How to Shop a Thrift Store

...and find the most valuable things

I believe good design should be accessible to all. But most of us can’t afford a professional interior designer, nor can we afford a designer-made piece fresh off a showroom floor. Which means that if we want good design — well-made, quality pieces of furniture that look good and will stand the test of time, or cashmere sweaters made to last — we have to hunt for it.

That’s where thrift stores come in. Thrift stores, op shops and charity shops around the world are full of treasure. I know this, because I’ve found a lot of it.

I have spent years thrifting. And I am very, very good at finding expensive, gorgeous, well-made pieces for very low prices. This post aims to show you how to do it, too.

To date, I’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars flipping furniture, home accessories, art and the like for a profit. I’ve sold vintage to everyone from AD100 interior designers to Jimmy Fallon. But I’ve also bought a lot for myself. I’ve purchased Christian Dior capes and Nina Ricci suits. Goyard trunks and Oscar de la Renta scarves.

As I’ve honed my techniques, I’ve taught others how to hone theirs, too. Due to the success of my book Big Thrift Energy, I have traveled throughout North America, speaking to large audiences about how to shop secondhand. I’ve appeared on morning shows, radio segments, NBC News, and spoken to outlets as wide-ranging as The Economist and Elle Decor about shopping vintage.

So here, I’ve tried to narrow my tips down as best I can into something of a Hero post — a comprehensive document you can bookmark and turn to, again and again.

Before You Go

Take an hour out of your day to gather some inspiration. If you want the nitty-gritty on my pre-thrifting routine, head here. The short version is this: Before you go thrifting, you need to fill your mind with ideas so you don’t go shopping completely blind.

• Scour the Editor’s Picks page on 1st Dibs and the New Arrivals hub on Chairish. These will help you have a solid understanding of what’s trending and what’s valuable (because well-made items will stand the test of time much longer than a factory-made item will).

• Save photos of spaces you like on Instagram and Pinterest. Pay attention to what you like about those rooms — is it the scale of a painting on a wall? Is it the color of a table? Is it the mix of materials? Keep all that in mind when you shop.

Have a toolkit. There are a handful of things I always have handy when I go thrifting, that simply make my life (and transporting things) easier.

1. Tape measure: I keep a full-sized tape measure in my car, and have one attached to my keys, so I never forget it. This helps if you find a nightstand and aren’t sure it will fit next to your bed and if you find a large painting and aren't sure if it will fit in your car.

2. Reusable bag: I mean, duh. Better for the environment.

3. Towels or moving blanket: Having a moving blanket in the back of my SUV is imperative. This ensures a large piece of furniture doesn’t get damaged in transit, while I’m taking it home (furniture also just slides into a car better if it’s on a blanket). Having some small towels on hand, to wrap around breakables like glass and ceramic, is also a great idea.

4. Cash: In case you stop at a yard sale on the way to the thrift (or, in the event that the internet stops working and the store only accepts cash — this has happened to me more than once).

5. Phone: I’ve detailed the apps I use while thrifting below but having your Notes app up-to-date with a list of items you want or need, and a list of measurements is so handy. I keep measurements for my dining area (because I am always on the hunt for a larger dining table) and the area next to my bed, in case I find new bedside tables.

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At the Thrift Store

If you only have 15 minutes:

Shop the periphery. This is also my advice for grocery shopping — shopping the periphery of the store ensures you don’t get bogged down by the racks and racks of clothing in the middle (the junk food, as it were) and just focus on the larger items (the healthy stuff): the furniture, the art, the lamps. Typically, thrift stores keep all the dinky stuff in the middle of the store (the mugs, the t-shirt, etc.). Filter that out if you don’t have the time for it.

Scan for materials. This goes for both clothing and home furnishings. If you don’t have time to go through every item on the clothing racks, just walk slow the aisles and scan for things that look like silk, leather or suede. And if you’re looking at a thrift store with a bunch of tables, look for dark woods, anything “rustic” or primitive (like this bench/coffee table I found recently), metals/brass/chrome, leather and marble.

If you have time to kill:

Look everywhere in the store. And I mean everywhere.

• Check the glass cases at the front of the store (this is generally where they keep the new-with-tags items and things they think are valuable — it’s not always valuable stuff in actuality, but sometimes tiny things, like jewelry, are kept here).

• Check the bathrooms (sometimes priced merchandise — mirrors or art — is kept inside the bathrooms).

