I am not one of those people that are good at shopping the sales to get NWT merchandise really cheap. I know some folks are amazing shoppers, can get items for pennies on the dollar and then turn it around for a great profit. Again, I am not one of those folks but I do have a couple little "secrets" up my sleeve on where I have found great products in the past for super cheap.

Saint Vincent de Paul Sorting Center
Ok, I know most of your are thinking "oh yeah, a thrift store. We all know about that". But I didn't go to the Saint Vincent de Paul thrift store; no I went to the main sorting center in my area where ALL the donations come in first.

I talked to the folks there and found out you can buy a bale (yes a bale like a hay bale) of clothing for $165! Now, the problem was that they would make the bale for me and I wanted to pick out what I wanted in it. Not willing to take the risk of getting a bale of junk, I talked to the manager.

I was able to make an arrangement that I could come down on the sorting days when the center was closed to the public and pick out exactly what I wanted! We figured out that one bale of clothing was equivalent to 8 FULL shopping carts. Can you believe it, 8 shopping carts full of clothes for $165!

I am not sure if you realize how many NWT clothing gets donated to thrift stores and charities. I can tell you from personal experience that an amazing amount of NWT clothing shows up every week at my local Saint Vincent de Paul's sorting center. And we are not talking cheap stuff either. I have gotten Ann Taylor, Ralph Lauren, Dolce & Gabbana, Talbots, Oilily, Tommy Hilfiger, FUBU, Faconnable, DKNY, Juicy Couture, Gymboree and dozens of others high end brands all NWT at the sorting center.

From talking to the folks who work at the sorting center I found that this is not an uncommon occurrence. People get stuff for gifts (they have had stuff come still in the box with the gift receipt inside) or buy something and then decide to donate it instead of returning it.

Besides clothing I have gotten shoes, purses and accessories too. My favorite pair of Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses I found at the sorting center. In addition to grabbing NWT items I also picked up some used items that were well-known, high-end brands if they were in excellent condition.

The sorting center by me is a full on warehouse and the actual sorting area is enormous and quite overwhelming. Imagine the biggest warehouse you have been in and picture a mountain of bags as big around as a small size apartment and about 18 feet high. How does one tackle something like this and know where to begin?

Here's what I did, I looked at the bags.

If it was a plain black garbage bag I ignored it. If it was a shopping bag from Nordstrom, Macys, Saks or any other high-end department store I grabbed it and started pawing through it. My thinking was if the person who donated the bag of goods had the money to shop at one of these high end stores chances were they had donated some high-end goods. Majority of the time I was right too!


The Local Dry Cleaner
Have you ever wondered what your local dry cleaner does with the clothing that is never picked up? Well I did and decided to ask about it. I called the owner of a local dry cleaner and asked what he did with the clothing that was not picked up and asked if he would be interested in selling it to me. He was thrilled by the idea!

Come to find out he is the owner of the largest chain of dry cleaners in my county and he had one entire store filled with nothing but unclaimed clothing! You have all been to dry cleaner and have seen those racks they use; he had a whole store he was using for a warehouse to store all of this stuff. He said that in our county dry cleaners are legally obligated to keep unclaimed clothing for 90 days after which time they can dispose of it.... and this man was ready to dispose of the stuff he had!

We took a tour of the store, the items he had stored and then started talking prices. I said I would like to buy 300 pieces and was willing to pay $2.00 per piece. He had been considering donating all these clothes to get a tax deduction for his business but of course would prefer to sell them to make up for the money he lost on the dry cleaning costs. He said the rotating rack in this store held 2500 garments; if I would take it all he would sell it to me for a flat $1000.00 AND DELIVER IT TO MY HOUSE FOR ME!

So, let me see I can have 2500 pieces of clothing that have been professionally dry cleaned and ready for sale for forty cents a piece? Oh yeah, I will take that deal! The next day a large delivery truck (not van, we are talking a truck here!) absolutely filled with clothing was in my driveway! What was even better was the driver carried everything into the house for me.

It ended up there were actually 2478 pieces of clothing in the delivery. It took my mom and I two days to sort through all of it and even using racks we borrowed from friends we ran out of room quickly to hang up all this stuff! As we sorted through the clothing we divided it up into three groups:

1) EBay - items that were good brands in excellent condition (about 70% of the items)
2) Garage Sale - cheap brands that would not do well on eBay even in a lot (about 10% of the items
3) Donations - Items that were cheap brands in so-so condition that we didn't even want to hassle with selling at a garage sale. (about 20% of the items)

Within the first two weeks of listing the items we sorted for selling on eBay I made my $1000 investment back. Everything after that was 100% pure profit! I even made a few hundred dollars on the stuff we sorted out for the garage sale!

Ok, so I know not everyone wants to deal with 2478 pieces of clothing at once and not everyone is willing to put out a $1000 investment. There is nothing stopping you from calling your local dry cleaner and asking them about unclaimed clothing though. They may be willing to sell you a dozen items and who knows what great items you will find and be able to buy inexpensively!

Do you know that there are a lot of people who get their prom dresses, party dresses, children's confirmation dresses, even wedding dresses cleaned only to never pick them up from the dry cleaner? I know a lady who purchases these types of items only from dry cleaners in her area and then resells them for quite a nice profit.

Men's clothing is also a big one to find at the dry cleaners. When I purchased that large lot from my dry cleaner there were dozens of very nice suits, slacks and even quite a few tuxedo shirts! Those tuxedo shirts did VERY well when I listed them on eBay, as they are quite an expensive item to purchase new.

I found the key to listing the dry cleaner items was in how I worded my ads. A lot of people have "issues" with buying used clothing; especially if they think it is from a thrift store. In each of my ads I said the following. "While my items are used they are in excellent condition and are NOT thrift store finds. Each item has been professionally dry cleaned and pressed prior to listing". I think those two sentences really helped boost my sales.


So break out your phone book, call your local Thrift Stores and Dry Cleaners. Ask the Thrift Stores if they have a main sorting center for their donations and what the number is. Call your local Dry Cleaners and ask to speak to the owner. Tell them what you have read here and ask about doing something similar.

I know making these phone calls and asking these kinds of questions can be a bit scary - it took me a couple of days to work up the nerve to do it too. I finally decided what harm is there in asking; all the person could do is say no. I am a faceless person on the other end of the phone; they can't see me so there was no reason to feel weird or uncomfortable about asking my questions. So just give it a shot, you may be surprised at how well it turns out!