My Sister’s House, a semi-annual consignment sale in Abilene, is still going strong after seven years.
The sale started Wednesday and will continue until Sunday. The half price sale for military, students and teachers starts at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, which includes a two dollar fee that goes to charity. The public half-price sale is on Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
My Sister’s House is run by two sisters, Kate Stover and Summer Walters, who both graduated from ACU and always had a passion for thrifting.
The sale in Abilene takes place at the display building at the Taylor County Fairgrounds and offers clothes for women, men, juniors and home goods. All the items are brought in by cosigners. The event goes on for six days and attracts men and women of all ages.
“It’s really a creative community, it’s entirely run by volunteers,” said Summer Walters. “We’ve become really good friends with all the volunteers and it’s kind of a neat community of women – kind of a sisterhood.”
This year, the sisters added a presale for the public and the money from the pre-sale night went to World’s Backyard, an organization that helps refugee children in Abilene. Shoppers also had the option to pay for a stylist who could assist them for a few hours, Walters said “it was like a personalized stitch fix but on a budget.”
Before the sisters moved to the Taylor County Expo Center, the sale started out small at a downtown building with about 100 cosigners. After a few years the sale outgrew the space, which led the sisters to move to the display building about a year and a half ago. The sale now has about 330 cosigners and thousands of items.
“So we moved here and there’s better parking and it’s room to breathe and room for people to shop a little easier, so we have really liked it here and we plan on staying here,” Walters said.
Walters said she usually starts three or four months before the sale starts. Some marketing campaigns are started, gathering cosigners and getting the word out is what those months consist of before the sale.
“From the time we move in through the sale and until we’re done is ten to eleven days,” said Walters.
The location wasn’t the only thing that changed for the sisters, at first, the sisters partnered together for the first five or six years but Kate Stover went back to teaching full time at Abilene High, so now she helps on nights and weekends.
“[Kate] is still highly involved because it’s My Sister’s House, but we’ve kind of taken on different roles,” said Walters.
Walters said she loves sharing good deals with people because everybody has a budget, so My Sister’s House helps people get rid of things they don’t need but also get new things they do need at an affordable price.
Tracy PettiJohn, a volunteer at My Sister’s House for more than five years, likes to co-sign and shop at the sale because she has teenage daughters.
“I know this is an amazing way to have a new wardrobe, basically at just pennies on the dollar for what you would spend at a retail store, so I think it’s fantastic. I look forward to this all year,” said Pettijohn.
Pettijohn said her favorite thing about the sale is the variety of clothing sizes, because there’s something for everybody.
My Sister’s House takes away a “smaller percentage of sales than a traditional consignment store,” which “allows co-signers to set their own prices.”
