CANADA FORTUNE GROUP INC. Leading Exporter and Bulk Wholesaler of Secondhand Textiles

Company overview

Canada Fortune Group Inc., trading as Used Clothing Exports, is a Canadian exporter of used clothing and recycled textiles at 5315 Tomken Road, Unit 8, Mississauga, Ontario L4W 1P5. It ships worldwide and describes itself as a specialist in the logistics of 40 ft high cube containers and 53 ft trailers.

Mississauga keeps appearing in this trade for a reason. The city sits between Toronto Pearson and Highway 401 with warehouse space at a fraction of downtown cost, so the North American used-clothing export business has quietly concentrated there.

Which claims can be checked and which cannot

The company states 42,000 loads moved, membership and sponsorship of SMART (Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles), a consistent A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, and a position among the top three industry experts in North America.

Sort those before you weigh them. SMART membership and a BBB rating are held by third parties and can be verified in a couple of minutes, which makes them worth more than any adjective. The top-three claim is the company's own and has no published basis. The experience figure is given as 18 or more years on one page and over 16 years on another, so treat it as somewhere in that band rather than a precise number, and ask directly if the answer matters to you.

The product taxonomy is the reason to read this entry

North American supply uses vocabulary that trips up almost every new buyer, and this company defines its terms clearly. The distinctions are worth learning whoever you eventually buy from.

• Credentials: clothing that came straight from donation bins in affluent communities. It was never taken to a store and never put on display. Sold baled, in cap sacs, or loose.
• Institutional Mixed Rags: garments that were hung and displayed on a retail floor and did not sell.
• Store Return Black Bags: overstock bags from thrift stores, discount apparel retailers and charities, often leftovers, and frequently a partial mix of credential and institutional material. May contain clothing, shoes, purses and linen.
• Paired shoes, purses, linen and bric-a-brac, the last covering pots, pans, crockery, mugs, glasses and kitchen utensils.

Why that ordering decides your price

Read the three main categories as a sequence and the economics become obvious. Credentials have never been picked over, so whatever the donors put in the bin is still in the bale, including the best pieces. Institutional mixed rags have already had a full retail floor pass across them, which means shoppers had weeks to buy anything desirable, and by definition what remains did not sell. Store return black bags sit in between and vary the most.

Price should follow that order, and if a quote does not, that is your first question. It is also why comparing a credentials price from one supplier against an institutional price from another is meaningless, however similar the two lines look on a price list. Buyers weighing several second-hand clothing suppliers should insist that every quote names the category, not just the price per pound, and the same discipline applies to the grade vocabulary used on the European side, where the words differ but the underlying logic is identical.

Note the second implication too. Credentials are unsorted by origin, so the bale is a genuine lottery in a way a European Cream grade is not. You are buying the average of an affluent neighbourhood rather than a specification, and the upside and the risk both come from that. The way sorting houses turn exactly this kind of raw intake into named grades is what the extra cost of graded goods is paying for.

Packing and logistics

Credentials and institutional mixed rags are baled and loaded into 40 ft high cube containers for any destination. Store return black bags are baled at 850 to 1,100 lbs, roughly 385 to 500 kg, or loaded loose into a 53 ft trailer for movement across Canada. Paired shoes are boxed, sometimes in bamboo boxes, palletised and loaded into 40 ft high cube.

Two practical points follow. The bale weight range on black bags is a spread of about a quarter between the light and heavy end, so agree the target weight and the tolerance in writing rather than accepting the range. And the 53 ft trailer option is domestic North American equipment, which tells you the company serves Canadian and US wholesale buyers as well as export containers, useful if you are buying inside North America and want road freight instead of sea.

Contacts are [email protected] and [email protected], head office +1 905 206-1002, sales +1 647 335-7247, support +1 416 294-3669, fax +1 905 206-1004. For anyone building a wholesale programme out of North American material rather than European, this is a sensible first call.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Canada Fortune Group based?

At 5315 Tomken Road, Unit 8, Mississauga, Ontario L4W 1P5, Canada, trading as Used Clothing Exports.

What is the difference between credentials and institutional mixed rags?

Credentials come straight from donation bins and were never displayed in a store. Institutional mixed rags were hung on a retail floor and did not sell, so the desirable pieces have already been bought.

What are store return black bags?

Overstock and leftover bags from thrift stores, discount retailers and charities, often a partial mix of credential and institutional material, and they may contain clothing, shoes, purses and linen.

How is the product shipped?

Baled into 40 ft high cube containers for export, or loose in 53 ft trailers across Canada. Store return black bags are baled at 850 to 1,100 lbs and paired shoes are boxed and palletised.

Is the company independently accredited?

It states an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and active membership and sponsorship of SMART. Both are third-party facts you can check, unlike its own top-three claim.