Featured Man thrift stores piss me off

The lack of good picks in a Goodwill doesn't piss me off, this does though.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-hrabe/the-worst-corporation-in-_b_1876905.html

I rent apartments to a few GW employees, my apartments are way under market value (by hundreds) and these employees still have a very hard time making it at the rate they are paid.

 

Wise words Anund and so true

Sorry Scoutshouse, I had to chuckle at that. That is crazy they wouldn't let you buy it though!

 

Right??? so bizarre, it is laughable!

 

I found a a newer article, below
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The executive salaries are one thing - but none of the articles I found mention that all of Goodwill's inventory - which makes them 5 billion dollars/year - is DONATED and costs them nothing but their own labor.

How Goodwill Industries Fails to Show Good Will

 

Our charity shops have signs saying they won't take video tapes.

I walk on by ANYONE who tells me a widget is selling for xxx on Ebay.

I loathe hagglers in charity shops, and really told off a very well dressed couple who had an armful of superb quality clothes for a total of fifty quid. They were berating the poor manageress for not offering a discount as "they had to take them to Ireland." (!)

Mind you, some here offer discounts. One had some little Coalport bits with a five pound price tag, but I wasn't clear if that was each or the set. When I asked, the nice lady said it was five each but as they'd been sitting there a few weeks I could have all TEN for ten quid. Effusive thanks ensued.

 

Had an hour to kill today and walked around our local charity shops. Anything with a bit of age was priced reflecting age, but not reflecting (lack of) quality or retail value.

Now there must be a trade off between price and turnover. Many shops here seem to be putting inflated retail prices on items ('cause that is what they are asking on Ebay) and the same stock can be seen cluttering up the shelves week in, week out. This is the stock that has been donated, sorted by volunteers and sold by volunteer staff in a shop with reduced business rates.

High end stock, designer fashions, handbags sometimes goes into charity shops that have had upscale makeovers or is sold at auction or online.

There is an uneasy relationship between high street businesses and charity shops, the latter often perceived to have unfair advantage and to be partially taking over some segments of high street trade.

We still donate some of our items to charity shops, but long ago ceased looking in charity shops for saleable stock.

 

I suggest you get a $38 Honda with a $4,000 'stereo' and a coffee can for a muffler/tailpipe or a '63 Chevy Impala which has serious 'size' issues in regard to wheel/tire size and has Parkinson's and you'll be good over there.
Call Willie Nelson and see if you can have his head wound bandanna for I think that issue healed and he doesn't wear it anymore.
Correct Gila?

 

It helps to build relationships if you can. I regularly get help with pricing/damage issues at my local stores.

 

This is probably what I was hearing about and that I noted in my finds.

 

it's a love/hate thing lol i volunteer sometimes at our thrift store i check electronics and stuff one time there was a pile of drums in the corner didn't look like much but they knew i was a drummer and asked me to take a look at it see if there was anything i wanted to buy .well long story short there was a whole drum set i ended up putting together , pearls sold for 500 in there silent auction so i get discounts when i go there ,and my daughter and the girl guides help out there .

 

There is one other thing that annoys me with the large chain thrift stores, this happens most often on senile (senior) day the nasty old ladies that block the isle with their carts and give you the stink eye when you politely ask them to make room to pass.

 

yup they call it bag day here (every thurs. fill a bag 6 bucks ) i call it old bag day lol but if you pick up brand name or designer then it's not in the sale , what a joke and don't get me started on the silent auction what a farce lol their motto is you should know what you are buying, haha

 

Interesting story. First, a question.
Man thrift stores piss me off.
Did you mean to put a comma after man? I have to admit, without the comma you really got my attention and MADE me read the post.

Goodwill has of course been around here forever, but was always just a place to get rid of stuff too good for the landfill. Other than GW there was Salvation Army. But I'm not aware of any outlet SA may have had anywhere near us. AND, if you had a decent couch and a couple of chairs either one of those charities would be happy to say they would try to get there to pick them up within the next few weeks. Which meant never. So small stuff got carted to Goodwill's back door. Bigger stuff took effort to donate to someone directly.

