Starting a for profit thrift shop

[mmoul]

This website is awesome!

I'm interested in opening my own for profit thrift shop in a small town in Massachusetts, with the flexibilit to donate if I decide. How does one go about starting a thrift shop? How do you keep track of donations, what is bookeeping like, do we charge tax, what does financial statements look like, etc???

Any info will help. Thanks so muc!!!

[Good Buddy]

You can only accept donations if your shop's profits support a charity or you collect and buy from a charity. That doesn't mean that you can't collect a paycheck as the manager of the store. I know thrift shop managers that make $16 an hour. But they work for non-profits and they are total professionals and their stores are really all great.
If you take donations and don't give anything to a charity, that's just wrong.
But most thrift shop managers are paid employees and many are top notch people and do a kick butt job.
There's an international chain of thrifts that have hundreds of locations worldwide that are for-profit. What they do is ally themselves with a local charity and buy the donations directly from them.. http://www.savers.com
They make MILLIONS of dollars for hundreds of charities around the globe, but run a for-profit business.
These are not cheap thrift stores, no fill-a-bag for a dollar or anything, but they're all well lit, have dressing and bath rooms and the items are always organized and are of good quality.
All the Veterans Associations thrifts around the country are run the same way.
You can make money for you and a charity if you do it right....

Good luck!

[mmoul]

Thank u.

My attention was not to take donations, and not give back. I DO Definitely want to give back. I just wanted to know the structure as a beginner.

The information u provided was helpful. How would I initiate buying from the place u suggested? Where else could I do this?