• Look down hallways (art is often hung here).

• Check on the tops of clothings racks (small pieces of art, frames, lamps…lots of goodies are hiding here).

• Also, check behind clothing racks (some thrift stores stack their art against the wall and behind the clothing).

Thrift finds, as seen in Big Thrift Energy (photos by Agnes Lopez)

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The Best Apps for Thrifting

Google Lens: The GOAT when it comes to identifying things. If you find a piece of furniture or vintage ceramic or art and want to know more about it (like whether it’s from Pottery Barn or if it’s actually mid-century), just use the reverse image search on the Google app. Doesn’t always work but when it does, it is so helpful (video how-to below).

1stDibs/Chairish: If you find something with a maker’s mark and want to know if it’s a worthy buy, just search these sites for the same maker. This isn’t foolproof if you’re a reseller (if you resell on Facebook Marketplace in Northeast Florida, you simply can’t sell your stuff at the same price as a 1stDibs dealer — these are different markets), but this will help if you’re just buying for yourself.

SellRaze: This is a new-to-me app but it shows promise for those thrifting clothing. Geared toward resellers, it works like a reverse Google image search but culls data specifically from secondhand sites like depop and eBay, so you can see how much an item sold for. (It also helps you create shipping labels, list items and track your inventory so it really is a one-stop-shop if you resell clothing, especially).

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A Note on Maker’s Marks

If you want to know what something “is” (i.e. who made it), look for a mark. This might be a tag on an item of clothing, or it might be a label on a piece of furniture, or it might be something as innocuous as a squiggle underneath a piece of pottery. This can tell you when and where an item was made, and its value (or, at least, whether it was made overseas in a factory, or by hand).

• Tables, dressers, chests: Check on the back or underneath for either a stamp or some sort of tag. If you can’t find one there, open the drawers — brands often stick their labels inside. No brand name? Look for words like “North Carolina” or “Pennsylvania” or (particularly if it looks like a mid-century piece) “Sweden,” all areas known for very high quality furniture.

• Chairs and couches: If it’s upholstered, check under the cushions or look for a tag underneath the item itself.

• On pottery: Look underneath or on the bottom of an item. Look for words like “Italy,” “Portugal” or even more specific regions, like “Vallauris” or “Grottaglie.”

maker’s marks, from top left: under the cushions of a couch; on the bottom of a vase; in the drawer of a dresser; underneath a pitcher

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My number-one biggest tip for thrifting — if you want to find really incredible stuff — is to go often.

Thrift stores get new stuff in every single day, and many put new merchandise on the floor constantly. In fact, some thrift stores get as many as 40,000 new donations every single week.

I turn to this stat often, because I’ll hear: “Shhhh. Don’t urge people to go thrifting. Then there will be less stuff for the rest of us.”

The supply of “stuff” in this world is endless. Encouraging more people to shop secondhand, and thereby increasing the demand for thrifted goods, will not change the fact that there’s more secondhand stuff in this world than we know what to do with.

Let me say that again, to be as clear as I possibly can:

Encouraging more people to thrift will not mean there’s less stuff for the rest of us to buy.

We should all be thrifting. Not as a second or third choice, and not just for Halloween costumes. But as a first choice for a dining room table, or bed frame, or first-date outfit, or gift for your significant other.

Thrifting is sustainable (shopping secondhand reduces the endless cycle of waste brought on by frequent shopping at big-box stores); it is affordable; and it is charitable (contrary to popular belief, the charitable aspect of thrifting lies in the sale, not in the low-priced merchandise — when you thrift at a non-profit store, you are contributing to battered women’s shelters, community jobs programs, hospice programs and the like).

Plus, it is so much fun to find something incredible at a thrift store because it feels like you hunted for your food. We humans love a discovery! We were once pirates and foragers and explorers. Shopping at a high-end boutique is great but finding a $3,00 Maitland-Smith cabinet at a Goodwill for $50? Now that’s what I’m talking about.

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Congrats to the winners of the last two Substack subscriber giveaways: Dallas and Kari! This week I want to send a paid subscriber a set of cocktail napkins by Dear Annabelle! To enter, comment on this post by next Sunday, March 2! Tell me about your best-ever thrift find or what’s on your bucket list.

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From the Archives

How to Determine the Value of Vintage and Antique Items

Anatomy of a Find: My $25,000 Fornasetti Desk

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And I’ll leave you with this…