But never did trust Goodwill after my brother told me of his experiment. And this was about 25 years ago. (He was a more avid collector than I and used to drop off stuff regularly as they were in the same shopping center as his Travel Agency.) One day he put together a big box of glassware. Ordinary stuff, then added 4 or 5 relatively valuable pieces. Brought them to Goodwill just before they closed for the day. He knew they would be stocking them that evening.
Next morning he was standing at their front door and was the first person to walk in and go straight to the glass section. Sure enough, as he expected, all his glassware was on display EXCEPT for the more expensive pieces.

I have NEVER found a bargain at Goodwill or any of the small thrift shops, mainly because they are out of my way and are only visited when I'm early for an appointment in the neighborhood, or, as just recently, took a long trip through the brand new, stand alone building just moved into, Goodwill about 10,000 sq. ft. store. Did get to speak to some employees, including the young lady at the big, locked glass cabinet with expensive stuff in it. She said the tags ID'd the stuff from Target and similar stores who constantly donated slightly damaged boxed electronics, etc.

 

If i'm paying cash and it is like 8 dollars i will just give them a ten and tell them to keep the change but ours is for the woman's shelter so i don't mind pitching in a couple extra dollars but when it is the atm it is always correct amount
ps the shelter keeps a lot of the good stuff for moms

 

This is very true ! I worked at the Goodwill in St. Pete fla for a few months back in the mid 80s , and while their prices were very reasonable , the " good " stuff rarely made it out front . Walking through their enormous warehouse/sorting area one day , I ran across a literal pile of antiques in a back corner with tags that said " hold for Linda " . When I asked who "linda " was I was told she was a manager in the office , and had a store . This stuff was very good , and had $2-3 4 dollar price tags on it ! Another day they were unloading a complete camera shop inventory , and we aren't talking polaroid cameras either . Within a week , the huge crate the cameras came in was empty , and I never saw one out front .
That being said , with my employee discount and friendship with several pricers , I took advantage as well ( im not proud of that but I was young! ) . That warehouse was huge , and they had those retarded people back there in sweltering heat working for like a buck an hour . Even with huge fans running , youd sweat to death . My friends sister ,who was retarded as well , worked there and I would go check on her frequently , and I was always concerned about the working conditions . In fact , my friends parents finally took her out of there because she was losing so much weight .
After that summer , I never donated to them ( and rarely shop there ) again . They are a huge scam !

 

Oh, sure - I agree. That situation was really about the Goodwill's changing relationship with customers - they actually have rules, now! And employees have to enforce them as best they can.

Culturally, some people will ALWAYS say no on behalf of their employer - I can see she was just trying to be loyal to Goodwill, but I was bugged nonetheless!!

 

I donate to charity shops like mad, but it's usually clothes or books or other bits. They do well out of me for both buying and selling.

I do approve of them generally though - for one thing, I'm an ecofreak and anything that avoids landfill is Good.

I liked the one I bought a brand new serious designer handbag in. I did - having paid for it! - point out what a bargain it was. Nice woman said, hey, it came in half an hour ago and it's going out of the door now. That was their model and it worked.

 

ahhh but you do still shop there lol i know what you mean , i have been pissed at the thrift store , swore i would never ever go back , but that doesn't last long ,at all lol especially the silent write your bid in the book auction what a scam i put my bid in last ten min of auction forgot about it and left , i phone them and talked to viola she knows me well, and asked her if i had won the kewl stein and she said yes i did .So the next day (i should have went right away) when i got there there was a name and a bid after mine she had come in and picked it up already i ask vi to back me up she did but what are you gonna do , i sucked it up , still pissed tho lol

 

Not great thrift store pickings near me...Real estate prices too high for small places to exist here....we have one GW...I donate there a lot..and shop there a little...
Biggest complaint...so much stuff is damaged as soon as it comes in...they just dump stuff in bins for sorting and pricing later... When I am dropping off breakables..I put big signs on the boxes AND ask them to please put next to bin not in it!