A Smile - Coulee Region Women Magazine

The racks at Once Upon a Child are packed with gently used clothing for children of all ages. The store also sells used toys and baby equipment, as well as new merchandise
at a reasonable price. It’s one of many good options for area families to recycle used items while saving money on products new to them.
“I couldn’t afford the name brands at the
mall,” she says. “My daughter needed ice
skates. I got them at Goodwill.”
Clements, who bought Wee Repeat
five years ago, after it had been a South
Side fixture for two decades, notes that
consignment resale isn’t a way to get rich. But
she likes that her shop helps people afford
clothes, toys, equipment, games and books
for their children as well as maternity clothes
for mothers-to-be. Many of her customers
are grandmothers, she notes. “Money is tight
now,” she says. “Maybe Mom isn’t into resale,
but Grandma is.”
Over the past few years, Clements has
seen a change in her customers, from mostly
low-income people to middle-class and
upper-middle-class. Twice a year, a line of
customers drawn by her $1-an-item seasonal
closeouts stretches out the door. Unsold
clothing at the end of each season goes to
area charities.
A recent visit to Wee Repeat showed a
wealth of name brands in children’s clothing
size zero to teen. The advantages over buying
standard retail are obvious: Prices range from
$4 for a Carter’s newborn sleeper to $7 for
a London Fog jacket, $8 for a Gymboree
sundress, $10 for a Tommy Hilfiger jacket
and $45 for a Graco double stroller.
Kara Tomashek, owner of Once Upon a
Child in Onalaska, another area children’s
resale staple, says the gently used products
18 APRIL/MAY 2009 www.crwmagazine.com
she buys from parents and resells cost about
half of what they would new. The new
products sold at Once Upon a Child cost the
same as similar products in retail stores such
as Target.
Tomashek says parents like being able to
recycle their kids’ outgrown toys and clothing
and get cash. “By recycling your kids’ stuff,
cool toys end up in a child’s arms or keeping
someone warm, rather than in the landfill,”
she says.
get active and go green
Dale Maly, owner of Play It Again Sports
in La Crosse’s Shelby Mall, notes that a
couple of generations of Americans have
gotten used to buying new instead of used,
but he says the current economy may force
a change.
Maly remembers getting new Penney’s
plain-pocket jeans at the start of each school
year; fancy brands weren’t an option unless
he wanted to pay for them himself. He thinks
current kids will have to be less picky about
name brands and buying new. “There’s going
to be more of ‘You get what you get,’” he says.
Play It Again Sports buys sports gear
outright or lets sellers trade it in on something
else. Larger items are taken on consignment.
The store’s sales of used equipment
were up 50 percent in 2008 over the
previous year, Maly says. The store, a
franchise, carries new and used material
for major sports—hockey, baseball, golf,
snowboarding, soccer—as well as cardio
and strength-training fitness equipment.
He, like Clements, has noticed a change
in customers. “I am seeing more middle-
and upper-class customers willing to look at
used,” he observes.
Take pride in going green
Mike Bechtel, a La Crosse Central High
School science teacher, says he likes to
flaunt to his students that he buys clothes at
Goodwill. His three daughters won’t do it,
though, and when he meets an acquaintance
while shopping at Goodwill, the other person
sometime avoids making eye contact. That
doesn’t bother Bechtel.
“It doesn’t make sense to pay $50 for
things that get worn a couple of times
a month,” he says. “Dress shirts are way
overpriced. I am constantly on the prowl for
36x36 brown jeans.”
He likes feeling he hasn’t overpaid. “After
all, they are just clothes.” D
Writer and editor Ellen Dodge Severson
watched her husband check the La Crosse
ReStore weekly for four months, looking for
an odd-size, hung-on-the-wrong-side door for
their funky La Crosse Victorian. He found it,
too, for $10.