Thrift pricing

[dana]

Hi,
Glad that I found this sight. I love the thrift shops garage sales and bargains!!

I do not understand either why prices are so high at some stores. The items are donated for free. And isn't it better to sell it for less to get it off the shelf or rack to make room for new merchandise?

I THINK  25 cents to $1 for a paperback book
a $1 or less for VCR tape.

Can someone else e-mail with pricing ideas of what is reasonable?

[Good Buddy]

And isn't it better to sell it for less to get it off the shelf or rack to make room for new merchandise?

Agreed. It's better to get the money now and rotate the merchandise to promote frequent shopper visits and to make sure that you don't get over loaded with donations.
A little thrift volunteer at does no rotation at all. They have more than 10 times the inventory sitting as overstock. They only put out new items when things have sold.
I have tried beyond measure to get the manager to understand her dire situation, but it's hard to get any new ideas into her head, very stubborn.

[hardcorethriftwhore]

Goodwill CAN get expensive.  I got a tweed coat the other day and it was 5.00 and I could've gotten it at the local one for like 1.00.  Sometimes good will is overpriced.  They okay about books here though. I think its .50 for paperback and .75 or 1.00 for hardback.

If I had to guess, in bigger cities like New York or somewhere in California would be higher priced.

[Magpie18]

Well here in Los Angeles,  Goodwill will NOT have a coat for $5 unless it is on sale.  Actually, I am having a hard time thinking of any thrift in Los Angeles that would start a coat at $5...

Most thrift stores in Los Angeles are what I would call chain stores -- Salvation Army, Goodwill, Out of Closet, Discovery (Cancer) & Jewish Federation Council.
We don't have many that are "local one".

Maybe it has to do with the cost of buying or leasing land in the big city or because the efficiency of the rag trade in a port city?   Also there are a lot of resale shops -- vintage,  or consignment shops for current clothing.

[foutchie]

Here in the midwest we have a growing number of resale shops - some high end.   I think more and more people are taking things there that they used to donate to thrift stores, causing high end labels to be hard to impossible to find at the thrift stores.

[genuineimitation]

we are getting more resale shops as well. i found an eileen fisher sweater not too long ago for a very reasonable $15. i would never have found it at my thrift, so i went ahead and bought it.

one of my thrift stores' policy is to price at 1/3 retail value. that being said.. they are often times off in their estimates. i've seen things in there that are way overpriced compared to new. though yesterday i did see one of those $300+ uberblenders for $99. which is consistent, but there were no directions and the thing wasn't in perfect shape. if it's still there at the end of the month half price sale, i still might snatch it up!

i rarely go to goodwill anymore, and part of that is definitely their ridiculously high pricing.

[tsmanager]

Everyone thinks that because we get the items for free they should be low priced. In my store I price what the market will pay. Let me educate you on FREE.
I'm not sure you realize what a store like mine pays.
-Rent - market rate in northern Va is $35-42 per sq foot. I have over 5000 sq ft. Add to this a common area maintence fee for being in a shopping mall.
-Utilities - electric,phone,internet,water
-trash - I have 2- 8yd dumpster that are emptied 3 times a week. And they are always full.
-Insurance
-Workman's Comp
-Salaries
-supplies
And then after all that I need to be able to send money back to organization otherwise there is no point in my being here.
I am proud of the fact that my store is self sufficent. I don't take any money from the organizations donations to support my store. I make and pay all my own bills (well the bookeeper does it for me)
Like you I had this same feeling why is the stuff so expensive if they get it for free. Until I started working for them.
But let me tell you there is nothing more rewarding than doing what you love. You have to have the temperment to work in this field.
Thanks for letting me explain. I wasn't yelling really I just thought someone should explain our side.
Mary in VA

[valleythriftshopper]

If you want to know where most of the clothing people donate to the big thrift chains goes get a video copy of the film "T-Shirt Travels at http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/tshirttravels/film.html
According to research done for the film- "In T-SHIRT TRAVELS, Bloemen first travels to the Jersey shore, where she interviews Americans who donate their goods to various charities but have little idea that their former wardrobes end up in Africa. She talks to export agent Barney Lehrer from Brooklyn, who tells her that the Salvation Army doesn't even unpack most of the donated clothing but sells it to companies for export to third-world countries".

As you might guess the people making the majority of the money off of this deal are the middlemen who buy clothes by the pound form the trift stores, not the African merchants they resell the clothes to.  If fact a big complaint about many of the clothes donted to Katrina victims was that some of them ended up going overseas.  The thrift stores do get more donations than they can possibly handle, but it is too bad something better can't be done with the surplus.

[Big Daddy Audio]

It seems to me to be a complicated thing - HOWEVER - the one area over which I have control is whether to buy at a thrift store or not.  If a thrift store is overpriced, I move along.  I won't even waste my time telling someone that their stuff is priced out of line.  I'm sure they price it that way because someone is paying those ridiculous prices (EG - one of the goodwills in Phoenix (and not in a nicer part of the city, believe you me) prices used cassette tapes at $1.49 a piece.  Every other Goodwill in the valley has them for $.49 (sometimes $.69 for sealed high quality blanks). 

A good rule of thumb for pricing is to get a list from the IRS as to what a typical allowable deduction is for a given item (Why?  That's what the donators are getting credit for - seems like a logical starting point to me).  Shirts?  Maybe a buck.  They don't care if it's couture.  The IRS has figures for everything.

