Half a century after Kerstin and Spencer Block opened a 400 square foot buy sell trade shop in Tucson, Arizona in 1974, Buffalo Exchange has grown into a national resale chain with a location tucked into Richmond’s Carytown neighborhood at 3140 West Cary Street, Suite B, inside the Cary Court Park and Shop center near the corner of McCloy and Cary Streets. Carytown is Richmond’s best known walkable shopping strip, and this store fits neatly into that mix as a place to both buy secondhand fashion and sell clothes out of a closet for immediate money.
The model that Kerstin Block built around her own thrift shopping habit still drives the store today: bring in current season, designer, vintage, or simply gently worn clothing and accessories, and staff evaluate the items on the spot for either 25 percent cash or 50 percent store trade credit. No appointment is required. Customers arrive during the posted hours, scan a QR code to join the buying queue, and get a text alert when it is their turn at the counter, a system designed to cut down on waiting around the store while items are sorted and priced. A valid government issued ID is required to complete any sale.
On the retail side, the sales floor is restocked constantly from what Richmond area sellers bring through the door, which means the mix of vintage band tees, designer handbags, denim, and everyday basics shifts week to week rather than following a seasonal buying calendar set by corporate merchandisers. That is the core appeal of the Buffalo Exchange model over a straightforward thrift store: everything on the racks has already been screened by staff for condition and current style before it goes out for sale, so shoppers are digging through a curated secondhand selection rather than an unsorted donation bin.
The Carytown store keeps generous hours, open daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., which suits both weekday browsers and weekend crowds drawn to the surrounding strip of independent shops and restaurants a few blocks from the Byrd Theatre. Now led by Rebecca Block, daughter of the founder, the company has expanded from that original Tucson storefront to more than 40 locations, but each one, including this Carytown shop, still runs on the same walk in, no appointment buy sell trade counter that started the business.
For Richmond shoppers and sellers, the pitch is about circulating fashion rather than discarding it: clothes leave one closet, get evaluated and priced by someone who sells secondhand fashion for a living, and land back on a rack for another Carytown shopper to find. Buffalo Exchange’s Carytown location gives Richmond residents a walk in spot to sell unwanted clothing for same day cash or trade credit while shopping a constantly refreshed secondhand selection in the heart of one of the city’s most walkable retail districts. Buffalo Exchange in Carytown lets Richmond shoppers trade in a closet full of clothes for cash or credit the same day, then walk out with someone else’s carefully screened secondhand finds.
