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Was amused by this post!
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I don’t understand the sort of peerson that would walk into a Goodwill and spend $80 on 1 clothing item. Do these people actually exist? Is Goodwill looking for a person confusing Goodwill for a brand new clothing shop?
I hear complaints about Goodwill selling clothing for $8-15 apiece, but at least that’s more realistic pricing compared to $80.
That being said, I still sometimes have amazing finds at Goodwill. They don’t know everything. It’s not as good as it used to be, but that goes for most thrifting.
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Goodwill has a sister store called “Vintage Vogue” where they take higher-end items from the regular stores and price them up. The stores are trendy and often placed in areas where the more, uh, “hipster-y” folks are hanging out at. I suppose I don’t have an issue with them doing this given that they aren’t hitting you over the head with the charity aspect there.
I’ve seen GW do some wacky stuff with the pricing of electronics. To be honest, I wouldn’t have an issue with paying up for something if it was confirmed to be working, but that’s almost never the case. E.g., I once saw a Sony home theater system that had the front completely smashed in stuck with a custom-made “$30” price tag, as if to say I could safely plug the item and expect $30 worth of performance from something that was missing a power button and volume knob. At other times I’ve went to the trouble of testing items priced suspiciously close to eBay solds only to find that very basic functionality (like the tray of a CD drive opening) was foobar. In that case, they’re taking the time to plug the model into eBay but NOT plug it in and test. If that’s what’s really going on, then they think someone like me is rolling into the store, buying electronics, then listing them directly on eBay with zero effort. Strange, given that Goodwill’s original mission wasn’t just to employee the unemployable, but also train them in the kind of common repairs I’m doing with equipment I’m buying from them now.
I can’t say all their stores work like this – most of them are reasonable IMO – but fringe cases like this paint a bad picture overall.
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The Goodwills in my area seem to be pretty cyclical – they tend to have real good prices (and low inventory), then they must think they can charge more as the stores are half empty, they then boost prices, start bursting with inventory all over the floor and outside the store, then hold crazy sales to clear out all the extra inventory and get reasonably priced again. I find the same with Value Village as well – you never know what part of the cycle they are on – trying to sell as much as they can or trying to make as much $ as they can.
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Goodwill also started an upscale store in a suburban area of a nearby city that they call “Goodies”.
It is kind of a hipster coffee shop / Barnes & Noble / hangout. They have all the books neatly organized, have plenty of board games that you can buy or play, and the place has a nice atmosphere. The only thing that is bad is the prices!
They only sell books, media (CDs, DVDs, etc), board games, and the odd statue/oddity. I like the store for personal shopping, but not a good place to scavenge.
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Our GW stores are barren! Where is all the stuff? I leave GW empty handed very often, not b/c of price b/c of selection! Then you go to the GW Outlet/Bins that serve our metro/region and it’s like stuff piled on top of stuff. Does all the stuff go to the Bins? I “heard” somewhere the GW retail store sells only 10% of the store. I wonder if this is true – but it is a 10% STR.
These places think they are TJ Maxx – discount stores.
I think the $80 coat will end up at the bins and sell by weight for $3. -
A lot of Goodwills have pretty high turnover. A lot of times the issue with barren stores is not lack of inventory, but lack of staff to process and price inventory.
One of goodwill’s dirty secrets is the employ the “unemployable”. Folks with medical issues or felonies. In many of these cases they are legally allowed to pay them below minimum wage. Once upon a time they employed these folks for the good of the employees. Now Goodwill is ran like a for profit business, even though it is technically still a non-profit. These employees improve the bottom line.
Our local goodwill even gives the employees sales quotas to fill. One of the women there used to hate resellers and I would have wonderful conversations with her poking holes in her reasoning’s behind it. Then one day she realized that people like me were helping her fill her quota because I was buying so much. She’s MUCH friendlier now. Lol!
Anyways, since Goodwill is a registered non profit all of their financial records are public. I encourage you to read the financial reports of your local goodwill franchise region. It is quite an interesting read. I have read the ones for both of the Goodwill organizations that operate in my area.
Here is the financials for the “Gucci” goodwill group near me.
http://www.goodwillhunting.org/annual-reports-2/They do a lot of good, but there is definitely some fringe benefit hidden among the expenses in section IX of their tax form. Knowing who some of those unpaid directors on their board are, I’m sure a good portion of those expenses are paid to the board member’s businesses.
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Just Google (in News) “Goodwill Toronto” – dozens of locations were shutdown, the CEO was collecting millions of dollars, and lots of fraud going on. All the locations in Toronto were closed overnight.
An interesting read if you don’t like your local Goodwill and wonder what could happen…
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Goodwill does NOT have a good reputation among the charitable organizations that are ranked according to how much money actually goes to the people and places that need it. Their CEO was reported to be paid an enormous salary.. It was compared to Salvation Army in one report I read and Sally’s does much better in all the metrics. Every Goodwill I’ve gone to in the last three years is full of super cheap imports….all new…and virtually no used items except a few ragged looking racks of clothing. They have become much more like a Dollar Store except the dollar stores have better merchandise. I love my regional thrift store and go there once a week on senior day, which is 30% off anything in the store. I routinely find something great and often a whole cart of “great”…which is why I have death piles piled on top of death piles. I can hear them groaning now….”list me…….list me” in their creepy Halloween voices.
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I’ve restricted my sourcing to the Bins and small local thrift/estate sales purely because of these rising price issues. They forget who they are selling to and the audience they are serving. They can’t possibly educate every employee on how to identify value… They need to remember their model works best if they are moving as many items as possible, especially to increases traffic.
As a scavenger, I go where the optimal price/opportunity/time is for me. I don’t bother to keep going to stagnant thrift shops full of overpriced items. They have less space for new items. It is a waste of time to look at the same items. Their customers have no motivation to be brand “loyal”.
I’m not entirely sure they know who their customers are, which is concerning for nonprofits that promote “good will” and “Christian values”.
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