How we know

Ratings and review counts

The star rating and the number of reviews come from each store’s public business listing, as of September 2026. Written reviews are the ones with text. Star-only ratings count toward the rating, but there is nothing in them to read.

What shoppers mention

We read every written review of every store we cover: 17,338 in Portland. Each review was read by an AI model (Claude Sonnet) against a list of themes that came out of the reviews themselves, such as fair prices, rude staff, color-tag sales or fitting rooms.

We kept a theme only if, when we tested it, at least 9 in 10 of the reviews it counted were really about it. The number beside a theme is how many written reviews mention it, and one review can mention several themes. Themes are what shoppers say, not our own judgment of the store.

When shoppers are unhappy

Every one- and two-star written review since October 2023 was read and sorted into a fixed set of reasons: prices, rude or unhelpful staff, items not as described, a dirty or cluttered store, donations turned away, and so on. A review can give more than one reason. The reasons are what unhappy shoppers say, not findings of ours.

How a store compares

We compare each store with the 127 Portland stores that have at least 20 written reviews: the share of one- and two-star reviews, how many reviews the owner answers, and how many reviews per 1,000 say prices are too high. The past year’s share of 4- and 5-star reviews is shown next to the share before it.

Selling, consigning and donating

Whether a store buys from the public, sells on consignment, rents booths or accepts donations comes from its own website (we read 81 Portland store websites in September 2026 and link the page we used) or, where the website says nothing, from its business listing. If neither says, the page says so. Terms change, so check with the store before you haul anything over.

What it sells

From the store’s business listing, its own website and what shoppers mention in their reviews. We say where each one comes from.

Hours and busy times

Opening hours come from the business listing. Busy times are the typical visits by hour shown on the business listing, compared with the store’s own busiest hour, so they show the pattern of a week rather than a promise about today.

Charity

A store marked Charity appears in the IRS records of tax-exempt organizations. Where a page describes the cause, it is in the store’s own words.

Photos

Photos come from the store’s business listing.

Summaries and answers

The short summary at the top of a store page, and the answers under Questions, are written with AI (Claude Sonnet, made by Anthropic) from that store’s facts only: the counts, terms, hours and sources shown on the page.

Before any of it appears it passes three checks. First, automatic rules: every number must come from the store’s facts, no review is quoted, there is no praise of our own, and the main concern unhappy shoppers raise must be included. Second, a separate AI fact-check of every claim against the facts. Third, a person on our team reads it beside the facts and approves it or sends it back to be rewritten.

If a summary or the facts behind it change, it goes back for approval. Stores without an approved summary show only the counted facts.

The questions on each page

The questions differ from store to store. They come from what people search for and ask about secondhand stores (opening hours, what you can donate, whether a store buys, prices, sale days, fitting rooms, parking, busy times), and a store only gets a question when we have facts to answer it.

Which stores we cover

Every secondhand store we found in the city’s business listings: thrift and charity shops, vintage clothing, antique shops and malls, consignment, flea markets and estate-sale companies. Listings that are not stores open to shoppers, such as a tattoo studio or a donation pick-up service, are left out.

A store page is put forward to search engines only when it has enough to say: at least 10 written reviews, enough facts, and an approved summary. The rest stay on the site for shoppers who browse to them.

Mistakes

If something is wrong, tell us on the corrections page. We check it against the source, fix the page, and list the fix in the public corrections log.

Last updated 5 Oct 2026 · Team VintageRoam