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by ryanmerket·5y ago·view on hn ↗
At Goodfair (disclosure: I run Product & Eng), we are based out of the used clothing capital of America -- Port of Houston, TX. It's our mission to rescue these clothes from being sold to international distributors / before they leave our shores, and sell them in thrift/vintage bundles.

Our model is a bit unique. We purchase the same 100lb and 500lb bales the international distributors do. We have a team that processes the bales, categorizes the clothes, and then merch/list them in a marketable and fun way on the site.

Textile waste is the 2nd largest polluter behind oil & gas. If we can help create a culture of buying second-hand first, we think there's a massive opportunity to put a dent in climate change.

We just got some of our first press yesterday. :) https://www.houstonchronicle.com/techburger/amp/Houston-dres...

tl;dr WE WILL TAKE ALL YOUR CLOTHES. :)

8 comments
Do you have plans to address the criticisms you've had on Youtube and Reddit comments? It sounds like a lot of people have been unhappy with quality of service given the prices (esp. if you get low quantities), citing the dirtiness/wrinkles of clothes received (you don't wash them on purpose I guess), how there seems to be a lot of clothes that are beat up or faded compared to what you'd get at a thrift store, how you don't have controls over the brightness and vibrancy colors you get, and there seems to be little adherence to the requests customers put in text box.
I'm amazed the business model works. The shipping and handling may cost more than the contents.
> Do you have plans to address the criticisms you've had on Youtube and Reddit comments?

Isn't this just an advertising platform? Why would we address criticisms here?

When people notice an influential employee that works at a company is active in a community, that presents them with an opportunity to talk to a living breathing person that might actually respond to questions that they feel have been ignored by official channels. People ask questions like this all the time. Unfortunately, sometimes its the only way to get someone at a company to actually help you.
Very interested in this company fyi in the "more to explore" section in https://goodfair.com/pages/about-us the three images are deceptively not linking to anything like the middle one says "our amazing blog" and is not a link. Not trying to nitpick but just something I noticed.
How much do these bales cost usually? How would an individual buy them? I've visited one of the "ropa" stores in south Texas, the ones where they have massive piles of clothes you literally climb over to dig through, it was a real surprise those exist!
> it was a real surprise those exist!

There used to be a store like that in Cambridge next to MIT where real estate was essentially free. We used to go to one where you just filed a plastic bag; the bag was weighed and you paid $1/lb. Great for parties and amazing finds.

Oh, I remember doing this - the Garment District? Looks like they are still around.
Oh yeah, that was their real name! I couldn’t remember as we always called it “dollar a pound”
The Garment District is the part upstairs that has cute vintage / upcycled ... Dollar a Pound is below.
No clue how they're handling post-covid but before they were still doing clothes by the pound as usual
One of my friends got jabbed by a used needle in a pair of pants he bought from Dollar a Pound. It was not a fun experience for him...

I liked the clothes I got from there though! I found a cool jacket once.

I used to go there in the 80s so that would have been considered “extra authentic”.

Yes, kids are dumb.

> next to MIT where real estate was essentially free

Is MIT built in/near a dump or something? Or you mean it was but definitely isn’t essentially free now? Or?

Basically yes. The very scungeiness and corruption of East Cambridge leant it charm. It wasn’t like Yale or Columbia, wealthy walled fortresses in poor neighborhoods. Nerds and blue collar folk lived tooth by jowl. And Kendall square was a wasteland of decaying industrial buildings and weed-filled concrete lots.

I went to high school in Boston (the city on other side of the river) which was much more dangerous. At MIT I never felt my life was in danger.

Yeah, that part of Cambridge was originally all industry. It’s been changing slower than you would think.
That was true historically but all of the real estate around MIT is now worth millions
It was literally called Dollar a Pound and it's where I got all my clothes as a teenager.
The big 500-2000lb bales of clothes will sell for 15 to 20 cents a pound, it varies some depending on the quality of the clothing and the transportation and storage costs. If it is really all undamaged high quality clothing it could be more than $1 a lb, but generally what is sold in these big bales is a combination of it not being worth the time to sort and sell, and being damaged and not desirable. What isn't sold is recycled into rags, or sometimes sent overseas where the labor costs and incentives are different.
This is a great idea! When I walk into goodwill it's a tsunami of clothing that I have to go through to look for a diamond. If there was an already curated site I would use that.
Curious what percentage of the clothes you buy actually sell? Anyways, nice website, I might try it out next time I'm looking for clothes.
> Curious what percentage of the clothes you buy actually sell

I mean, I guess if it doesn’t sell, they just bale it up again and off it goes to its original destination.

Their only cost is the initial sifting and warehousing.

And even then, they might be able to sell their pre-sifted inventory at higher prices baled-up for export.

