Featured Man thrift stores piss me off

First off i would like to start off and say that some of my best finds have been at small town thrift store. These big chain ones drive me nuts though with their corporate shenanigans. I mean ever since these shows have come out on tv now everyone wants to be a picker and it makes prices go up at big chain thrift stores. It also makes it extremely hard for us who have been doing this for 10 years plus. God i hate tv lol savers and goodwill get this stuff for free and turn huge profit. F it im opening a thrift store! Whos coming with me?! lol

 

Do we get our stuff for free too?

 

Yes! going corporate! we will be drinking mojitos on the beach while people fight over a vases and art! its going to be fantastic!

 

Oh no wait, I want the vases and art. You drink the mojitos on the beach and I'll gather up the good stuff.

 

sounds like a plan lol together we will take over the world!

 

I'll bring the lobstah

 

I go to Goodwill virtually every day, BaconsRandom...

Don't give up before the miracle happens! :0

Sorry, I misquoted myself - should be:

Don't kill yourself before the miracle happens! :0

 

There are a lot of thrifts on the Cape, but no bargains. This is an upscale area and the women who run the local thrifts are very savvy. Summer people are generally second home owners who have plenty of disposable income so they pay top dollar for everything. It raises the roof on prices everywhere.

 

A local thrift store in my area raised the prices on their VHS tapes from $0.50 to $2.00 each. I asked why and the manager said that they are vintage and are coming back into fashion. I guess they will be hanging onto those 10 copies each of Titanic, Harry Potter, and other common late 90's movies for a while with that attitude.

This particular thrift has a ton of ongoing listings on eBay currently but barely sells a listing per week due to their inflated perception of value for the items they are selling. It is sad really, the cause they are working towards is a good one, but they seem to think that their used clothing and knickknacks are treasures waiting to be discovered or something.

 

Oh Lord , you've poked a hornets nest , Bacons !
My used to be favorite thrift was bought out by a national chain last year ,still using the Vietnam vets logos etc . Wich they legally can do if they pay the organization to use their name ! Prices have quadrupled , the REALLY good stuff is no more except for the occasional slip up , and they've taken to pulling very shady crap like putting the price tags over defects . And they must use super glue on them because they are hell to get off at home . I quit going there except occasionally , but I do miss the good old days of tons of goodies dirt cheap !

 

Well, honey bee anyway. We sting, but most of the time we're pretty sweet. Some of us, anyway.

"I saw this listed on line for $50 and here it's only $25." Uhmm, is that what the asked for it, or what it sold for? Generally, it's an asking price and often something that's been relisted a few times with no takers. There's a thrift in the next town over like that; their contributors are often ladies who lunch and they sell some nice stuff. They also ask some nice prices. OTOH sometimes things slip through that they don't recognize. It never hurts to look.

 

yes i live in boulder colorado and its the same here!

 

i know its crazy! but ill tell you what when i see a price that really pisses me off i grab a sell tag and swap

 

It has changed, for sure - when Goodwill started to get serious, they came to pickers and asked them to be pricers - the pickers were horrified, seeing the end of a long, lucrative era. I think they train their own people, now.

There is a GI-normous clearing center in Ontario (California) where they sort and price for the stores, but they also grade bales of clothing and batches of collectibles and household goods to sell to other thrifts.

It's pretty rare for anything perfect to make it through - neat stuff is almost always nicked, chipped or defective in some way. It's even more rare to find a leather handbag. They opened up a store that sells noticeably better quality and turned my old store right around the corner into a dollar clothing store.

It's boring, but it finds do make it through. Someone asked me how I found good stuff at junk stores - the only reason is because I'm looking. That's my big, trade secret

But I also go to two liquidators in East LA, and I never know what they will have - not many people are willing to go to those neighborhoods.

 

I do help some local thrifts, but only on stuff I don't want. If I spot something good that I don't deal with, I let them know.

 

I think that's great, Evelyb. What do you do if you see something you want?

I just meant the pickers I knew were upset because they'd had access to such great stuff for so many years - some had worked at Goodwill and Salvation Army as sorters (and thieves) out of high school in the '70s.

Over the years, they became extremely savvy and made very good money picking - some of their finds wound up in museums - so it did change all that. No more Wild, Wild West - but they still hit up the Goodwill, nonetheless...

I didn't start buying to sell until the mid-nineties, but have gone to thrifts religiously since 1970.

 

Then I keep my mouth shut.(LOL) We both make out. I kept it even more tightly closed in a local antique store recently. Found 14k being sold in a lot of gold-filled...oops. Worse, it was the owner's personal case.

 

And they don't get all squirrely thinking you might make some money from it? That's nice - and I'm sure you help them make money!

oops. Because you're smart! that seems fair.

 

Even with all the culling of the so called best stuff in the bigger chain thrift stores I still find great stuff even in Boulder, the key is knowing the obscure and changing with the times.

 

I agree!

Something happened at the Goodwill recently that really blew my mind: I never haggle, ever, but when I pointed out a repairable tear or stain on a cool old purse, they took it away from me and said they'd put it in the "As-Is" store. Wouldn't even let me buy it!

Before, they might just use a lower bar-code to give a small discount.

It's a corporation, no question. You never know when you're going to run into an employee who takes it very seriously...

Another store sold me just the lampshade off a lamp, no problem!