What you don't want to hear at your favorite Thrift Store

usually stores have rules about their employees being able to buy/hold stuff before it’s on the floor. so she won’t necessarily get all the good stuff. also, she might be interested in selling stuff that you consider junk.

Some thrift stores actually have active eBay thrift stores while others have them and are not active at all but instead remain steady with their brick and mortar stores. I think this employee will be challenged as to the when, where, and how of buying and storing the items from the thrift store especially if she/he does not see an immediate eBay turn around. From what I have learned, unless you find that highly special item or set of items and understand how to identify the value and then sell at or above value, selling in a short time period can become quite the challenge.

On another note, I would like to offer that selling on eBay is not as easy as it appears to be as I am sure more experienced sellers than I can attest to. Everyone would be doing it if it was as simple as get an item, take a picture, and see it sell as quickly as you put it up. I would offer to just consider the employee another person pursuing the option of selling on ebay. While she may have access to some of the items before customers, knowing the what, where, when, and how of eBay selling is a whole other story. I would offer to just keep doing your thing.

We have had several thrift stores go dark on us because they realized the management could sell better on eBay themselves. It happens. Other avenues open up. Can’t get too comfortable. You must believe in the power of American waste and abundance.

A lot of thrift stores in my area “hold” the “good stuff” for in-store and/or online auctions – however, they still leave a lot of “gold” on the floor since they are ignorant to what it is.

Everyone has ideas of what they think has value, what doesn’t have value – and usually they are wrong. I’ve see stuff in thrift store auctions that is worthless on eBay, and have found $100+ items on the sales floor for dollars that they overlooked.

I would bet that if 10 regular eBay sellers walked into a small thrift store, we all would find something that we knew we could make money on, and walk past items that others would find valuable to sell.

Unless their knowledge base is the same as yours, you will still find good items at that store. Unless they have the time to look up every item and the skills/time to list anything good.

Agreed.

I have been sourcing and thought for sure that all the good items were gone because of what time I showed up. I was wrong. When I took the time to stop and look up some of the store items on eBay, I found the sell value on eBay was quite a few times higher that of what the thrift store was selling the item for. In addition, maybe this is a good opportunity to “source” for other thrift stores.

Boo. 🙁

We have this “hot shot” manager at our local Habitat Restore store and their prices have gone up dramatically since he started as manager. I overheard him talking to someone today who was complaining that a used saw blade was priced higher than it was at the big box store. The manager told him “that’s got an orange sticker so its 20% off”. I mentioned to the gentleman checking me out that ebay prices are not a good way to base your prices. He countered that they look everything up and price about 50% of what ebay is asking. They have had some Dansk Kobenstyle saucepans (well used) in the store for 6 weeks priced at $25 and $30. They are finally 60% off this week and they sold. I looked them up and they were priced higher than similar, used ones on ebay. But, they still have items that they have no clue as to what they are or their cost. I have picked up several items from their free box and sold them for $35 and $50. They think old software manuals are no good. Also the same on foreign language dictionaries, vintage physics books, electric typewriters and lots more things.
So the point is…they can’t price everything at top dollar. They miss a lot of things that they just don’t check or know about.

Karen, you might see if you can get on the newsletters of the various churches that have the sales you hit or even volunteer to help with future sales. The big Church sale here (fills two gyms) allows volenteers and the church School teachers a night before event before the sale.
Don’t worry too much about the employees. They have to learn like the rest of us and stuff will get by.

Goodwill stores are “franchises” as Jay said once on a pod cast. There are two groups that own goodwill franchises in my area, one group prices everything at or above ebay/amazon and will put copies of the listings alongside the items for sale. Very difficult to find anything to flip in these stores, so I mostly ignore them now.

This group of goodwill franchises has also rolled out a new color that NEVER goes on half off sale.

The other group of franchises still have treasures to be found, but their pricing is really awkward at times. I assume its because they don’t have the knowledge base on certain categories. One great example they had a car air filter priced at $7.99 (retail) next to a diesel fuel pump for a truck priced at $2.99. That fuel pump is worth $60.

