In 2009, the first Uptown Cheapskate opened its doors for business in Salt Lake City, Utah, but the idea of opening a trendy resale clothing store for teens and young adults started brewing years prior. Chelsea Sloan Carroll, co-founder of Uptown Cheapskate, began thinking about starting her own resale company before she left to serve a church service mission in Anchorage, Alaska in 2006. On the day Chelsea came home from her mission, she and her brother, Scott Sloan, initiated plans for what would be known as Uptown Cheapskate.
Coming from a very entrepreneurial family, both Scott and Chelsea gained valuable experience early in life from working at their parent’s resale franchise, Kid to Kid. Founded by Brent and Shauna Sloan in 1992, Kid to Kid buys and sells new and gently used children’s clothing, toys, baby gear and maternity wear. The franchise has since grown to more than 100 Kid to Kid stores throughout the U.S. and Portugal. Kid to Kid’s successful buy-and-sell model inspired the siblings to start their own resale franchise concept for fashionable teens and young adults. With its chic vibe and upscale approach, Uptown Cheapskate was born.
The Uptown model proved viability early on, and the first franchise location was opened just a few months after the pilot store. This unique, environmentally friendly concept started receiving accolades from multiple sources. The first came by way of a third place prize for student-launched businesses in the Utah Student 25 competition in 2010.
While pursuing a Business degree at the University of Utah, Chelsea went on be listed in Inc. magazine’s 30 under 30 and became the first female to win the 2012 Entrepreneur’s Organization’s Global Student Entrepreneur Award (GSEA).
Today, Uptown Cheapskate has expanded to over 80 locations in 23 states. With its solid franchise concept and strong family roots, Uptown continues to grow, bringing great like-new fashions at cheapskate prices to people all over the country.
There are children in villages all over the world attending schools that don’t offer adequate classroom facilities. They meet inside huts, are taught under trees, walk miles to neighboring villages, or don’t go to school at all. At Kid to Kid & Uptown Cheapskate we believe that education is a basic human right and the key to breaking the poverty cycle. We’ve partnered with buildOn to end this vicious cycle through the construction of new schools in the developing world. Our franchisees donate thousands of items to local charities every year, but our commitment doesn’t stop there.
Uptown Cheapskate hosts two annual Charity Fill-A-Bag Sales at our local stores, which goes to support buildOn, an organization that builds schools in developing countries. These Fill-A-Bag Sales are exactly what they sound like: customers pay a small donation (around $20) and are able to stuff as many items into the bag as they can – and all of the money goes directly to buildOn. We also donate 5 cents per customer on an ongoing basis to buildOn when customers opt out of taking a plastic bag.
Since 2015, we’ve raised more than $650,000 to build more than 21 schools in developing countries such as Mali, Burkina Fason, Senegal, Haiti, Nepal, Malawi, and Nicaragua.
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Uptown Cheapskate has ranked 9 years in a row on the Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchise 500 list. For 3 straight years, we’ve received their “Best in Category” designation.
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