Books aren’t too different:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/business/23shortcuts.html

That doesn't answer the question though, which was what percentage of clothes actually sell. I wasn't asking what happens if the clothes don't sell.
When they are sold to international distributors instead, do they still make it to end users? Or do they land in some sort of recycling process for feed stock back into raw materials for new clothing?

I ask because, as much as I think US consumers can benefit from them, my greater concern is that they simply don't go to waste.

Either way, it's the first I've heard of your service, and it sounds fantastic. How do I get you my old clothes? Or is it aggregated and sold on to you through the network of goodwill stores and other thrift shops?

This is the sort of problem I love to hear being solved by tech & advanced logistics, rather than the latest startup that hopes to catch a piece of the advertising pie.

The clothes end up in third world countries where they are sold, hurting local industries.
some of them end here in thrift shops in Tunisia. they get extended life. and no they don't hurt local industry. in fact we have an important clothing industry and it's mostly targeted towards export. so the clothes get exported new and come back as used. it's not unusual to find clothes made in Tunisia in thrift shops. the funny thing is the clothes are sold in thrift shops the same price (converted to dollars) they were sold new when exported. i find this distortion illustrates accurately the injustice in the world
Or their ability to focus on other higher margin production than clothing may be a net gain. Or not, I don't know. But I don't think it's as simple as "local clothing production suffers".
Planet Money did an episode several years ago.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/26/434988401/epis...

Dumping is rarely good for any economies. That’s why the US had anti dumping laws for their own market.
Where does dumping start and comparative advantage start? Seems like the US has a high supply of cheap clothes, not unlike how new zealand has a high supply of cheep lamb.
Dumping is selling stuff below cost.
Dumping is only a problem when it's used to create a monopoly.

Producing something efficiently for cheap is not dumping.

It's not below cost if the goods don't have a resale value otherwise. Should they be destroyed so profits can be made by some other company selling clothes to the same population?
Developing countries, not third world, that term is offensive. Those clothes allow people to open their own small business fashion boutiques which creates jobs. They lower prices and give consumers more choice. They do take away business from giant clothing brand companies that exploit labor in developing countries. What local industries does it hurt?
> that term is offensive.

Sorry, but 'third world' is really only offensive to people from first world countries who find the term 'third world' offensive. Oh, and it might also be offensive to people in developing countries who can afford developed countries' lifestyles.

I may not agree with the usage either, but that's what I see all around the third world countries that I've been to, and the one where I have lived since I was born. No one really cares, and no one is offended (except see previous paragraph).

“Third world” is a dumb term to use because it’s based on the Cold War where the USSR was the “second world” and that shit hasn’t existed for over 30 years. Developing / underdeveloped are better, far less amorphous terms. Agree it’s not really offensive, but it is a poor choice of words for reasons completely unrelated to political correctness.
At least its better than "global south". It was rediculous when people would start talking about "global north" countries like Australia.
Everybody knows that history , terms change with time, as someone who has lived all his life in the 3rd world, I have never met even 1 person who is offended by the term (I have met online a lot of first-worlders offended though). We use the term as sarcastic self-mockery and as encompassing umbrella to identify ourselves with nations all over the world under the same predicaments. Proud tercermundista here.
https://www.humanosphere.org/social-business/2014/09/toms-sh...

There is one article talking about the effect on local industry. The gist of it is that you help people out by giving them free stuff, but you kill the local food/clothing/shoe industry and therefore trap the very communities you intend to help into a cycle where they can never start businesses and raise their standard of living because nobody will buy their stuff because they get it for free through aid.

Also, the term "third world" is not offensive and most people are tired of playing this game where some group declares some term offensive and we are all expected to stop using it. You don't get to dictate the language people use to talk and think about the world around them.

Do people really wear secondhand clothes and shoes if they care about appearance and can afford more fashionable, better fitting locally made stuff? This could be equally applicable to first-world countries, where most people don't wear cheap secondhand clothes although they're readily available
Nobody said anything about being fashionable.

I personally wear almost exclusively second hand clothes. The only things I buy new are shoes and underwear.

Im literally born and living in a third world country and its not offensive lol, but yea you're right people here LOVE those cheap quality clothes.
Thanks for posting, really interesting to read that process. Just went on the site and ordered some clothes!
> tl;dr WE WILL TAKE ALL YOUR CLOTHES. :)

Tell me more. Can I mail you a box?

+1. I've been dropping my used clothes in donation boxes but would love to know more and how I can contribute to sustainable causes.
They're not even a non-profit. I'm sure there are much deserving places to give your clothes to.
Buy nothing group in your area!
We're rolling out donations >> Goodfair soon. That's a large logistical step, but we're well on our way!