Resale Stores in the United States: Do They Communicate an Earth-Friendly Message?

This qualitative research study explored the eco-friendly communication of thrift stores in a region ravaged by environmental degradation. This study was inspired by the discovery that active curbside recyclers in one city reported lower rates of donations of items as a landfill diversion. The primary goal of this study was to detect if these thrift shops communicated an earth-friendly message. The secondary goal was to identify and categorize the values communicated based on the framework by Montgomery and Mitchell (2014). Assumptions for this study included that curbside recycling and donations for reuse would be part of eco-thrift behavior; thus, the focus of this study was on questioning the role played by thrift stores in marketing their earth-friendly benefit. A website search of thrift stores in one city was conducted to identify their stated value to the community as communicated on these websites. Those values were then categorized into themes. Most of the messaging appealed to self-interest. It was also common for these stores to frame a mix of other-interest or altruistic (do-good) and self-interest (tax-deductible, self-promotion, and pick-up donations service) behaviors, as well as feel-good promotions. Only those thrift stores associated with a national organization listed an eco-friendly contribution on their website. The study included a practical guide for the message framing of thrift stores and an invitation for future studies in this largely untapped field of research.