Price Tag "colors" at thrift stores

[ChrisMiss]

SA has a 80% off of book price which can get expensive if you're interested in the hardcover books, many of them start out now at well over $20.

That's a really lame system. Hardbacks should not be more than $2, unless it's a rare book.
I bet that SA's books sit on the shelves there for months..

They probably do have books that have been there a long time.  But they do have 50% off sales frequently and the stores in Tampa move their stock from one store to another store.   

[Magpie18]

what you call "graders", I call "jobbers"-- same thing I guess

Los Angeles is a port city & it is relatively close to the Mexican border (ok, not as close as San Diego).

A LOT of used clothes either gets trucked over the southern border or end up in shipping containers out of the Los Angeles/Long Beach port.  Remember that more things come into the USA than leave it --- so alot of shipping containers are empty heading to africa or asia.  Slow shipping is relatively cheap in bulk.

While I think all big cities have businesses that specialize in the rag trade, it is particularily cost effective in Los Angeles.

[thunderthrift]

Both Savers and Goodwill here in Phoenix use a color tag system. 

The order for Savers is:
Yellow Orange Green Blue Purple [Back to Yellow, etc.]

A clerk explained this to me with the acronym/phrase:
You Only Get Better Prices.

I do notice that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the pink tags from the purple tags at Goodwill.

Generally all of the Savers have the same color tag on sale on the same day.  However, sometimes a manager sale will preempt the color at one of the stores.  On Wednesdays, senior citizen day preempts the color sale.  On Mondays, all of the items tagged with the previous weeks color tag are sold for $1.  So on Mondays, you have the new color tag for 50 percent off and the old color tag for $1.  However, I wouldn't put too much stock in any of this, because individual stores seem to have the ability to deviate based on the whims of the store or store manager.

Haven't figured out all of the details for Goodwill, but they also have a senior citizen day, -- Thursdays, I believe.  Every other Saturday, they have a 50 percent off everything day.  Once again, YMMV.

[Big Daddy Audio]

Thunder -

Be sure to keep a few Goodwill coupons with you when you hit the thrifts.  They are available at:

http://www.goodwillcentralaz.org/coupons/index.html

Items that are already on sale won't be discounted, but it helps when the stuff you find has the wrong color tag for the sale at hand.

See you next time
bye for now

[foutchie]

Thanks for the link!  I know I'll use it! 

[thunderthrift]

Hi Big Daddy Audio,

Thanks for the Goodwill coupon link.  Also, forgot to mention that sometimes the 32nd St. & Cactus Savers will give you a 20% discount coupon as well as the "buy something for $5, get something free for $5 less" coupon with a donation.