The boutique opened on Jan. 18, sparking blended reactions from consumers.
On Jan. 15, Listen Neighborhood Providers, a secondhand retail outlet chain that utilizes its proceeds for local community projects, introduced on Facebook that it would be opening up a boutique segment in their Lebanon thrift retail outlet place on Jan. 18. According to the article, the space will functionality as a way for additional pricey clothes to be concentrated in 1 region.
“Our key mission is to present a place in which inexpensive clothing is readily available for absolutely everyone in the Upper Valley,” the publish said. “However, we have listened to from some folks that they’d like to see a room in which some of our bigger quality, a lot more expensive clothes can be seen together.”
This decision has prompted blended reactions from prospects. Regular shopper Sarah Stewart, a Hanover resident and nonprofit fundraising consultant, mentioned she thinks the boutique opening was a very good move on Listen’s component mainly because she thinks it will create much more revenue to fund community get the job done.
“Their main mission is not the thrift retail store,” Stewart reported. “That’s a single of the means that they fork out for their true perform, which is giving out heating subsidies and housing subsidies, and running a food items pantry and undertaking local community meals.”
In accordance to a modern Valley News write-up, Listen allocates $1.25 million a calendar year to operate its social services systems — all over 25% of the earnings of their three diverse thrift retail outlet places in Lebanon, White River Junction and Canaan.
In accordance to Stewart, a further profit of the boutique is its prospective beneficial environmental impression, citing h2o use and waste produced by the trend sector. Stewart hopes the boutique might attract more people today to Listen, increasing sustainable manner purchases.
“If the boutique encourages persons who would normally keep absent [from Listen] mainly because they feel it’s junky to actually go in and buy issues 2nd hand, I feel that is great,” she explained.
Stewart pointed out that a lot of people who shop at thrift retailers are resellers who obtain merchandise at decrease price ranges just to promote them on the net at increased ones.
“This retains more of the money for Hear,” she said.
Having said that, others explained that they think Hear should not be making use of significant rates to sell donated apparel.
Tess Bowler ’25 said that she feels that obtaining a boutique offers Listen’s designation as a thrift keep an inaccurate label.
“The core benefit of a thrift retail store is not normally to make a gain,” she stated. “It’s to market secondhand outfits to people today who possibly simply cannot manage it.”
Joann Kwolek Dundas, a recurrent Hear shopper and longtime assistant supervisor of numerous Salvation Military thrift retailers, said she is a supporter of the boutique.
“It definitely can get the job done,” she stated. “It all is dependent on how they value things. You know, it is a thrift retail outlet, and it’s meant to assistance folks that aren’t able of paying out the higher price ranges, so it’s possible they ought to just hold price ranges in the middle someplace.”
Dundas extra that if pricing is much too higher, the item won’t offer in the standard thrift retailer circulation, so she believes that acquiring a section “more suited” for specified styles of clothing will be useful.
“They know their client base, or they ought to, so they must be capable to rather substantially gauge what they can offer something for,” she reported, introducing, “I consider the boutique could be a seriously good detail.”
Listen management did not reply to requests for comment sent to the keep e-mail.