The Wild Rio Thrift & Consignment Shop officially opened its doors on Saturday with a soft opening. Located at 800 N. Spruce St., the shop is dedicated to curbing the effects of fast fashion on our environment by curating communty-contributed clothing and shoes for sale. Not only does the shop offer in-store sales, but also plenty of online exposure for the products to reach an even wider audience than people walking along Kavanaugh.
Owner Marisa Del Rio has been reselling online for the past four years on eBay, Poshmark and Mercari, but during the pandemic, she noticed a lot of people were purging their clothing and she thought it’d be a good idea to offer consignment for online sales. Once both of her kids were old enough to go to school, she decided she wanted to open a thrift shop for local consignment, while also continuing her online sales. She created the site in February, and found the Hillcrest location as she was walking out of a hair appointment at nearby Bloom Salon.
“I thought that this would just the perfect local thrift and consignment shop,” Del Rio says. “People can just come in and it’d be easily accessible to thrift. That was my goal. Whenever you go into Goodwill, you get overwhelmed. You want to find the deal. You want to find the bargain. Everyone I talk to says they go down like two rows and it’s just too much. I wanted to make something easy for people and have a community environment.”
As of right now, Del Rio only offers women’s consignment clothing, but she hopes to expand into adding men’s and children’s clothing in the future.
“We’re kind of a double-whammy with consignment,” Del Rio says. “If we consign your clothes, we have them in store here, but we also have them on our online platforms. It puts their items in front of thousands of potential buyers, so that’s something that makes us different than any other buy-sell-trade or consignment shop locally.”
Wild Rio also serves as a marketplace for local vendors, such as Michelle Renee’s painted wall art, Sunwall Trading Co.’s candles and Willow + Wallflower’s jewelry. Del Rio is always on the hunt for more local vendors and is currently looking for more jewelry, artists who do prints and other smaller, affordable items for a good mix of offerings. Wild Rio has a three month contract with vendors, so there will always be a rotation of fresh merchandise on display.
“You are helping your community and you’re helping your local waste by taking things in and reselling them,” Del Rio says.
Consignment is by appointment only right now and Del Rio only takes in items that fit her brand list (which is available on the Wild Rio site.) They can consign for 30 days, after which, discounts will be placed, and after 90 days, there will be an option to return the item or donate it to Wild Rio. Del Rio plans to have donation days where people can peruse clothing out on the porch where each piece will be a dollar and that money will be donated to a local charity.
Wild Rio will be open Wednesday-Friday from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Every other Saturday will feature pop-ups on the porch, with the first one on Aug. 21 with KaleidoClay.
For more information on Wild Rio, visit their website and follow along on Facebook and Instagram.
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