That’s a good question, and I don’t have a clue how to buy a goodwill franchise either. I’m curious if they are required to give back a percentage of their sales to the local community or are they required to give back a percentage to maintain their “tax exempt” status.

I looked at Goodwill’s financial statements before and their gross revenue is 5.6 billion dollars. If we assume they net 10% on that – it equals $560 million dollars. (10% net is probably a conservative estimate) I would love to know where that money goes. They [goodwill] says 83% goes back into the communities, but I don’t believe that at all.

Goodwill had dozens of locations that shut down overnight in Toronto over a year ago, putting hundreds out of work while the CEO and other top dogs collected millions in salary and bonuses. It was a huge scandal:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/charity-case-why-goodwills-failure-in-toronto-was-anything-butsudden/article28359611/

The Goodwill stores in the community I live in are hit or miss. Some are helping ex-cons get work experience, while others seem like a business similar to Value Village/Savers. Goodwill also runs some concept stores called “Goodies” in my area that focus on books, games, DVD’s and other media that are upscale and have a coffee bar.

Like any franchise system that doesn’t have oversight, there will be amazing franchisees, and others who are absentee and don’t care.

Wow, in your first link the writer calls the Salvation Army a ‘religious hate group.’ Really? Where are her facts? How do people expected to be taken seriously when they throw out venom like that? When I lived in the city I volunteered at the SA center weekly, met many of the lifelong staff who lived on a very low income, and found no hint of hate.

At least the SA provides food, housing, drug rehab, social services, and disaster relief across the globe. And public financial records. https://www.forbes.com/companies/salvation-army/

I wonder if the author of that article considers her ‘love’ better than that.

There was a scandal in eastern NC a few years ago about the GW executive for the region. He earned a cool 1 million in salary and his wife was an executive and so we’re several of his children. For their giving back to the community project they had a farm that produced vegetables for local families and some went to the food bank. Since then several new GW have opened in the area. Our stores never have sales on anything and will never sell anything lower than the marked price. They had rather send it back to the distribution center than sell an item. I’m guessing that they send it back out to another store.I have noticed what seems like purchased merchandise in some of the stores but I could be wrong.

Let’s all take a step back and breathe. In my humble opinion, this is a place for us to talk about how to improve our businesses, part of which is who you do business with as a seller and buyer. So instead of pointing out places we source from embroiled in scandal or having ideological differences, we could talk about we make it part of our business model an outline not to do business with those who do XYZ. If you choose not source from a supplier that supports views you don’t, that is fine. You have to weigh how much is too much. You are uncomfortable with SA on ideology? Okay, don’t shop there. GW pays their executive too much, in your opinion, then don’t shop there. You find out a buyer works for an organization that is in contrast to your values? Then cancel the order and block them. You have to weigh out what you can stomach. I am sure that when you are at a yard sale, you don’t ask the homeowner before you buy that PICK OF THE WEEK their political views. I’m sure you don’t ask a buyer what religion, if any, they prescribe to. Just saying. So, besides the before mentioned options, you could make it a point to send a portion of the sale to an organization / charity you believe in as sort of counter balance.

Jay, I don’t think Goodwill is a franchise. It is a national non-profit that is divided into regions, each region has their own management and policies (at least to some extent, I’m sure some things are dictated at the national level).

To get back to the threads title, stuff I don’t want to hear at my local thrift (or yard sale, etc):
clerk, as I pay for a really great item—“Oh, you’re buying THAT? …I didn’t know there was one left….someone was here yesterday and must have bought a few dozen of them…I guess she missed that one!”

I’ve heard that sort of thing way too often! LOL

One thrift shop I frequent puts out total crap for their silent auctions. (For example, they had a 1970s football card in rough shape. The identical card sold on eBay for under $1 and it was in mint condition.) Yet, the stuff they don’t think is worth anything is where I score. I found a huge batch of needlepoint canvases for $1 each one time. I sold most of them with the highest going for $80. So, just hang in there, in my experience the prices will go down when they find out eBay isn’t all fun and games and that there is work involved, plus when in store sales go down and they have too much stuff.

