[mcluck]

As someone who used to have to buy everything secondhand, this makes me sad. I can't tell you how exciting it was to find something that you wanted but knew you couldn't afford going for a reasonable price at the thrift store. I feel like by buying up all of those quality items, you're depriving people in less fortunate situations from experiencing the same sort of happiness.

[blunte]

Concert tickets, graphics cards, game consoles... apartments and houses...

If it can be scalped, it will be. I'm not sure if the people who like to say "free market" would consider this a negative or a positive.

[asdev]

agreed, this is scummy. thrift and secondhand stores exist to serve a certain underprivileged segment of the population. not to facilitate arbitrage. but to each their own.

[adrianN]

If we want thrift stores to act as some kind of welfare institution we shouldn't let everybody shop at them.

[eloisius]

I’m on the fence about whether this is scummy. On the one hand, it is diminishing an institution that families like my own relied on to have halfway-decent things for our home. On the other, thrift stores could sell these things themselves and have more revenue to support charitable causes if that’s what they should be doing. I don’t think GP is a scum bag, but when a VC backed iPhone app shows up to gig-economize mass thrift store raiding and selling online I’ll be bothered.

That said, I don’t think “we shouldn’t let everybody shop there then” is meaningful. Means testing is itself expensive and would likely penalize the very people who need thrift stores. Some things depend on the members of a society having a shared sense of what is and isn’t decent. Halloween candy is free but if I organize gangs of kids to empty out every candy bowl and sell it online, Halloween won’t be any fun.

[cinntaile]

A lot of the quality stuff in thrift stores is bought by professional buyers and resold. I'd guess 90%+, it could be country dependent. It's part of the thrill to find underpriced items and make a good profit. If there are still a lot of bargains to be made at your local thrift stores, expect these bargains to disappear when pro's discover them or when stores discover that they underprice. Whatever is still left as a bargain is simply your niche knowledge advantage.