How To Op Shop

A sim­ple, begin­ners guide to shop­ping at op shops.

1. Find thrift stores in your area.

To find thrift stores around where you live, you can search around in the yel­low pages, and, of course, google it! I’m not too sure about other coun­tries, but the Aus­tralian Yel­low Pages is a great place to look for op shop locations.

Google maps (remem­ber, this link is Aus­tralian – but I’m sure that your coun­try will have google maps if you look around) can also be good for find­ing local thrift stores.

2. Wear the right clothes.

Often, inde­pen­dently owned op shops have nego­tiable prices. If you’re wear­ing clothes that appear to be expen­sive, it’s likely that they’ll raise the price of the items you buy. This might sound silly, but it does happen.

Obvi­ously, stingy op shop own­ers isn’t the only rea­son to dress down. I’d sug­gest wear­ing a very sim­ple out­fit. If you go to a thrift store wear­ing a top with 10 but­tons at the back, you’ll soon find it too tedious to try on clothes. This is the same with shoes! You may love your 10-strap san­dals, but your love will most likely lessen after tak­ing them off and putting them on 6 or so times.

3. Look everywhere.

You may think that the only finds appro­pri­ate for you are found in woman’s cloth­ing , how­ever, you could be wrong. Some of the great­est op shop finds are found in the lit­tle boys sec­tion, lit­tle girls sec­tion and even the mens sec­tion. Also, if the clothes are organ­ised by size, which they often are, it’s always worth hav­ing a look in all sizes up. You never know what you might find!

4. Pick up any­thing with potential

Some things I’ve been very unsure of when I picked them up, but when I try them on – it’s love! Any­thing that catches your eye, try on. You might think you’ll look ridicu­lous, but in real­ity, you might look like the pic­ture that would be under the def­i­n­i­tion of style. (Okay, the pic­ture under the def­i­n­i­tion of style might be lame, but still! It might look great on you!)

5. Check for flaws

You might look bit stu­pid by hold­ing up a dress to the light – but it’s nec­es­sary. You may think you’ve done great, but when you get home and see that there are two miss­ing but­tons, a rip under the arm and the hem is com­ing undone, you’ll regret your pur­chases. Look for things like (as was men­tioned) miss­ing but­tons, stains, tears, mended parts, miss­ing beads.

6. Look out for bargains

Often, thrift stores have days where every­thing is half price or days where every­thing with a red tag is reduced. Look out for these sales! If nec­es­sary, ask the lady at the counter about which days sales are on. Usu­ally, they’re more than happy to tell you.

7. Be nice to the staff

Some staff at thrift stores will begin to recog­nise you, and most are pleas­ant except for the occa­sion­ally grumpy staff with an ‘I-hate-being-here’ atti­tude. Being nice to the staff can some­times get you a sur­prise dis­count. Also, if you come reg­u­larly, they’ll prob­a­bly men­tion sale days and what not to you while you’re being served.

These are the few things that I’ve learnt being the avid op shop­per that I am. If I’ve some­how man­aged to miss some­thing, feel free to com­ment let­ting me know, and I’ll add it up there!

No related posts.