Written by: Divya Palasamudram
Sonali Ratnasinghe and Divya Palasamudram started an online thrift store where all profits went to support Note In The Pocket (NITP), a nonprofit that provides quality clothing for homeless and impoverished students in Wake County. This online thrift store, which came to be known as Trendy Thrifts, raised an impressive amount of $694 for NITP so far, and is still ongoing!
How did this online store begin?
Sonali and Divya knew they wanted to start a project to support Note In The Pocket as this nonprofit’s mission resonated with them. After a thorough session of brainstorming ideas, they came to realize that both of them had new and gently used clothing that could be sold. To get started, they found articles of clothing and accessories that would appeal to a highschool audience. Once the items were selected and photographed, they were uploaded on a Wix site, which came to be known as Trendy Thrifts. This initiative played a large role in spearheading the start of General Services Foundation.
Promotion
Trendy Thrifts had an Instagram account where Sonali and Divya posted about sustainable fashion practices as well as showed appreciation for those who purchased off of Trendy Thrifts. In addition to posting on social media, the site was also promoted to friends and family who would be interested in certain products.
Skills
Sonali and Divya learned how to use Wix for the first time through Trendy Thrifts, this background knowledge was extremely helpful when setting up the General Services Foundation Wix site. Beyond website setup, Sonali mentioned that she learned a thing or two about photography and how to properly picture items on the site. Finally, the team learned about the behind the scenes aspects of running a small business. “We have both seen clothing sites and thrift stores, but we never really knew how they were set up until we started running Trendy Thrifts,” mentioned Sonali.
Obstacles
Once uploading each item, the team found it difficult to find enticing and intriguing captions for all the clothing. “We wanted to capture the customer’s attention and did not want all the captions to be dull and repetitive.” said Divya. To overcome this, the team started using diverse vocabulary and more interesting sentence structures.
Conclusion
If this project inspired you to start a fundraiser of your own, that is amazing! The General Services board is always here to assist you with starting your own service project.