Lifecycle of a clothing donation

• You donate pre-loved garments to Vinnies - We love receiving quality clothing that is in a good condition. The general rule is that “if you’d give it to a mate, it’s good to donate”. Drop off your donations to our staff at Vinnies Shops during opening hours or at a Vinnies collection bin in your area. Find out what you can donate.
• Staff will sort through your donations - Volunteers and staff in our stores have the opportunity to sort through each donation and put some garments straight onto the shelves, if they think the items will sell in their store.
• The rest is bagged and taken to a distribution centre - Any surplus is transported to a Vinnies distribution centre (there are six in NSW) by courier.
• Garments are sorted into sellable/unsellable stock:
• Sellable stock is categorised and placed into boxes of similar items (such as ladies dresses, mens shirts, swimwear, jackets, etc.) and is stored in the warehouse.
• Unsellable stock is sent off to textile recycling programs or repurposed as rags. We try our best to ensure that as little as possible ends up in landfill.
• Stores make a clothing order - When a store is running low on a particular type of garment, they can order boxes of these from a distribution centre warehouse.
• Boxes of clothing are shipped out to stores - Couriers will collect the boxes of garments from a distribution centre and transport them to the stores where they are needed.
• Staff price the garments in store - Each item is priced according to the brand, and generally reflect a percentage of the original RRP value with adjustments made for the condition of the product. They’re then placed onto the shelves for sale.
• Your pre-loved clothing finds a new home through Vinnies shops! Those second hand jeans hopefully make it into someone else’s shopping bag for a new lease on life. If they don’t sell within a few months, they get sent back to the warehouse to be re-sorted and passed on to another store.

Funds raised at Vinnies shops are reinvested into the community through a range of programs and services run by St Vincent de Paul Society NSW. Every time you make a purchase at a Vinnies store, you can feel good knowing that the money goes towards helping people in need.