America’s Thrift Store has now opened a second Chattanooga location off Brainerd Road with a grand opening event starting today, June 25th.
“We wanted a second store in Chattanooga,” said America’s Thrift Store CEO Ken Sobaski. He said the first store is in Hixson at Northgate Mall. Sobaski said they have another store in Dalton.
“This is halfway between the two stores, so it's a perfect location,” he said.
During a private VIP media tour Tuesday morning Sobaski said they expect the store will stay busy with sales, donations and a constantly rotating inventory.
Sobaski said thrift store enthusiasts and treasure hunters will be able to find new items stocked daily. “It’s a new store every day,” he said adding the building is roughly 45,000 square feet. “So, a store of this size will probably put out 8,000 new items every day. If you can’t find what you’re looking for today you can come back tomorrow.”
The store carries everything imaginable. Clothing, books, houseware, purses, ties, belts, kitchen gadgets and much more. All the items are donated and the intake process that happens behind the scenes runs like a well-oiled machine.
The store has a drive-up donation area where items are sorted. Items are then weighed on a scale. “The reason it gets weighed is because it is how we pay our charities, but it is also how we keep track of everything inside the store,” he said. “The weight is like a denominator to all sorts of different productivity metrics.”
General Manager Pat Harper, a 22-year employee, said employees will sort and grade 400 clothing items and roughly 80 pairs of shoes per hour. Graders examine the clothes to determine if they are sellable or not. They are further sorted into categories like blouses, shirts, formal wear, shorts, skirts, pants and so forth.
If the item is determined to be sellable the grader assesses the quality and condition of the clothing which is entered into a computer which then assigns a price. Employees place the price tag on the clothing and place them on racks by size and clothing type and then roll the items out to be placed in the sales floor inventory.
A similar sorting process takes place for bedding, household items, kitchen gadgets and the various other items they receive. “We have things sometimes that are unsellable, at least by our standards, but there could be an international market for it,” Sobaski said. “We set those things aside and bale them into 1,300-pound bales and send them overseas.”
Sobaski said out of season items like Halloween decorations or winter clothing get placed in back stock. This precise and organized method is equally displayed in the store front where everything has a select location within the store, properly labeled and ready for patrons.
The store has 44 women’s clothing categories, 30 men’s categories, and 41 kids’ categories, all sorted by size, making sure that it’s unbelievably easy to find that treasure you’re on the hunt for.
Sobaski encourages repeat shoppers to join their rewards program. Provide the cashier with the phone number associated with your rewards account each time you check out and earn 1 point for every $1 you spend. Accrue 250 points or more and earn $5 off a future transaction at 250 points.
Enjoy special offers for rewards members, like 2x points weekends, 20% off, and more. Reward members receive 20 bonus points when they visit within 7 days of their birthday.
Donations at both Chattanooga locations benefit Adult & Teen Challenge MidSouth. Their mission is to provide an effective and comprehensive faith-based solution to drug and alcohol addiction as well as other life-controlling problems.
Sobaski said the company plans to possibly open two more stores in the Scenic City in the future.
America’s Thrift Store – Brainerd Road
- 5844 Brainerd Road
- (423) 417-9661
- americasthrift.com/chattanooga-brainerd/