San Francisco Is the 6th-Best City for Thrifting in America
"Thrift Shop" Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
The circular clothing economy is thriving in the Bay Area, so much so that Joybird—the LA-based furniture company—has declared San Francisco the sixth-best American city for shopping secondhand. Why is a retailer best-known for brand-new custom sofas dabbling in vintage-shopping rankings? Great question! But here we are writing about it, so someone give the content strategist who came up with the idea a raise.
“Though we exclusively sell new, iconic, high-quality furniture, thrifting is one of the Joybird team’s favorite past times,” the brand explained in a blog post about the rankings. “We’re based in Los Angeles, with showrooms in thrift-friendly Brooklyn and Washington D.C., so we’re privileged to enjoy a broad range of thrift stores, clothing re-sellers, and vintage shops.”
Joybirders are so enthusiastic about thrifting that they created a methodology for assessing a city’s thrift scene. Reasoning “the best cities for thrifting would require a combination of access to secondhand goods, affordability, and high-quality stores.,” they analyzed Yelp data of the 50 most populous U.S. cities for number of thrift(ish) businesses, donation centers and adjacent services per 100,000 people; star ratings of thrift stores and flea markets; and price levels of thrift stores and flea markets. To determine the ranking, they gave each factor a weight, ran the calculations, and ranked accordingly. “
When the brain dust settled from all that math, Joybird crowned Riverside, Calif. the numero uno thrifting city in America, with 126.37 thrift stores per 100,000 people. Just five spots behind, San Francisco has 87.3 thrift stores per 100,000 with an average Yelp rating of 4.05 stars. Fellow Bay Area all-star San Jose came in at number 22, while three other California cities cracked the Top 25: Sacramento (10), Los Angeles (15), and San Diego 21).
We’re always happy to see the Bay Area rise to the top of any positive rankings, but Joybird’s findings aren’t especially surprising. Folks around here have no shortage of resale and consignment options to clean out their closets—eBay, Poshmark, ThredUp, and TheRealReal were all born the area—so of course there would be some ridiculously good shopportunities. To put it in Top Gun parlance, we’re in a “target-rich environment.”
So the next time you need a dopamine rush from shopping, but you don’t want waste your hard-earned dollars on fast fashion, hit one of San Francisco’s numerous, well-reviewed resale shops. You’ll get more for your money, help reduce textile waste, and ensure San Francisco’s place in the upper echelon of thrifty cities.