A couple of years ago, while waiting in line at a GW, I overheard a customer bragging that she had redecorated her home completely with thrift finds. Well, we did too, but would never brag about it to total strangers!! Let people think you spent big bucks!!

Most thrifts I go to do not have workers sophisticated enough to sort out ALL the finds. Things like designer shoes, purses and Starbucks cups will be put in the showcase at ebay prices. But I STILL find similar items on the racks. They just don’t seem to be able to “cherry pick” everything, I guess.

Most of us still hit yard sales, even though more and more people are scanning and looking things up on their iphones. ebay sellers come and go, and leave goodies behind for the rest of us! Jay is right-there is soooo much surplus stuff out there!

I live in a rural area of North Georgia and we have a big Mennonite community. They have gotten into the thrift store business. One of their stores supports a Girls Camp (They also operate the Girls camp) and one of the stores supports Jamacia missions. They are good people and they work with me on prices a good bit. They know I will spend money and never complain something doesn’t work or try and return it etc. They realize that no matter what they think it’s worth they don’t make money with it sitting on the shelves and they try and move inventory and keep it fresh. Goodwill? I’m done with them. They always have the same junk that was on the shelves last time I went in, won’t discount anything. They had a quad drone priced as the same as it was listed on Ebay for and it was sold AS-IS. I told the manager that if I paid what it cost on Ebay and bought it on Ebay I got a money back guarantee. It was like talking to a wall.

Just a tip for those in-store silent auctions that Goodwill and other stores run.

I’ve had tremendous luck with some of them being an early bidder. My most recent example was a lot of 1990’s Sega Genesis games that had over 30 games. I was the first bidder at $5. Over the month, it went up to $330 the last time I looked in the auction book. About a week after the auction ended, I got a call from the store saying that I won the auction – for $5. I couldn’t believe it. When I got to the store, they told me they couldn’t get a hold of the bidders above me, or they didn’t come in to buy the items, therefore, it goes to the next bidder which after a week turned out to be me. I’ve easily sold most of the games already for well over $500.

I’ve had this happen numerous times now – I’m not sure if all stores are the same, but it has happened to me at my local Goodwill, Salvation Army, and a religious thrift store where my lowball bid won a nice item/lot.

Just a tip if you are there at the beginning of an auction and the store uses similar rules and the starting bid is low enough to make a good profit.

I’m in the minority here loving Goodwill. The Indys are my favorites but our GW is the only one in town and conveniently located so they get donations from all over. It is heavily picked, they run frequent sales, and they move things to regional stores, so things really move in and out of there giving you lots of chances to catch things they missed. My favorite overlooked items are art (priced lower than Indys), kitchenware, studio art pottery no one cares about, Target stuff (for us – there is no Target here in town), large Pottery Barn frames and under bed baskets (also for us). They also open right when I’m headed to work.

I noticed one of our regular pickers got a job there. He’s no dummy. Luckily, he’s a shoes guy, not my kind of stuff. The bummer is when you get an employee pricing or picking (like this original post). Another Indy has a pricer who likes EXACTLY the same things I do. That store used to be awesome. They also started selling on Ebay for the charity. Plenty of stuff abounds though. Way too much to process actually.

I reckon expensive thrifts are actually good, it filters out competition so the higher end flips don’t get bought up as fast. If everything’s $0.25 it’s all gone before you arrive.

My local goodwills have started pulling all name brand clothing and putting it on a “specialty rack” for anywhere from $10-$25 an item. Am I mad, nope not at all. They’ve made my life cheaper and easier. I just go once a week now at opening on Sunday when they change the tag sales colors and round up all the 99 cent tag items. No more digging through the whole store. All the good stuff is already presorted and “reserved” for me since no one is paying their crazy prices. The last two weeks I have filled up a cart of awesome stuff off this rack at two different Goodwills.

The best thing is I even told one of the nice cashiers exactly what was going to happen and what I was going to do in a couple weeks. They really lose out too, because I would have paid the normal $4-6 an item for every single thing I bought.