Buffalo Exchange’s Brandtastic New Location

For those not in the know, Buffalo Exchange is basically an amped up, national version of Beacon’s Closet. It’s taken me this long to jump on the Buff Bandwagon because, until recently, their only NYC Metro Area store was in the Other Brooklyn, aka Williamsburg. While I’ve built up a tolerance to oversized, clear-lense glasses (and to those fun judge-y glares behind them…I will not hate hipsters I will not hate hipsters…), I start to lose it once the two-hour mark hits, and it takes that long just to sift through the disorganized shitshow that is Buff Exchange Brooklyn. After a few visits to the new East Village location, however, I can confidently say I am hooked for LIFE.

This is not to imply that the overall experience was without its snags. I’d arrived with two bags of mine and my mother’s un-worn and/or gently-used castoffs, anticipating substantial store credit in exchange. The buyer assessed me goods and deemed approximately one fourth of them worthy of Buff Exchange’s racks. ONE FOURTH?! My stuff was as good, if not better, than almost everything they sold. What the eff was going on? The wardrobe-related insecurity all over my face didn’t go unnoticed by the buyer, who responded with a surprisingly sympathetic look. “Your stuff’s great…it’s not that…it’s…” I felt like we were breaking up. She leaned in closer. “It’s that we’re, well…overstocked.”

Overstocked. This meant sellers like me were taking the 30% cash option instead of the 50% store credit option. I was open-minded about those of the clothes-for-cash ilk until I realized that their selling for cash fucks with my ability to sell for store credit. SO NOT OKAY.
Let’s explore this logically: If Buff Exchange buys clothes from you – clothes you’ve previously purchased and worn – there is a better-than-good chance that their racks offer wares in sync with your taste. Say they take $100 worth of stuff off your hands and you get $50 in store credit or $30 in cash and take the cash option. Know what inevitably happens to that cash? You spend it all and then some on an H&M dress. Buff Exchange has H&M dresses too…and Alice and Olivia and Castle Starr and Banana Republic and Nanette Lepore and Diesel. I saw a navy Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress for $28; I had to touch it to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

Buff Exchange and stores of its ilk have a great thing going, but they can’t stay in business if you’re too chicken shit to sift through the racks. I watched their staff sort through six other people’s bags before mine, and hot damn! are they meticulous: No missing buttons, screwy zippers, pit stains, unintentional tears or funky smells allowed. Everything on those racks is almost-new or close to it. Nothing is going to bite you. Yes, it’s a little more work to find things here than in a fast-fashion chain, but you’ve got a little more money to spend; that makes it more than a fair trade. Buck up, and buy back from the place that’s so generously enabled you to unload some of your castoffs in a fiscally and environmentally responsible way. Or I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too, for effing it up for the rest of us.

(Get ready to FLIP OUT when you see what my $45 in store credit got me. EEK!)