Photograph by George Sakkestad
Risa Bernasconi and her son, Grant, shop for stuffed animals at the Kids Trading Co. in Los Gatos.
By Suzanne Cristallo
They were two first-time consignment shoppers. One was hyperventilating. "I can't believe this--a leather suit for $60!" The other was intent on maneuvering a newly purchased rocking chair out the door.
Between them, they also discovered four jeweled T-shirts with store tags still on them, 10 silverplated knives "for the cabin," eight pair of exotic dangle earrings, a new pair of black-and-white "pinto"-patterned cowboy boots, a worn tuba for possible use as "a water spout in the garden pool" and a 27-jewel cinch belt with a buckle shaped like the head of a longhorn.
The shoppers were perusing Second Act, 12882 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road in Saratoga, a store specializing in "next to new" clothing, jewelry, furniture and miscellaneous items taken on consignment.
They were experiencing what many people are discovering in an upsurge of consignment and thrift shop interest lately: good quality can be found at bargain prices, and the hunt is fun.
Consignment stores come in all kinds and sizes. Their wares vary from designer garments for women sizes 2 to 14 to furniture and household knick-knacks. Some stores offer a combination of merchandise.
They thrive on accepting nearly perfect items for sale from people who have tired of the item, never used it, mistakenly bought it on an impulse or changed their lifestyle or clothing size.
The consignor brings in items he or she feels are simply too good to give away. If an item sells, the consignor pockets a percentage of the proceeds. If an item does not sell, it is returned or given to a charitable institution.
Thrift stores often get items which do not sell.
Local thrift stores differ in style and clientele. Some attract customers who shop in the consignment stores, but they appeal to several different groups. They depend solely on donated articles of varying quality, with a percentage of their sales going to support specific charities. While their image is changing, thrift stores tend to be associated with merchandise cast off after donors clean out closets and garages.
"We'll accept anything and sometimes get fabulous stuff," says Caryl Armstrong of Monte Sereno, a volunteer at Saratoga's Echo Shop, at 14477 Big Basin Way. Charities sponsored by Saint Andrews Episcopal Church receive up to 60 percent of money earned from sales at the shop. What does not sell goes to City of Hope.
Unused greeting cards that retail for $1.75 and more sell in thrift stores for 10 cents. Cust-omers buy boxes full. They also haul away car loads of clothes, some for relatives in other countries, some for traveling.
"One customer comes here regularly to buy her clothes for travel, and I hear she just leaves them wherever she goes," Armstrong says.
Volunteer Jerry Hodges, president of the organization that benefits Eastfield Ming Quong, marvels at the variety of customers who shop at the Happy Dragon, 245 W. Main St. in Los Gatos. For 37 years, Happy Dragon has been the traditional recipient of cast-offs from the Los Gatos area.
"We have a customer who spends every Monday all day looking at each item," she says. "We have theater people looking for vintage clothing, very wise shoppers who buy suits for the unusual buttons, teenagers looking for grunge. On Saturdays, it's international day, and immigrant families come by the carload to outfit their children. Others buy the equivalent of eight garbage bags full of clothes for relatives in Mexico. Collectors are being attracted to our new, locked collectible cabinets."
Upscale consignment stores tend to donate their unsold items to thrift stores out of the area out of respect for customers whom they fear might be upset at hearing their clothes have been seen in a local thrift shop.
"It always amazes me how close people are to their clothes," says Joscelyn Allen, manager of the American Cancer Society's recently opened Discovery Shop at 39 E. Main St. in Los Gatos.
While Allen and 22 volunteers just opened the thrift shop in early May, she comes with several years' experience in the consignment business. She also comes with some observations about human nature and about how dealing with thrift shops affects some donors.
"Until some people actually see our shop," she says of the new store handling fine china, crystal, some antiques and designer clothes, "they seem unwilling to donate. Once they walk in and see we are upscale retail, they bring items in."
As one of Northern California's largest consignment stores, Second Act handles furniture, jewelry, miscellaneous items and women's clothing in sizes 2 to 26. Helen Ritter, and now her daughter Jennifer, have had the business for 20 years and are considered the "grand dames" of local consignment. They receive merchandise from as far away as Indonesia and New York, where former local residents have moved.
They have noticed other consignment businesses springing up locally in recent months as entrepreneurs see the interest in "upscale resale" growing and are drawn by its inherent appeal.
Aprés Vous at 320 N. Santa Cruz Ave. in Los Gatos opened its doors 10 months ago. Co-owners Glynne Lewis and Renee Argent bring both consignment and retail experience to their garment business--Lewis from a consignment shop in Willow Glen and Argent from Nordstrom. They say it is quality and a dedication to customer service that build a customer base.
Just down the street from them at 348 N. Santa Cruz Ave. in Los Gatos, Elaine Chiccino recently took over Diana's Hang Ups and renamed it Kids' Trading Place. She specializes in children's clothing, maternity wear and accessories like toys.
A former quality engineer for a Silicon Valley weapons manufacturer, she chose to buy the business after a long layoff, finding its appeal rested in its ability to make her happy.
"Human nature can be satisfied in this business because first you have the excitement of finding the merchandise--the 'hunt'--then the gratification of turning around and selling it," she says. "It becomes a closed loop, so much more satisfying than the corporate world."
While store owners acknowledge the consignment business is catching on locally, they point out it is not new. When she was First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy sold her designer clothes at elegant shops in New York after a single wearing.
"Consignment shops on the East Coast have been big for 40 years," notes Lewis of Aprés Vous. "They caught on in Southern California some years back before moving here."
Shops tend to cluster in wealthier areas where designer clothes are common apparel.
Since it opened last October, Aprés Vous has attracted 250 consignors. "Most of the out-of-state consignors send a box every two months. It's like Christmas here when they arrive," Lewis says.
