Charity Shop - United States and Canada

United States and Canada

In the United States, major national thrift shop operators include Arc Thrift Stores, Goodwill Industries, Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Stores, ReStore (see Habitat for Humanity International), Deseret Industries (in the western U.S.), and Value Village (see Savers). Regional operators include Deseret Industries in the western United States, and those run by the Bethesda Lutheran Home in the Upper Midwest. Many local charitable organizations, both religious and secular, operate thrift shops. Common among these are missions, children's homes, homeless shelters, and animal shelters. In addition, some charity shops are operated by churches, and are fundraising venues that support activities including, in some cases, missionary activities in other countries. Several U.S. stores are for-profit, with the charity that collected the goods making money from the wholesale of those items to the store.

In July 2009, a U.S. government report revealed that several lenders were judging their customers' financial status based on where they shopped, and were assuming that those who shopped at thrift stores and other low-cost retailers were struggling financially. In response, the lender were increasing interest rates, lowering their credit limit, or even damaging their overall credit score, which may have caused other credit issuers to further harm the shopper by taking similar actions (universal default), or denying credit applications altogether. Laws were passed by Congress in 2009 to stop issuers from these practices.