Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Donations at some nonprofit organizations are not keeping pace with customer demand, prompting managers to tweak their offerings.

Shirley Huffman, who said she often shops at thrift stores, browses Wednesday at Goodwill's Williamson Road location.

Goodwill employee Eric Beckelhimer stocks shoes Wednesday at the Williamson Road store in Roanoke, where sales are on the rise.

Fashion isn't a luxury anymore.

Faced with the decision to splurge on a new blouse or hold onto a worn style from last season, consumers more often are choosing the latter. But these spending trends aren't only showing up at national retail chains, where sales declined steeply in October. They are slimming the selection at some Roanoke Valley thrift stores.

At a time when thrifty shopping has taken on a whole new meaning, sales at area thrift stores have skyrocketed in the past few months. And an emerging group of new shoppers are shifting through racks of $3 shirts, $5.50 winter coats and $4 jeans.

Still, a looming problem remains: Donations at some nonprofit organizations aren't keeping pace with burgeoning demand.

At Roanoke-based Goodwill Industries of the Valleys, the volume of donations has dipped so low that some stores are expanding housewares sections so that the shrinking apparel racks are less obvious, said Kelly Sandridge, a spokeswoman for Goodwill.

The number of Goodwill donors is the same. But the amount that each donor gives has declined significantly, she said.

"We're not having as much inventory to put out on the floor," Sandridge said. "Customers don't have as much variety to choose from."

Generally, donations to Goodwill slow down in January and February. Even now, "our warehouses aren't full any longer," she said.

Still, there is swelling demand for Goodwill's ultra-cheap merchandise, where dresses are $4 each and pairs of shoes are $2.50.

Goodwill's sales were $8.3 million from July through October, up 8.6 percent compared with the same period in 2007. The organization's stores are spread throughout the Shenandoah Valley and central and Southwest Virginia.

For seven stores, including Roanoke Valley, Lexington and Covington locations, sales increased 8.9 percent from July through October to $2.2 million, Sandridge said.

Thinking thrifty

Perhaps some shoppers such as Billie and James Moore have spurred the bustling sales activity. Billie Moore, a stay-at-home mom, said she used to shop at Goodwill once a month.

But in the past three months, to save money, she has made weekly trips to Goodwill, where's she's now buying the majority of her children's clothes.

The mother of five said she's often surprised by the quality of Goodwill's children's apparel.

"You can buy brand-new stuff with tags," she said, while pushing a shopping cart through Goodwill's store on Williamson Road in Roanoke last week with her husband.

Alicia Bostic already has purchased some Christmas gifts for her children at Goodwill.

"They don't know the difference between a 50-cent toy and a $10 toy at Wal-Mart," said Bostic, a relatively new Goodwill customer who shopped at its Williamson Road store last month.

"The little we save on shopping here, I can use other places," said the stay-at-home mother of four.

There could be other reasons for the growing success of thrift stores. More of them have opened nationally, and they are trendier shopping options than in years past when people didn't want to reveal that they bought an outfit from a thrift shop, said Margie Johnson, a retail consultant based in Virginia Beach.

Sales were up 6.7 percent at the Roanoke Rescue Mission's thrift store from January through October, compared with the same period in 2007, said Lee Clark, director of development for the Rescue Mission. October sales were the highest all year, increasing 14 percent from October 2007, Clark said. He did not disclose the sales totals.

Shoppers of all income levels have been flocking to the thrift shop. The store's shopper base has increased 40 percent in the past three months, said Charlotte Anders, who manages the Rescue Mission thrift store. And they're mostly new customers.

"I think it's the economy," Anders said. "People are coming here first rather than coming to regular retailers. We always saw more middle- to lower-class people. Now, we are seeing a lot of families, middle class, and even into the upper class," she said.

Donations to the Rescue Mission's thrift store have been steady, though donations of furniture, such as couches and chairs, are down, Anders said. The thrift shop has added more shelves of Christmas ornaments and holiday decor to fill the furniture gap.

Nationally, donations at the Salvation Army's thrift shops are not keeping up with shopping demand, while in Roanoke, donations of mainly infant and children's clothing are low, said Jonathan Lee, director of development and marketing for the local Salvation Army office. The shopping, though, is just as robust, he said.

For the past two years, the Salvation Army's national headquarters has been developing a marketing campaign to encourage people to donate and shop at its thrift stores. And with donations struggling to keep up with demand lately, the marketing campaign could not be coming at a better time.

"It's becoming very apparent that we're going to need all of the help we can get," said Melissa Temme, a national spokeswoman for the Salvation Army.

Consignment surge

The challenging economy is driving another kind of retail industry -- consignment and resale shops.

In the past few weeks, more people have called Jenny Theis, who owns a Roanoke consignment shop, New to Me, asking her to buy their items in exchange for money. But her shop only offers people a percentage of the sales of their product after it is sold. Some of the callers recently lost their jobs, Theis said.

And since September, book owners desperate for quick money increasingly have been coming to Linda Steadman. They want to exchange boxes of used books for cash at her Roanoke resale shop, Too Many Books. To cut back on the extreme buying activity, Steadman has begun offering store credit instead of cash, unless the book is a unique find.

Still, "People just needed the money," she said.