Sorting Donations: 6 Tips for Thrift Stores

If you run or work at a thrift store, then you already know donations are both a blessing and a challenge.

Some days, you open a bag and find a brand-new pair of boots or a perfectly folded vintage jacket. Other days, it’s a tangled mess of mismatched cords, a broken fan, and a dusty VHS player.

The reality is, donation sorting is one of the most important parts of your job. What you choose to keep (or not keep) can directly impact your store’s ability to make money, stay organized, and serve your community well.

In this blog, we share six simple tips to help you and your team feel more confident every time a donation comes in. You’ll learn how to sort smarter, use your space wisely, and keep those “just in case” items from piling up in your back room.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use the Three-Pile System: Keep, Hold, Toss

When staring at a mountain of donations in your thrift store, the line between what’s valuable and what’s just clutter can start to blur.

Volunteers can spend 20 minutes debating whether a slightly faded band T-shirt from a group nobody’s heard of has resale potential. Meanwhile, the donation pile grows, customers are waiting, and nothing’s getting done.

The three-pile method cuts through this chaos by forcing quick, decisive action.

Here’s how you can use this system:

• Keep: Prioritize items you’re confident will sell within 30 days.
• Hold: Store seasonal or specialty pieces that don’t belong on the shelves right now but are still worth saving.
• Toss: Remove anything that’s damaged, outdated, or has zero resale value.

When you use this method, you don’t need to overthink it. The goal is to stop debating every coffee maker and cardigan — and move through donations efficiently.

Related Read: How To Manage Donations for Thrift Shops

2. Set Clear Criteria for What Stays & What Goes

Here’s where it gets interesting. Every thrift store has its own personality, customer base, and local market. What flies off the shelves in a college town might collect dust in a retirement community. 

That’s why creating clear, specific criteria for your store is a must. To cut down on confusion, make a donations-sorting cheat sheet for your team.

Here’s an example:

Keep if:

• It’s clean and in good condition (no stains, rips, or smells).
• It’s in demand or trending.
• It’s priced to move and fits on the sales floor easily.

Hold if:

• It’s a seasonal item like holiday decor, winter coats, and Halloween costumes.
• It’s a specialty item like formalwear or niche collectibles.
• It has resale value but requires a specific time or setup to display properly.

Toss if:

• It’s stained, torn, or broken beyond repair.
• It’s outdated or nonfunctional (electronics).
• It’s water-damaged or falling apart (books).
• It’s missing parts (board games, puzzles, kitchen appliances).
• It’s overly dated (CRT TVs, old tech, bulky fax machines).

Customize this list based on actual sales data. Maybe certain communities go crazy for vintage kitchen appliances, even ones that look rough around the edges. Or perhaps experience shows that designer handbags, regardless of condition, always find buyers. Let experience guide the criteria.

3. Avoid the “Just in Case” Trap

Almost every thrift store has the same problem lurking in its back room — the “just in case” collection.

These are the items that aren’t quite good enough for the floor but seem too potentially valuable to throw away. The result can be a storage area that looks like a treasure hunter’s garage sale exploded.

Ask yourself:

• Does this item realistically have resale potential?
• Have we sold something like this before, or did it sit unsold for months?
• Is it worth the space it takes to store, clean, or display?

If you’re still unsure, put a sticky note with a review date on it. If the item hasn’t made it to the floor or sold by then, it might be time to part ways.

4. Create Rules for Sorting Common Problem Items

Some donation categories require extra thought, and without clear guidelines, they can slow down your whole sorting process.

Here are some guidelines to help you handle the usual suspects:

• Children’s clothing: Keep only gently used pieces. Check for stains, snaps, zippers, and safety recalls.
• Books: Focus on popular fiction, kids’ books, cookbooks, and recent titles. Skip encyclopedia sets, outdated textbooks, and books with damaged spines.
• Electronics: Accept clean, working items only. Test everything if possible.
• Seasonal decor: Mark “hold” bins by holiday, and rotate them onto the floor only when it makes sense.

5. Know What To Do With Unsellable Items

Not everything that can’t make money for your store has to end up in the trash. The key is to have an exit plan for every item that doesn’t make the cut.

Here’s how unusable donations can still do some good:

• Textile recycling: Accept ripped or stained clothing for repurposing into rags or insulation.
• Free bins: Set up free bins outside your store for items you can’t sell but others may still use.
• Partner organizations: Work with shelters, schools, or charities that accept donations outside your scope, especially for books, toys, or furniture.

Related Read: How To Combat Bad Donations: A Thrift Store’s Guide

6. Use Data To Sort Donations Smarter 

Here’s where many thrift stores miss a huge opportunity. Incredibly valuable data is available — what sells, what doesn’t, what prices work, what customer preferences are — but most stores don’t use it strategically.

Start tracking some basic metrics: 

• What categories sell fastest? 
• Which items sit on shelves for months? 
• What price points work best for different types of items? 
• Which days of the week bring in the best donations?

This information can directly influence decisions when it comes to sorting donations. 

If women’s jeans sell within days of hitting the floor, every decent pair that comes through donations is worth keeping. If men’s ties have been gathering dust for months, maybe it’s time to be more selective.

Don’t rely on assumptions or what worked elsewhere. Each store, community, and customer base is unique. Let your own data reveal what works.

Make Sorting (& Selling) Easier With ThriftCart

Making good sorting decisions is easier when you’ve got the right tools on your side. That’s where ThriftCart comes in.

ThriftCart is an all-in-one point of sale (POS) system designed specifically for thrift and resale stores. 

With ThriftCart, you can:

• Track sales by category so you know what’s selling and what’s not.
• Streamline donation intake with easy-to-use forms and barcode labeling.
• Automate inventory rotation so high-priority items hit the sales floor fast.
• Generate custom reports to help your team set sorting criteria based on data.

When you let our cloud-based software handle the data and day-to-day processes, you and your team can spend more time building a mission-driven store.

Ready to upgrade the way you sort, price, and sell donations? Schedule a demo today to learn how ThriftCart can help your thrift store run smoother.