A surge in customers and donations may open the door for extended shopping hours for Bermuda’s largest thrift store.

The popular The Barn may have to look into how they can extend their increasingly sought after services.

Second-hand shopping is becoming a mainstream choice across income levels even for Christmas, a volunteer confirmed to The Royal Gazette.

The Barn experienced a massive surge in traffic during the holiday season to the point that cars were jamming the streets.

The increased interest is driven both by cost-of-living pressures and growing environmental awareness, said Grace Petty, the manager at the Devonshire facility, operated by the Hospitals Auxiliary of Bermuda.

Staff are seeing the impact first-hand. “We’ve always been busy,” she said. “But this year has been an exceptionally busy year for us.”

The economic squeeze is a prime contributor. Ms Petty said: “I think that the cost of living is definitely the driving factor.”

She said some customers were also motivated by sustainability concerns.

“People are thinking of their footprint and what effect that’s going to have,” she explained.

She added that many shoppers were asking what they could do to reduce their impact on the Earth.

The Barn now attracts a broad cross-section of the community.

“We definitely have a wide range of customers,” Ms Petty said.

“We have people that are probably making minimum wage but we have people that are making six figures and people that are just conscious of where they spend their money, how they spend their money and are trying to give things a second life.”

That “second life” ethos extends to do-it-yourself and resale activity. Many customers “will buy a piece that may be rough and then they’ll refinish it,” she said. “There’s a lot of people that come down looking for do-it-yourself projects that they can create and then go on to sell after that.”

Donations have more than kept pace with the surge in demand. “Donations have really taken off this year,” Ms Petty said. “I would say they have probably quadrupled in the 15 years that I’ve been here.”

That volume brings its own challenges because staff must sort out items that are dirty, broken or incomplete before they can be sold.

Behind the retail story is a substantial financial contribution to healthcare. Because of the donations and volunteers,The Barn is a revenue generator for the Hospitals Auxiliary, which funds critical equipment for Bermuda’s healthcare facilities.

“Our function is to raise funds to purchase hospital equipment,” Ms Petty said.

She noted that everything from ambulances to dialysis and CT scan machines may have been purchased by the auxiliary and that “the majority of the money comes from The Barn”.

Rising traffic has created knock-on effects in the surrounding area, including congestion and parking complaints from residents.

Recently, Christopher Famous, the MP for Devonshire East (Constituency 11), called attention to the problem, suggesting penalties for parking illegally on Devon Spring Road, where the shop is located.

The Barn has stressed that it has been working with authorities on signage and enforcement to manage the impact.

Looking ahead, demand may push further changes in how the shop operates. The Barn experimented with late-night shopping in the run-up to Christmas and said it was “looking at doing some different things, thinking outside the box, going forward”.

While nothing is finalised, permanent extended hours or regular late openings are under consideration as the second-hand sector continues to grow.

Opening hours at present are Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9.00am to 2.00pm.

Donations are accepted Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9.00am to 11am.