MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – Goodwill thrift stores became especially popular with middle-class shoppers during the Great Recession.
Now, that popularity continues, as evidenced in Goodwill Industries’ Milwaukee region.
The number of retail thrift stores in Metro Milwaukee has grown from 10 to 15 since the recession’s low point in 2009 — and two more stores are due to open this year in Brookfield and Brown Deer.
Goodwill’s territory in southeast Wisconsin and northeast Illinois has seen a 90 percent increase in sales at its retail shops since 2009. Same-store sales grew by 5 percent last year — ten times the growth that Walmart had.
Chicago retail consultant Anne Brouwer tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel there’s been a very “uneven” recovery from the recession — and there remains a “structural problem in terms of the haves and have-nots.”
The U.S. Census Bureau said the numbers of Metro Milwaukee households making less than $25,000 a year grew by 28,000 from 2007 through 2013.
Still, observers say there’s less of a stigma in middle-income people buying at Goodwill, due to several things. Increased advertising and better store environments are among them.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
