Jun 27, 2025
Consignment shops can provide cheap finds for thrifty shoppers while serving as an alternative outlet for sellers. Rich Goren of St. Petersburg, Florida, sold art pieces at his local shop for years — only to one day arrive and find the shop empty, and his goods gone.
Goren says two art pieces and two pairs of designer shoes — worth about $17,000 — are now missing after Retreat Consignment abruptly closed without any warning, according to Fox 13 Tampa Bay. The owners' whereabouts are also unknown.
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"I hope for the best, maybe [the items are] sitting in a warehouse and they want to return everything," Goren told the local broadcaster in a story published June 10. "But the fact that you have a business, people entrusting you with their valuables, and you just take off. Come on. That's not great."
Do the sellers have any recourse?
Goren made numerous attempts to contact the store owners. At one point, he says an employee reached out to him.
"She said, 'Oh my gosh, I feel awful, we all do, we haven't been paid, and it was unexpected. We thought they might sell the store, but we also thought they would be transparent about everything,'" Goren recalled. He has since made a report to the police.
The store's Yelp page has been littered with complaints from people claiming to be sellers who have lost items.
Fox 13 says it spoke with an attorney who told them that since the store owners don't own the sellers' items — they were simply holding them for consignment — taking the items without quickly returning them could be considered theft.
The broadcaster also says it repeatedly tried to reach the store owners, but all attempts went unanswered.
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Signs of a shady resale store
The U.S. secondhand apparel market, which includes consignment, thrift and other resale shops, reached $40-plus billion in 2024 according to ThredUp's 2025 Resale Report.
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One of the keys to buying or selling such goods is having confidence in the shop. Here are some red flags to consider:
No official agreements: Be on the lookout for vague or verbal sales agreements that don't cover details such as commission rates, payment processes and ownership. Especially watch out for a lack of procedure on what happens when items go missing.
Bad or no inventory tracking: Disorganized shops that can't clearly account for your items is a red flag. Reputable consignment stores should tag and log each item, so nothing disappears without record.
Poor reviews or no reviews: Always do a deep dive on Google, Yelp and other review platforms to look for complaints of lost goods or sellers who haven’t been paid.
Lack of communication: Difficulty reaching the shop's owners is a cause for concern. Legitimate businesses are transparent and responsive to their clients.
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Chris Clark is a Kansas City–based freelance contributor for Moneywise, where he writes about the real financial choices facing everyday Americans—from saving for retirement to navigating housing and debt.
