Decorating your house, finding a unique gift, saving money and turning shopping into an adventure are all the reasons why consignment shopping is the way to go. Advertisements and TV commercials bombard us with the latest trends with marketer’s hopes that we will jump in our cars and drive straight to the nearest major department store to purchase the most popular items to decorate our homes. It’s certainly convenient, I’ll give you that, but does it speak to your creative side? I venture to say, there is an alternative to tickle the explorer in you.

I frequent an extremely large and popular campus consignment shop in my hometown that has everything from jewelry, fine china, old furniture, art, pottery, cookware, figurines, statues, lamps, and hundreds of various other household items. In this particular consignment shop, as well as most consignment shops, all the items are donated, with the expectation that when the items sell, the owner will receive a certain commission on that property. This is how the consignment shops are able to pass along savings to you, the consumer. The middleman is cut out as well as shippers, delivery people, and so the cost+pricing gives you a less than retail price in most cases. You will pay far below what you would pay for the same item if you found it at a department store brand new. In many consignment shops, the price is reduced for each month the product is unsold in the store. For example, I once bought a painting at 50% off the original price because it had been in the store 5 months. The store deducted 10% off for each month it had been in the store. I saw a Hummel figurine that normally sells for $300 being sold at a consignment store for $125. Antique items can also be bought at consignment shops usually for a far greater discount than they can at full-fledged antique stores. Antique stores are in the business of making the most they can for their antiques. Bottom line, a consignment shop (ask if it’s an actual “consignment” shop) will save you money.

More than anything you can’t find that one-of-a-kind unique decoration for your home unless you go deep into the pits of a few decent consignment shops and rummage through the unusual oddities sitting on tables. In particular, if you live in an older home and would like to find older items to match your décor, you’re definitely not going to find what you’re looking for at the local department store. You could easily walk into a consignment shop and find a cherub covered, brass scale with lead crystal bowls on each side surrounded by cut crystals. Something like that would be a charming conversation piece on a fireplace or side table.

Perhaps, too, you have a friend that appreciates a throw back from the 50’s kind of item. Maybe she is an avid collector of all things having to do with that era. A consignment shop is the only avenue to take in this case. Imagine how taken back she would be if you take the time to really go that extra mile to get a collectible item. My Mother collects angels and when I found a vintage angel that was different than anything in her collection, she was baffled as to where I could have found something so unique. It’s certainly acceptable to give second-hand gifts!

Even if you enter a consignment shop and don’t end up buying anything at all on any given day, see it as an adventure. It’s just enjoyable to go in and know that you will have different items to look at this week than you saw when you were in last month. You can get ideas for decorating, for gifts, or tell yourself you’ll be back another day. Don’t give up on the consignment experience the first time you try it and definitely check out many different shops.