How thrift store pricing and color-tag sales work

Why the same shirt costs $4 one week and $2 the next: how chains price donated goods, what the colored tags mean, and how to time a visit around the weekly markdown.

Pricing is by category, not by item

Large chains do not appraise each donated piece. A sorter puts it into a category — men's shirts, kids' shoes, hardback books, small appliances — and the category has a fixed price or a narrow range. That is why a designer blazer and a plain one often hang side by side at the same price, and why the real bargains are the pieces the sorter did not recognize.

Independent stores and church-run shops price more by hand, which cuts both ways: rarer finds are sometimes marked up, but odd items with no obvious category are often marked down just to move them.

What the colored tags mean

Most chains attach a tag whose color changes every week. Each week one color — usually the one that has been on the floor the longest — goes on sale, typically 50% off, and items that still have not sold after that are pulled. The rotation is posted at the register and sometimes on the store's website; it differs between chains and even between regional operators of the same brand, so the color that is on sale in one city is not necessarily on sale in the next.

Reading the tags tells you how long a piece has been on the rack. A tag color that is two rotations old will be on sale next week if it is still there — the gamble is whether someone else takes it first.

Timing a visit

New donations tend to reach the floor early in the week, after the weekend drop-off rush has been sorted. Markdowns usually change on a fixed weekday. Combining the two — the day after restocking for selection, the first day of a new sale color for price — is the whole art of it.

Senior, student and military discount days are common but vary by store and are not always advertised online; a phone call to the specific location is the reliable way to check. The listings on this site show which stores publish hours and a phone number so you can ask.

Published 2026-09-19 · reviewed with each rebuild, last September 2026.