The second-hand goods delivering profits for Savers | The Business | ABC NEWS
Savers Australia is the subsidiary of US company Savers Value Village (SVV). The global retailer is worth $2.2 billion and has shares that trade on the New York Stock Exchange. SVV is also North America’s largest for-profit second-hand retailer with 185 stores in the US and 172 in Canada. Its 50 per cent gross profit margin is well above the industry average and the company earned more than $300 million last year, according to Refinitiv data.
In Australia, Savers has 19 stores. It competes directly with non-profit, second-hand retailers Vinnies and Salvos, and smaller charity op shops that rely on selling donated goods to fund community programs. Some of them are not happy about the expansion of Savers, concerned that its charity donation bins could potentially give it a veneer or “smoke screen” of being charitable. But the American head office of Savers told ABC News it gave its Australian non-profit partners $5.6 million last year. Local boss Michael Fisher said “we partner with not-for-profit organisations. They go and solicit donations from the general public, they bring them to the stores, and we pay them for those donations.” Diabetes Victoria boss Glen Noonan was at Savers’s recent Geelong launch, where big green bins with his non-profit’s logo were on proud display for people to donate into. He said the millions it received last year from Savers was beneficial, and allowed Diabetes Victoria to revenue raise from second-hand donations without the grunt work of running shops themselves.
Michael Lasser, a retail analyst from investment bank UBS, which has done work for Savers, said its biggest overheads would be staff wages, store overheads and the undisclosed cost of buying used items. “This is a business that is aimed at more effectively monetising the donated goods for charities,” he said. Like op shops and non-profit second-hand retailers, Savers also needs to deal with all of the donations from charity partners that it cannot sell in Australian stores.
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Read more here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-03/savers-thrift-second-hand-profit-australia-profile/107077786
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