For budget-conscious families across North America, affordability, convenience, and value aren't buzzwords — they're priorities. Winmark's family of resale franchise stores, including Once Upon a Child, Plato's Closet, Play It Again Sports, Style Encore, and Music Go Round, delivers on all three. By making quality used goods available at accessible prices, Winmark creates a circular economy where cash-on-the-spot incentivizes recycling, merchandise stays out of landfills, and locally owned stores become genuine anchors of their communities.
What Makes Winmark Resale Stores Accessible for Families?
Winmark's industry-leading resale model serves budget-conscious customers without sacrificing quality. A key part of this is providing value for our communities. From top fashion brands for teens, musical instruments, and sports gear to adult clothing and children's merchandise, Winmark meets customers where they are.
We offer instant payment for used items and sell them back to customers at a significantly lower price than other retailers, helping lower the barrier to quality goods and enabling families to pursue their passions and save for the future.
How Do Winmark Franchise Owners Strengthen Local Communities?
Winmark franchise owners are embedded in the communities they serve. They and their teams are the coaches, neighbors, instructors, parents, and mentors that make up a neighborhood's social fabric.
- Store teams have a unique understanding of their customers' needs.
- Our locations become the nexuses of social networks that revolve around our customers' hobbies and passions.
- Our franchisees give back in other ways, too, often leading charitable efforts that benefit their neighbors.
From the corporate entity to the retail store, community connection is an important criterion for our franchisees and the company.
Winmark also prioritizes environmental stewardship. In fact, it's one of the reasons we started this business over 35 years ago.
- Because we resell our customers' used merchandise, we are able to keep more than 195 million items out of landfills each year.
- Our model also eliminates the industrial waste and workforce ethical issues that are integral to regular retail.
- We care deeply about our world, around the corner as well as around the globe.
Sustainability is central to both our business model and the entire company's ethos. And it’s the reason so many community members across the US and Canada become loyal customers to our brands.
Why Do Winmark Franchise Owners Stay for the Long Term?
Winmark knows that trust is an essential component of any successful partnership. With both our customers and our owners, we elevate communication and transparency.
- Shoppers become repeat customers because of each stores’ wide selection of merchandise and cash-for-goods model.
- Our franchisee training program begins long before doors open, and we provide ongoing support and industry-specific education to help them succeed in an ever-changing market.
- 100% of our stores are individually owned, meaning the company can focus its attention on supporting the business with improved systems, cohesive marketing, and exciting new concepts.
- 98.7% of owners renew their franchise contracts after 10 years — a remarkably high renewal rate in the franchise industry.
How Does Winmark Equip Families and Anchor Communities?
Winmark's community impact is the result of deliberate choices built into its resale franchise model. For more than three decades, Winmark has refined its approach to responsible retail — from sponsoring youth hockey leagues to hosting charitable events to keeping over 2 billion items out of landfills. The result is a franchise system that sets the standard for people-first, community-driven retail.