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Comment by AceJohnny2 | Hacker News Reader

For the American audience: Emmaus is the Goodwill for France.

And much like Goodwill, it's rare to find a bargain that wasn't filtered before coming in the store.

It's overall quite true. But I found that the smaller stores, that live in the shadows of a larger one, do still offer the actual bargains. For example, in Emmaüs Tarare, a smaller city 30 min away from Lyon, you still find solid furniture that can be up to 4 or 5 times cheaper than flimsier pieces in Emmaüs Lyon. I don't quite know what the dynamics are, here.

I guess it's the same for other charities/thrift shops/second-hand shops worldwide. I've seen the same with Stockholms Stadsmisssion in Sweden: more centrally located stores have nothing of note, more remote ones and smaller ones may have actual treasures.

Your best bet is a less dense but affluent area. The general level of income near thrift shops is probably the best proxy to whether or not good deals will be there across the board.

It's now extended far beyond France - the linked article says there are now "400 Emmaüs organisations in 44 countries", though their website lists "410 organisations in 41 countries" [1]. There are quite a few shops and communities in the UK, for example.

[1]: https://www.emmaus-international.org/en/who-are-we/emmaus-ar...

Similarly in the Netherlands we have Kringloopwinkels.

Sort of related is one of my favorite things in NL: the “mini bibliotheek”, the free for all bookcases to share books (often placed in front of a house by the residents).

Here’s an example one: https://velsencityblog.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/groot.j...

In the US, the "mini bibliotheek" is called a "Little Free Library". There are four or five within a fifteen-minute walk of where I live.

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