Does your ministry or non-profit want to start or improve a Thrift store?

A professional profitable thrift operation is a serious endeavor!

Having grandma’s basement dumped on us ten times a day and sifting through the 50%+ of unusable items to find the treasures and turn them into a profit while controlling labor and garbage costs is nothing like running a church yard sale! Often utilizing an industry expert can shave years off a learning curve and return incredible profits quickly.

Craig Pedersen has 4-year degrees in Entrepreneurial Management and Biblical Leadership, was a project manager for a fortune 100 company and has over 17 years of experience opening and improving dozens of thrift stores throughout the US and Canada. Craig is a frequent speaker and board member for the Association of Christian Thrift Stores. The stores Craig leads for Hope Gospel Mission produce over 70% of the missions $4 million + annual budget and regularly see over 40% of sales go directly to the bottom line.

Craig offers thrift store consulting with 129 Best practices shared including:

• How to Maximize Margin
• Create Product Flow
• Reduce Waste
• Manage by Metrics
• Implement Barcoding
• Utilize Systems for staff and volunteer training
• Increase donations and repeat customers
• Best use floor space
• Thrift specific safety training

For example:

By comparing ThriftCart and time tracking data, it is possible to set and monitor important production metrics such as sales per paid labor hour worked and items sold per paid hour worked. A recent month at one of our stores produces the following:

Department	Total Price	Hours	Sales / Hour	Items Sold	# Sold / Labor Hour
Clothing	$   68,835	622	$             111	16778	27
Bric A Brac	$   50,303	347	$             145	17117	49
Furniture	$   25,523	492	$               52	859	1.7

This report allows the thrift store managers to properly distribute labor, set production goals and know how to adjust the size of each department on the floor. Other similar reports would include; sales per square foot by department, average price per item sold, length of time items are on the floor at each price point by department, etc.

For thrift store consulting services, contact:

Craig Pedersen Operations Director Hope Gospel Mission Eau Claire WI 54703 715.271.4673 Craigp@hopegospelmission.org

Craig Pedersen is not affiliated with ThriftCart. We're thankful to Craig for his experience that he brings to the table and hope that you find his insights helpful!