They accept only designer label garments in women's sizes 2 to 14. Why the smaller sizes?
"We find the smaller sizes reflect the health-conscious community the Los Gatos area is," notes Lewis, who says she has difficulty finding enough consignors in the larger sizes to make a large enough selection.
That is not the case at Second Act, where Jennifer Ritter keeps a special section for size 16 and up. "We have some very elegant things and a number of customers who want to be called the minute something in a larger size comes in," she says.
For local consignment shops, only quality labels are acceptable-- Giorgio Armani, Ellen Tracy, Dana Buchman, Jones of New York, Anne Klein, St. John knits, Jill Sander suits, Ralph Lauren and Caché are typical. "Quality is what sells," Argent points out.
The reason for that is simple.
"The fact that our clothes are so inexpensive to begin with makes it not worthwhile for us to handle anything of inferior quality," says Ritter. Discount-store merchandise is out.
Quality clothes hold up well. Nowhere can that be seen better than in children's wear. But most clothes are outgrown before their quality is tested. As a result, consignment in infant and children's clothing is a roaring business.
Elaine Chiccino at the Kids' Trading Company says she has consignors whose children wear clothes of "unbelievable quality" and quantity.
"One little girl has 35 bathing suits. Her hair ribbons are lovely and her clothes of the latest fashion. I can't wait until she grows to my size," laughs Chiccino, who wears a size 5 in adult but could fit an 11 or 12 in childrens'.
While consignors get a 40 to 60 percent share of the selling price for an item, depending on the price category or the kind of merchandise, items are priced as much as 50 to 70 percent less than what they sold for originally.
"We have one customer who comes in every year to outfit herself for the Black and White Ball," says Sandy Ravizza, former consignor and now an employee of Second Act. "She gets a thrill out of paying $40 for a gown and accessories when other women are paying mints for theirs."
"Big sales in retail stores never come near consignment store prices," says Mary Jane Nesbitt of Nine Lives, at 9 Montebello Way in Los Gatos. Nesbitt, who had never worked in retail before, has had her store across from the Town Plaza for 3-1/2 years. She says 70 percent of her consignors--both men and women--come from Los Gatos and are well-to-do.
It is possible to find a garment with the original store tags attached in her store, she says, while it is still available on the rack in Nordstrom. "And my prices are 70 to 80 percent of retail."
Current styles
Finding recent fashion is possible because stores are emphatic about not accepting anything more than two or three years old. Garments must be freshly dry-cleaned, odor-free and in perfect shape.
Nesbitt claims she sells more than 90 percent of what she accepts in her store because of stringent standards. A year ago, she added men's clothing, and hers is the only shop in the area to take it on consignment.
The men who are her customers, as well as those who are her consignors, are men who tend to dress casually most of the time.
"They only need suits once in awhile, but when they need one, it must be good," Nesbitt says.
No longer a stigma
A suit originally priced at $800 to $1,000 retail might sell for $200 in her store. "So a buyer doesn't have to feel guilty about tying up $1,000 in a suit that hangs in the closet," she says. "On the other hand, a consignor doesn't want to show up in the same suit all the time. By selling, he can recycle one suit, and with the money from it, go and get another."
It used to be there was a stigma attached to owning anything secondhand. Barbra Streisand even sang about "Second Hand Rose," lamenting that her piano and her clothes were used. Even her boyfriend, Jake the Plumber, had been married before.
It's not such a sad case anymore. As the "Jakes" of today are snapped up as soon as the divorce papers are filed, so are the designer outfits the moment they hit the racks.
Steady and well-heeled customers go on gleeful "treasure hunts," as do people on budgets. Included are men seeking women's clothes (for themselves), Lotto winners and would-be yuppies wanting to look as though they have already made it. All would be delighted to shell out $60 for the pale blue leather suit which sold at Nordstrom for $300.
"Everybody loves a bargain!" every shop owner says, almost in chorus.
Customers come from San Jose and Europe, from the mountains and the peninsula, but mostly, says Ritter, they come from in town.
"Seventy percent of my customers are from here," agrees Nine Lives' Nesbitt.
But some customers hit all of the stores in the area on a regular basis, buying, selling and reselling.
"I've had things come in with Nine Lives tags on them," Ritter says.
And by the way, what assurances does a consignor have that her supposedly unsold belongings are truly on their way to a charitable organization and have not been sold for the total profit of the store?
"I have never lost a garment once since I started," Nesbitt states emphatically. She tracks every item in her store through a software computer program written by her husband, David Butcher, a corporate Web-master. A customer can request a printout at any time.
Nesbitt even maintains a Web site where a "personal shopping assistant" can respond to a customer's email request for a specific item.
Responding to need
"At Aprés Vous, Lewis and Argent use a computer program devised just for consignment stores by Liberty Systems of Minnesota, one of several companies that have sprung up in response to the consignment-store boom. Items are tracked and posted each day.
Other stores do the same but still maintain records by hand, entering items and making notations by number for each item sold.
The tighter economy Californians have suffered in the past few years has steered many of them into consignment stores, and in general, a person's conservative side is satisfied by secondhand shopping.
"The wealthy watch a dollar like everyone else. They're interested in a return on their investment, too," says Leonard Moore, a New Yorker visiting Nine Lives.
"My size is hard to get," says Saratogan Rose Ruddell, who frequents the Second Act section for size 16 and over several times a week.
"I check the new things coming in," Ruddell says, "and people keep an eye out for me. The clothes are in good condition, and the prices are perfect."
What Ruddell feels about shopping in a consignment store is the very thing that department store executives, already struggling to maintain their customer base against a booming discount store proliferation, fear most: "I feel like I don't ever want to go in a department store again."
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, August 21, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved