Coresight Research CEO and Founder Deborah Weinswig was one of three guests honored to be invited to a fund-raising event in New York City hosted by Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and Northern New Jersey (Goodwill NYNJ). Weinswig is a founding member of Goodwill NYNJ’s Retail Advisory Council, and in 2018 joined its board of directors. The event was to raise funds for Goodwill NY NJ – but also brought together a number of key people in retail. “My whole career has been dedicated to empowering work for people who are unemployed and underemployed, which is what we do at Goodwill NYNJ,” said Katy Gaul-Stigge, Goodwill NYNJ President and CEO. “When I first came to Goodwill NYNJ, I reached out right away to retail industry experts like Deborah Weinswig, so I could learn more about the retail business.” In 2018, Goodwill NYNJ launched a new store concept with its first "Curated by Goodwill NYNJ" boutique in New York’s Upper West Side. The project was the outcome of a contest for students in the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology at SUNY’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) to come up with an innovative project to reimagine the 100 year-old social enterprise. The contest was part of Vision 2020, Goodwill NYNJ's three-year strategic plan to proactively address the changing shopping behavior of US consumers. At Curated by Goodwill NYNJ, the nonprofit's new shopping concept, specially trained internal stylists and featured fashion influencers stock the shops with the season's most on-trend, cool, and fashion-forward second-hand pieces. All merchandise is sourced from donations received at the 37 Goodwill stores across the NYC metropolitan region. Curated is tailored to the growing resale market with fashion-forward merchandise without the environmental impact of fast fashion. The latest Curated was a pop-up created in collaboration with Google in Chelsea Market, the sprawling office and retail building owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company. There are permanent Curated by Goodwill NYNJ Shops in Brooklyn and Paramus (New Jersey). Goodwill NYNJ is tapping into a growing trend of thrifting. Some 74% of millennials believe that successful business requires genuine purpose, according to World Retail Congress. While consumers look for retailers with a purpose, Goodwill is more like a purpose with retail operations to support it. And, consumer trends appear to support Goodwill’s model: The ThredUP 2019 Resale Report predicts the total secondhand apparel market will double in size in five years, with resale driving the growth. Over the past three years, resale has grown 21X faster than the overall retail apparel market, according to ThredUP. [caption id="attachment_89584" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Thrift and Donations: A sector of the broader “secondhand” market that includes traditional options such as Goodwill, Salvation Army and yard sales. These secondhand options are primarily, but not exclusively, offline.
Resale: A sector of the broader “secondhand” market that includes more curated product assortments, often well merchandised and/or higher end. Examples include thredUP and TheRealReal, as well as upscale physical players such as Buffalo Exchange. These secondhand options are primarily, but not exclusively, online.
Source: ThredUP [/caption]   Surprisingly, 64% of women are now willing to buy secondhand products, with millennials most willing to go the thrift route (33%) and baby boomers next (at 31%). Some 74% of 18-29 year olds said they prefer to buy from sustainably conscious brands, according to ThredUP. [caption id="attachment_89565" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Curated Shop within the Goodwill NYNJ store in Brooklyn, NY
Source: Goodwill NYNJ [/caption]   In April 2019, Goodwill NYNJ also announced a strategic partnership with Price to enable shoppers browsing third-party online sites to access alternative shopping options on ShopGoodwill.com. Price’s e-commerce application Price.com developed a browser extension for Goodwill NYNJ, which alerts shoppers looking for items on popular sites including Amazon.com, Walmart.com and Jet.com that the same item they are looking for is available on ShopGoodwill.com. When the shopper clicks on the alert generated by the browser extension, the page is directed to the nonprofit organization online portal, where the shopper has the option to buy the item from Goodwill.