Vote with your wallet and your feet.  If they overprice, then you should underbuy.

See you next time
bye for now 

[Jay2TheRescue]

Everyone thinks that because we get the items for free they should be low priced. In my store I price what the market will pay. Let me educate you on FREE.
I'm not sure you realize what a store like mine pays.
-Rent - market rate in northern Va is $35-42 per sq foot. I have over 5000 sq ft. Add to this a common area maintence fee for being in a shopping mall.
-Utilities - electric,phone,internet,water
-trash - I have 2- 8yd dumpster that are emptied 3 times a week. And they are always full.
-Insurance
-Workman's Comp
-Salaries
-supplies
And then after all that I need to be able to send money back to organization otherwise there is no point in my being here.
I am proud of the fact that my store is self sufficent. I don't take any money from the organizations donations to support my store. I make and pay all my own bills (well the bookeeper does it for me)
Like you I had this same feeling why is the stuff so expensive if they get it for free. Until I started working for them.
But let me tell you there is nothing more rewarding than doing what you love. You have to have the temperment to work in this field.
Thanks for letting me explain. I wasn't yelling really I just thought someone should explain our side.
Mary in VA

hey Mary, I haven't been thrifting in a while, been busy at work.  Has your new store opened yet, or are you still at your old location?  (I'm guessing old location because you mention the CAM fees.)  Cam fees are expensive here in Sterling.  In my plaza we pay about $1,500/mo for our share of the CAM fees.

-Jay

[Tammy]

Goodwill CAN get expensive. 

Everyone thinks that because we get the items for free they should be low priced.

I know, I've griped about this before, but hoping that prices might have come down, I stopped once again at the year old GW store a block from where I work.  I think in maybe the 10 times I've gone in I've only bought 2 times.  First item I noticed last night was a yellow sweater priced $9.00.  Husband saw a pair of used workboots priced at $35.00.  Nothing special 8 x 10 picture frames were $4 & 5.00.  There wasn't a pair of earrings marked under $2.50.  Needless to say once again I left with nothing.  I have to look at it as if I know milk is $4 at one store but $2.50 at another, why would I pay the $4.00?   My choice and it's like Big Daddy Audio says if it's overpriced, shop elsewhere.  I don't know if they are higher priced because it's a new building or the location although there is a Salvation Army store a mile and 1/2 away that is lots cheaper.  That's my 'milk' comparison.  I can't bring myself to pay the GW prices when I know it's cheaper there.  Maybe it's just that thrifting has made me into a cheapskate?

And yes, the thrift store gets the items donated, but 99% of the time it's USED stuff.  Not new and they shouldn't begin to charge new or almost new prices for used stuff.  Of course if someone wants to pay it... 

[valleythriftshopper]

I mentioned in an earlier post the documentary about second hand clothing from the U.S. going overseas because I think that may be why some of the big chains don't worry about pricing stuff cheap to move it out quickly because there are many dealers who will buy up massive quantities of clothing & other items.  I used to work at an antique store & there was a guy that would come in frequently.  He was a very wealthy man who was into various businesses- real estate, etc.  He became friendly with the owner & told her he had a warehouse full of stuff from the salvation army.  He gave her the key to the warehouse & told her if there was any designer, collectible stuff she could sell it at the store & split the profit.  I don't know what he does with the other stuff, but I am sure he is making good money off of it.  Don't get me wrong I shop at the Salvation Army all the time.  They run a soup kitchen in my town & help alot of people.  It is just too bad the excess donations can't help people too.

[SecondhandSophisticate]

I agree with Big Daddy and Tammy---it's a choice. If you don't like the prices, don't shop there. Somebody must be paying the prices for that stuff, or the store wouldn't still be open or the prices would have dropped.  Thrift stores are still stores. 

I like to keep my options open. Cruise a store that  may be highly priced occasionally and I may find that they've come down on their prices, or I may find the perfect piece at a price I'm willing to spend.

It's really like Renniger's to me:  I spent six hours looking at tons of stuff, a lot of which I liked but wasn't willing to spend the $$--it just didn't move me enough. When I found what I wanted at a good price--that's when I spent. Do I screw up?  Occasionally. 

What always astounds me is the stuff that is so highly marked.  A LOT of it  can be found on sales racks new or in Dollar stores.

[dukek9]

I went to SA the day after Thanksgiving and they were having  a half price sale on their"good stuff"--the ones marked with red tags.  So it was winter things--coats and sweaters and things.  Great!  I have a trillion sweaters but hey, always ready for one more. What id did find was the red tags were on the wal mart stuff while the better quality stuff had the "ordinary tags on it.

I was kind of depressed, ending up getting nothing.  But then I realized that it's actually good.  For instance they will have a walmart sweater marked for 2.99 and a LL Bean sweater marked for 1.99. Therefore I really make out all year round by the weird pricing.

On the other hand, they also had a forest of artificial Christmas trees out, and many beautiful ones, even some of the new ones with the lights in the branches.  And they were also on sale for half price. So people could have gotten a tree that sold for over 100 bucks last year for 7 bucks.

So sometimes the thrift store prices get to me, but I mainly think it all works out in the end.
Dee