a romper, “a cute little jacket for my morning meditation.”
Not a bad haul for just 80 bucks. For Krikstan, a chemistry student, the price is right. “When you go to the mall or something, and everything is like $30, $40, $50. It’s like, ‘OK, well, I can only get one thing.’”
Krikstan traveled an hour up from Galveston to shop here. Sometimes, she’ll shop for used clothes online on the resale site Depop, but she prefers shopping IRL.
“It’s rare that I get to like, find some good deals on clothes,” she said. “I don’t really have anything in Galveston. It’s like Goodwill. And you kind of just hope that someone in town has something good that they’re getting rid of. So it’s nice to come up to Houston and get some things.”
She’s not alone in her hunt for affordable, secondhand goods. New research by eBay found a 400% year-on-year increase in sales of clothes, shoes and accessories with “thrifted” listed in the description.
Gen Z and millennials are driving this era of “recommerce” as they hunt for bargains and more sustainable ways to shop — for everything from sneakers to a bedside table.
Further down the road, I catch up with Clemon Sheppard, who is working a shift as assistant manager at secondhand shop Out of the Closet — where he says prices are even lower than the trendier shops down the street.
“Actually, that’s probably the one reason why everybody comes to us,” he said. “The thrift stores down there, they have some stuff, but their prices are kind of, you know — to be a thrift store, it’s kind of crazy.”
Prices here max out at $20 for suits. “That’s all our long sleeve, button down shirts — they would be $10. The short sleeves would be $8.”
And behind this store is the Second Blessings resale shop, where sales of used furniture, clothes and jewelry support community charities. Since the church-run store expanded in 2022, manager Mike Dohoney says sales have really picked up.
“More than 50% increase in our sales— more than 50%, closer about 75%,” he said.
After years working here, Dohoney said he’s seen a whole new movement take off around shopping second-hand, especially for things like furniture.
“The really weird thing is, I used to think it was just older people like myself or you know, people in their 40s, 50s, maybe 60s. But we’ve seen an influx of millennials,” he said. “They want to buy stuff that is either gonna last or has lasted.”
Versus something new — made out of particleboard.