#Salvation #Army #Partnership #Mission #Meets #WorthPoint
Resellers, thrifters, pickers, and customers who need affordable goods depend on thrift stores. Whether it’s a profit margin issue for resellers or a budget issue for a family, thrift stores can help to keep costs reasonable. One organization that understands this concept from all sides is The Salvation Army.
A Promising Partnership
In the US, there are approximately 1500 Salvation Army-affiliated thrift stores. They also have an e-commerce division and sell items via their eBay storefront. The organization is about providing services, and the sales from their stores support those efforts.
While they are not motivated by profit, to achieve their mission, they need to keep their operating costs down and their store prices affordable, all while still bringing in enough revenue to support their programming. It’s a delicate balancing act, but they have chosen to partner with WorthPoint and leverage our suite of research tools and our comprehensive database on price and value to price their donations appropriately.
Started with a Chance Encounter
In this video, The Salvation Army’s Director of E-Commerce, Eric Rader, discusses meeting WorthPoint CEO Will Seippel at an estate sale. Will was using the WorthPoint mobile app to look up pricing data on some items, and Eric asked him about it and how it worked.
It was the beginning of a partnership that has helped The Salvation Army identify higher-end items, like vintage pieces, antiques, and collectibles, so employees in their retail stores can price items to reflect their actual worth.
Worth It
When Rader and his team began using the WorthPoint app, they had artwork sales totaling about $20,000 per year. After a couple of years of using the app, they are now seeing sales of artwork totaling $500,000 per year, which they attribute to the research tools and the valuation database that WorthPoint provides.
Rader notes that aside from the Price Guide, which is ideal for learning the value of an item, the digital Library and Marks database allow them to find detailed information on the item. They also use the visual recognition software in the app, so if they don’t know what an item might be, WorthPoint can search an image of the item and bring up all the relevant information.
Check out the video to see how WorthPoint is making a difference in the important mission of The Salvation Army.
Brenda Kelley Kim lives in the Boston area. She is the author of Sink or Swim: Tales From the Deep End of Everywhere and writes a weekly syndicated column for The Marblehead Weekly News/Essex Media Group. When not writing or walking her snorty pug, Penny, she enjoys yard sales, flea markets, and badminton.
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