Navigating Seasonal Inventory Shifts: 7 Tips for Thrift Stores

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Inventory fluctuation is one of the biggest issues that thrift stores face.

Unlike other retail stores that purchase their inventory, thrift stores are almost entirely reliant on donations. With this in mind, inventory management is extremely important — especially when new donations are limited. Actively seeking donations and managing your inventory are crucial to keep your shelves stocked with products customers want to buy.

In this blog, we’ll go over seven tips to help you manage seasonal inventory shifts for thrift stores. We’ll cover everything you need to know to make the most of seasonal items, including managing donations, setting prices, and tracking your performance.

Let’s get started.

Understanding Seasonal Inventory Trends

Identifying the most significant seasonal inventory trends — and knowing when they start and end — is the first step to proper thrift store inventory management. Seasonal trends happen because people donate and buy different items at specific times of the year.

Items like these are especially affected by seasonality:

Clothing styles
Holiday decor
Outdoor gear
Sporting equipment

Research to understand which products are most popular throughout the year. For instance, according to USA Today, October and November are the best months to sell coats, mittens, and winter clothing because people are looking to stock up before it gets too cold. April and May, on the other hand, are peak months for selling summer items like pool gear, shorts, and tank tops.

In addition to weather patterns, national holidays also play a role in what sells and when. Whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day, or Labor Day, thrift stores see more customers around national holidays than any other time of year. Because of this, it’s important to save certain decor for the appropriate time of year and build up inventory for your busiest days.

7 Tips for Navigating Seasonal Inventory Shifts

These seven tips help you stock your shelves with the right inventory and keep it turning over across seasons.

1. Seek Seasonal Inventory Donations

As you plan for seasonal inventory shifts, it’s important to be proactive in terms of the donations you receive. You can keep seasonal items you already have in storage until the appropriate time of year, but you can also actively seek out donations for an approaching season. One way to do this is to let the public know what types of donations you need the most. Many thrift stores do this via their website or by being active on social media.

If you’re new in the community, you may find that in-season donations are easier to come by the longer you’re there. This happens because, according to the World Economic Forum, people hesitate to trust second-hand stores they aren’t familiar with. By building trust and relationships in the community, people are more likely to frequent your store and make helpful donations as a result.

2. Plan Your Inventory in Advance

Inventory planning is essential to prepare for these seasonal transitions. For example, if you receive an influx of winter donations in March when people are spring cleaning, save those items until around October. Filling your thrift store with winter items right before summer, or vice versa, limits sales and eats up valuable floor space.

Creating a timeline or calendar is a great way to ensure you fill your storefront with the right items at the right time. For example:

January – February	March – April	May – June	July – August	September - October	November – December
Last-minute winter clothing and Valentine's Day decor	Jackets, long pants, spring clothing, hiking gear, and St. Patrick’s Day and Easter decor	Shorts, T-shirts, tank tops, other summer clothing, pool gear, sports equipment, and 4th of July decor	Summer gear and clothing, fall decor, and select warm/cool-weather clothing	Jackets, sweatpants, other cool-weather clothing items, and Thanksgiving decorations	Christmas decor, coats, jackets, pants, and other winter clothing

By storing your donations in an organized way, you have what customers want when they need it.

3. Run Promotions

In addition to keeping track of seasonal items and stocking them accordingly, you can run corresponding sales and promotions, too. These promotions should be planned in conjunction with your busiest days. For instance, you can mark down all seasonal items by 50% during the week leading up to a national holiday, as well as for the week after.

But when it comes to clothes, plan your promotions for the weeks immediately after you bring in stock for the next season. In other words, summer clothing might go on sale in September, while winter clothing can go on sale in March.

4. Put Up Seasonal Decorations

You can increase seasonal sales by emphasizing seasonal occasions in your thrift store. Try prominently featuring seasonal displays and decorating your store accordingly. This reminds customers that an occasion or season is coming up, which generates excitement about the seasonal clothing, decorations, and other items your store has to offer.

Tasteful seasonal decor makes your thrift store feel more organized and welcoming, which increases customer engagement. It may be worth investing in mannequins and an interior decorator for these tasks.

Related Read: 7 Thrift Store Layout Ideas To Try Today

5. Implement Dynamic Pricing

As a season draws to a close, the items associated with that season are harder to sell. Marking down the price on items at the end of their season makes it easier to move them.

A simple way to implement price changes is by using a dynamic pricing strategy with color-coded price tags. For example, you can use blue price tags for all winter-themed items, and on March 1st, apply a 50% discount for all of these items.

Increase awareness of these discounts by actively promoting them on social media. When customers see that you’re offering 50% off or more on out-of-season items, they’re more likely to come looking for their next find. Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are great places to start.

6. Prepare for Seasonal Surges and Declines

When you implement thrift store inventory management techniques correctly, you tend to experience seasonal surges over the course of the year. When surges happen, it’s important to have enough personnel to handle them. Consider hiring extra help around the holidays and when you’re running special promotions to keep up with demand.

Remember: Any time there are seasonal surges, seasonal declines are likely to follow. For this reason, planning for declines is important to avoid overstock and blowout or clearance sales. If necessary, schedule fewer employees for each shift and place less of an emphasis on seeking donations when your shelves are full.

7. Track Your Performance

Finally, you need to monitor and evaluate your performance. Paying attention to sales totals and inventory turnover around seasonal shifts is the only way to know if your actions are working.

To do this, you need to track sales and inventory, so you know what’s selling and what isn’t. The most effective way to do this is with a point of sale (POS) system built specifically for thrift stores. With the right software, you can actively track sales, inventory, donations, and other key metrics. Modern POS systems offer extensive analytics and inventory performance metrics that help you minimize overstock and maximize profit.

Capitalize on Seasonal Inventory Shifts With ThriftCart

Keeping thrift store sales high in the midst of seasonal inventory shifts requires careful planning. You need a thorough understanding of the most significant seasonal trends, strategies for collecting donations and managing your inventory, and access to accurate and complete data. By using your resources effectively and closely monitoring your metrics, you can successfully navigate these seasonal changes.

With these tips, you create a better experience for your customers and increase traffic and sales at your thrift store. To implement these strategies, you need a POS system, especially one built specifically for thrift stores.

ThriftCart is an all-in-one POS system designed with the needs of thrift stores in mind. Flexible pricing tools let you easily categorize your inventory and run discounts. Extensive reporting features allow you to create detailed reports to see a clear picture of your business’ progress. With a full suite of both general and thrift-specific features, you’ll be fully equipped to manage your thrift store all year long.

To see what ThriftCart can do for your store, schedule a demo today!