Goodwill’s e-commerce business hits record sales as online thrifting surges

Founded in 1999, ShopGoodwill.com operates as a marketplace that includes more than 135 independently run Goodwill organizations. Together, those agencies run more than 2,500 brick-and-mortar thrift stores and list donated items online, often focusing on higher-value or more niche goods that can command better prices with a national audience than on local racks. The platform has now surpassed $3 billion in cumulative sales, up from $1 billion five years ago.

“That’s pretty remarkable for a nonprofit in this space to achieve,” said George Burt, chief operating officer of ShopGoodwill.com.

The platform’s growth reflects a broader turning point for resale. Secondhand shopping is shedding much of its stigma and becoming a mainstream option for value-conscious consumers and gift-givers alike. For Goodwill, that shift is translating into real revenue — and, crucially, more funding for job training and workforce programs.

That growth accelerated during the holidays. Burt said traffic and sales spiked around Cyber Monday and carried through December, with nearly 50% year-over-year growth during that period. While the fourth quarter has always been strong for retail, he said, the magnitude of last year’s gains stood out. Indeed, more American consumers felt more comfortable gifting secondhand items this holiday season, Modern Retail previously reported.

Still, competition in resale is intensifying, as for-profit companies also experienced significant growth in 2025. In November, ThredUp reported record quarterly revenue of $82.2 million, up 34% year over year. October also represented the company’s best-ever month for new customer acquisition. Gross merchandise sales at Etsy’s Depop swelled 39.4% year over year to $292.1 million in the third quarter. And ShopGoodwill.com is smaller compared to bigger publicly-traded peers like eBay, which reported a profit of $632 million in the quarter alone.

All told, that’s increasing competition for the same shoppers, but Burt said the overall market is growing fast enough to support multiple players. “It’s also a pie that’s gotten larger,” he said. “There’s a lot of effort in the industry around just continuing to educate and create awareness of secondhand, so it’s a tide that lifts all ships.”

That competitive pressure has shaped Goodwill’s broader e-commerce strategy, including its decision to shut down its other e-commerce site, GoodwillFinds.com, last year. Unlike ShopGoodwill.com, GoodwillFinds.com, which launched in 2022, was a “buy-it-now” online store with fixed prices. Burt said the initiative ultimately faced the same challenges as any startup entering a crowded market like resale.

GoodwillFinds.com arrived “in the midst of a booming industry that is extremely competitive, that is very expensive to enter,” Burt said. “Just because it’s nonprofit or it’s got the Goodwill name tied to it, we’re not immune to the same challenges of a startup out there.”

Burt added that operating multiple e-commerce platforms created confusion for shoppers, even if it did not materially hurt ShopGoodwill.com’s sales. “We did not [see cannibalization],” he said. “Our sales continued to grow. But I think, more than anything else, it just caused confusion.”

Unlike peer-to-peer resale platforms such as Poshmark or ThredUp, ShopGoodwill.com’s inventory comes entirely from donations. When an item sells online, 90% of the final sale price goes back to the local Goodwill organization that received the donation, funding programs like job training and employment placement in that community. ShopGoodwill.com takes a small percentage of each transaction to operate the platform and support marketing and technology.

Goodwill’s vast fleet of stores and donated inventory also help it operate more competitively than some of its resale peers, which have historically struggled with profitability. “If they’re able to source inventory from the Goodwill stores, and the Goodwill stores ship it, it’s way cheaper than everything that ThredUp and The RealReal do, because ThredUp and The RealReal actually take possession of the inventory, and they have a lot of costs associated with it,” said Sucharita Kodali, a principal analyst at Forrester.

The stakes of Goodwill’s e-commerce ambitions are high. More than 139,000 people are employed with the organization, while 2.1 million people received assistance with job training, placement and other support services in 2024. With brick-and-mortar stores limited by geography and real estate, online sales allow smaller or more rural Goodwill organizations to reach buyers far beyond their local markets.

“Brick and mortar can only grow at a certain rate,” Burt said. “The way that they can continue to stay relevant and maintain market share or grow market share, protect it, is through e-commerce. That’s really the only avenue.”

ShopGoodwill.com resembles many large retail websites, with categories such as jewelry, apparel and collectibles, along with filters that let shoppers narrow results by brand, size and color. The site also features dedicated sections like “1 cent shipping,” “Buy it now” for non-auction items and “Last chance.”

Looking ahead to 2026, ShopGoodwill.com plans to keep investing in the less visible parts of its business, such as tools that help local Goodwill locations list items faster and more efficiently. Last year, the company rolled out an AI-powered listing tool developed with Microsoft, which is now used to list roughly 130,000-140,000 items per month, Burt said.

The organization is also planning a broader refresh of its website, including updates to design, navigation and search features. “There’s some modernization that we can do,” Burt said. “We want to continue to stay relevant.”