Who is Kate Holmes and how does she know all this stuff?

The leading expert in the resale, consignment, and thrift store industry, Kate Holmes tells you how to open a resale shop or start a consignment shop and be your own boss. Charitable groups whose thrift shop is a successful fund raiser use Kate as a resource as well. She can tell you how to write a consignment contract, how to advertise and promote your shop, and most of all, how to make your shop profitable. Interested in opening a children's resale shop, a designer consignment shop, or a furniture shop? Kate's the professional expert when you want resale education and free reports as well as Products for the Professional Resaler. The only real-life consignment shop owner and complete operations manual author, Kate is committed to helping store owners and managers succeed. 

Kate Holmes, author of Too Good to be Threw: The Complete Operations Manual for Resale & Consignment Shops, founded One More Time, a consignment shop in Columbus Ohio, in 1975. Now, through her company Too Good to be Threw, Kate continues to market a wide variety of booklets, pamphlets, and store selling aids.

One More Time, Kate's shop, was an immediate and consistent success. Having grown up in the consignment business, Kate used her experience to start her shop with less than $1000. One More Time was profitable within six weeks of opening. From its first day's sales of $31.90, the shop grew from 750 square feet to 3200, adding 1,000 consignors each and every year. OMT now continues its growth under the watchful eyes of a Too Good to be Threw-trained owner.

In 1982, Kate was on a trip traveling across the country, and found consignment and resale shop owners eager to share and learn from one another. When she returned home, she started a newsletter, Too Good to be Threw. It attracted thousands of subscribers in its 20 years of publication. Many of those past subscribers are active today on our Sharing discussion board, and the best articles from the newsletter are available today in The Best of Too Good to be Threw and Used News.

The original edition of Too Good to be Threw: The Complete Operations Manual for Consignment Shops was published over 18 years ago. Revised and updated seven times, information and resources being continually updated, Kate is proud to offer the most complete revision ever of Too Good to be Threw, The Complete Operations Manual for Resale & Consignment Shops. You can sample Kate's writing in the Introduction to the Manual. Beware imitations: TGtbT is the only operations manual written by a real-life resale shopkeeper!

Kate is always busy, creating new and helpful Products for the Professional Resaler; speaking to resale groups across the country; and serving as an industry consultant. In 2004 she gave the Keynote Address at the National Association of Resale & Thrift Shops' Annual Conference, in 2005 she addressed the Fall Seminar of that Association and in 2006 she led two workshops for the 19th Annual Conference.

Kate is a past Education Chair, director, and fervent supporter of that Association. She was awarded their first-ever Educational Service Award in recognition of significant commitment to enhance and enrich industry education. She has also been presented with the industry's highest honor, the Renee River Award, for outstanding service. Most recently she was honored with a lifetime membership.

Kate appears frequently in the media as an expert on resale, small business, and retail. She currently volunteers as Merchandiser and Trainer at Woman's Exchange, Sarasota FL, a not-for-profit consignment shop. She is also a docent, historic re-enactor, past Volunteer President and past Director at Historic Spanish Point, an ecological, environmental, and historic museum on the shores of Little Sarasota Bay.

Kate's free time is taken up with watercolor painting and fiction writing. She's the proud author of The Picker Who Perished/ A Too Good to be Threw Consignment Shop Mystery, published by Katydid Press. Available at fine resale shops across the country. Buy a personally-autographed copy for yourself or a batch of books wholesale to sell in your shop here!