A woman has been left in “constant panic” after a video of her £1 thrift warehouse went viral on TikTok, causing shoppers to “flood” the space.
Carmen Croxall opened the Thrift Warehouse and Secondhand Craft Shop in Exeter after growing concerned by the amount of waste charity shops can generate.
With a disused warehouse from a failed business venture, the mum decided to tackle the issue herself, by taking overflow from charity shops and selling items for £1 a piece to avoid them going into landfill.
READ MORE: Sisters, 24 and 26, make £25,000 using discarded GOLD from old iPhones to create jewellery
But since filming a video about her efforts, which went viral on TikTok, Carmen has been left overwhelmed with customers travelling hundreds of miles to shop.
“I feel under intense pressure,” the 37-year-old business owner told Founder Insights.
After the video went viral, Carmen had a huge influx of customers throughout the recent school holidays – some of whom travelled HOW FAR to reach the warehouse.
They sold a whopping 12,000 items in a week.
But the stock, which took months to build up, was quickly depleted, and the initially glowing reviews turned sour.
Carmen said, “We rely completely on donations, so we can’t just order new stock.
“The shelves look bare every day.
“We’ve started to get negative reviews saying it was a wasted trip, and there wasn’t as much [stock] as the video shows.
“But I couldn’t control any of this.
“I put out a plea for donations and offered to open until 7 pm to allow for drop-offs.
“I think I worked until at least 10 pm [through the school holidays].
“I felt so much pressure from people coming from far away – I’m a people pleaser and didn’t want people to leave disappointed.
“It just wasn’t sustainable at all.”
The warehouse opened in February, but recently swelled in popularity after Carmen started posting about it on her page, which boasts 117,000 followers.
Registered as a not-for-profit CIC (community interest company), the warehouse is designed to benefit the community rather than generate profit.
But Carmen says that intent has been missed, with their focus on being a community project that operates on a ‘give and take’ basis, with customers also donating.
She hoped to provide a place where families could afford to buy what they needed, as well as save items from landfills.
But with people travelling from other cities, it is unlikely they will donate items back, which she says is “really important for our sharing concept”.
She added, “We encourage people to donate back, but if you’re visiting once because it’s a TikTok trend, then you’re not really going to do that.”
The warehouse was previously operating as a play centre, but Carmen struggled to keep things afloat after COVID.
She announced the new venture earlier this year and was quickly inundated with donated goods.
She said, “It was very quick to take off.
“We had so many donations that we kept expanding into different parts of the warehouse and putting up shelving and racking.
“We decided to sell everything for £1 to make it really simple and affordable.
“We don’t sell items to people who resell them – you can buy items worth £100 and £200 here for only £1, so we are all about community and sharing items.
“The £1 can be viewed as a processing fee as it just about covers our costs.
“My fear is that resellers would capitalise on the concept and completely devalue the purpose of it being affordable, as, if you resell an item for profit, then it will become unaffordable to some people by default.
“This has become a huge part of what we do, but it was necessary to guarantee its success.”
Carmen was also inspired after becoming unhappy with the steeper prices seen in charity shops.
After a tour of the warehouse she shared online in May blew up, she noticed a huge rush of new customers.
Carmen said: “May bank holiday was insanely busy.
“It was borderline a bit scary.
“At one point in the middle of the day, it was so busy people were queuing outside just to get in – it felt more like a dance floor at times.
“The busy flurry of people continued all week.
“A family made a six-hour round trip in a day from Farnham.
“People came from Bristol, St Ives, and Bournemouth.
“It worries me that people might come and not find anything to buy, whereas it wouldn’t be as disappointing if a person who had only travelled 20 minutes didn’t find anything.
“We had a one-star review on Google saying it was a wasted trip, don’t bother, but I feel that a shop like ours, you need to visit a lot and buy little things here and there, not plan a massive spending spree, as the stock changes so quickly.
“On a good day, we can get out around 2,000 new items, so it’s like a new shop or seven day a seven-day-a-week carboot sale.”
Carmen is currently working seven days a week at the warehouse as she tries to establish the space, but says overall the journey has been “amazing” – and she is doing crucial work for her local community, who have embraced the ‘give and take’ ideology.
READ MORE: ‘I turned £500 into £1.15m with my pick and mix sweets business – Ant and Dec love my candy’
