Second-hand day (17/08)

August 17 is Thrift Shop Day or Second Hand Day.

A thrift store – is a store where a person can sell an item, a used product, a used one, a used one, practically new or even new, which is not needed. The owner of the thrift store checks the condition of the product before accepting it from the owner and putting it up for sale. Self-respecting stores will never accept goods of very frankly low quality or condition for sale.

As a rule, a store that undertakes to sell such a product receives a percentage or commission from the sale. Hence the name – thrift store.

The person who handed over the goods for sale remains its owner until the sale and, having received a receipt after handing over the goods, has the right to pick up his item from the store at any time if for some reason he changes his mind about selling it.

The profile of thrift stores can be very diverse: household appliances and electronics, furniture, books, clothing and shoes, dishes, etc. Sometimes a thrift store profile can be multi-pronged.

For many people, a thrift store has also been and remains a place where you can purchase rare goods to replenish collections, things brought from abroad, which are either difficult or simply impossible to obtain in a regular retail chain. By the way, this situation was typical for the Soviet period of Russian history.

Some people visit thrift stores due to a difficult financial situation; for others, it becomes important to buy goods at a lower price, even if the goods are not new. For certain categories of people, visiting thrift stores becomes something of a ritual. They are expecting new deliveries of goods and are ready to spend a considerable amount of time assessing the store’s assortment in search of what is required or simply such a product that will be of interest.

The downside of a thrift store is the opportunity for the person selling the product to benefit from the sale of an unnecessary product or item, as well as to free up space in the apartment or house that such items occupy.

In certain circles, the – thrift store is a kind of club where store sellers know their customers, their preferences and interests. This is also due to the fact that many goods find new owners quite quickly.

After Western culture gained free access to post-Soviet countries with the collapse of the USSR, a new concept appeared in the field of thrift stores: «second-hand» (from the English «second hand»). Many thrift stores began to be called this term. However, in most cases, over time, such a name was assigned to thrift stores specializing in the sale of clothing and shoes.



Postcard «August 17 — Second hand day»

1981