New Rotterdam store to offer used clothing for teens Monday, January 7, 2008 By James Schlett (Contact) Gazette Reporter
ROTTERDAM — A six-week buying spree will begin Thursday when the Capital Region’s second Plato’s Closet used apparel for teens store opens at the Rotterdam Square mall. Plato’s Closet, Winmark Corp.’s buying and selling retail chain, this week will start building its inventory of high school and college fashions. The retailer, which heavily stocks gently-used Abercrombie & Fitch, Aeropostale and Hollister brands, expects to buy 10,000 articles of clothing before it starts selling them in mid-February. The Rotterdam Square opening comes less than two years after Neil and Kellie Robertson in February 2006 established the region’s first Plato’s on Central Avenue in Albany. The Delmar couple pay $3 to $10 cash per unit of clothing and more for designer brands. “We’re opening the store with no inventory. So we’ll only be buying clothes for the first month,” said Kellie Robertson. At 2,800 square feet, the Rotterdam Plato’s will be smaller than the 4,300-square-foot Albany store. The Rotterdam store will employ 15. The Robertsons are considering opening next year a Once Upon a Child, a chain store that buys and sells clothing for children from infancy up through middle school years. Once Upon is also owned by Winmark in Minneapolis. The first Plato’s opened in Columbus, Ohio. It was franchised in 1999 and there are now over 200 stores in North America.
Between the dollar stores and the Goodwill store on Altamont Ave. and now the new 2nd hand teen store...I guess our area is more depressed than we thought. I guess Mohawk Commons and Colonie Center are looking better and better to me.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler