Thrift store is the same thing as consignment shopping in my book…it’s all used clothing. One pays their customers for the clothes and the other doesn’t. That’s crazy that you saw her doing that, nothing really wrong with it…she’s just doing the work to comb through all the stuff for the nicer stuff. Saying that, I wouldn’t go shop from her again either…
There are lots of eBay resellers scouring GW and thrift stores too.
I also bought a lot of children’s clothes for my kids at a great consignment shop…same story. One day I ran into the owner at GW. It was right when they opened in the morning…and her carts…yes several…were full! And like @sseamom I cut out the middle man. I mean really…I can run a washer and iron!
Does Goodwill care who buys their 99 cent things? As long as it brings what Goodwill thinks is a fair price, it does not matter. What really bothers me is some offsite collection centers where the donations get set aside by the workers to take home or to resell…
the vast majority of fancy dancy, brand new in the high end mall stores are tried on by people…people who don’t wear deodorant, people who wear glitterly deodorant, people who don’t shower, people with running foundation or two tons of lipstick and people who go commando. really.
so consider that part if the skeeve factor bothers you.
and the smell of the GW is the fumigator they use on everything. its a slightly different scent than the one that the fancy new stuff is sprayed with as it comes into port from overseas.
and ftlog, if used clothing freaks you out, you might not want to going bowling any time in the near future!
:))
@BerneseMtnMom - she used to call them Cosby sweaters and then changed the name!
I noticed the same scent in every GW and was wondering why.
“I also knew a lady who ran a women’s high-end consignment store and she did the same thing. So don’t kid yourselves that you’re skipping the skeevyness of a thrift store by going consignment.”
The store I go to is super picky about only taking certain brands of clothing. They won’t even take things like Banana Republic or Ann Taylor - it has to be certain brands. And they don’t take St John Knits, believing them to be too common. She is absolutely not scouting GW racks!
Don’t be so sure. We get great name brand donations at my charity thrift store. There is a woman who buys the higher end stuff…and takes it to the consignment store down the road. She told me…she also looks in the boutique sections of the GW stores near us.
I do not anything wrong with that as long as she is not stealing clothes from the donation pile. She provides “personal shopping” service to folks who are too busy to rummage the racks at Goodwill, and she ads value by cleaning the items she sells. Perfectly fine in my book.
@BunsenBurner I totally agree. But my point is…even high end consignment shops,might just have stuff that comes from other sources that just high end stores.
Once I consigned a high end dress to a fancy consignment store that I found at a Goodwill. 
After I wore it a few times. I’m not going to be picky about where my adopted treasures come from, or how much I can get for them once I send them back down the river :D.
I did the legwork finding that dress, cleaning and repairing it, wearing it, then going through the minor hassle of consigning it and making sure I got paid for it.
Exactly. When I was young, I used to shop at high-priced vintage clothing stores with beautifully curated collections of clothes and accessories. I was happy to pay the high prices, knowing that the shop owners probably had armies of pickers who scoured the Goodwills, garage and estate sales, and old dead-lot warehouses for the good finds. All that labor was built into the price, and when you think abt the number of hours involved in that kind of hunt, the stuff seemed cheap.
Donate goods so you can buy them! Still have coupon clipping bargain hunting habits but I want NEW stuff after a childhood of hand me downs and doing without plus tight budgets in college and medical school/residency.
Part of the reason that I don’t think my GW has the name brands / buys you are all talking about is that there is a decently upscale resale shop in the same strip mall as the GW. So there’s little incentive to take your better clothing to GW and get nothing for it when you can drive 25 yards and give it to a resale shop where you’ll at least get money for your trouble. In fact, that’s what people do. They go to the resale shop first - then whatever they don’t accept, they drop off at the GW because it’s that or the dumpster.
So at least in my neighborhood, the other place siphons off the better quality clothing. That is not to say there might not be a gem there somewhere - but the hit rate is quite small.
^^That is what I do Pizzagirl. The consignment store I frequent the most because it’s just down the street, pays cash on the spot. They are after a certain look, and if anything says mattonly in their book, no matter the condition or cuteness, it doesn’t get bought. I had a pair of yellow, almost perfect shorts they wouldn’t take. I had lost wright and just swam in them. They wouldn’t take them because the label was Tommy Hilfiger! I normally don’t do this, but I asked why. She said the brand seemed to mattonly! Ha! I took them to a regular consignment store and they sold them.
I don’t go to GW a lot and usually when I’m bored, but there’s a thrill to finding a treasure for .99.
@wis75 …I understand what you are saying. My mother grew up in the depression wearing her sisters hand me downs and wouldn’t set foot in a consignment store, let alone GW. I was with her in Venice, Florida one day about a year ago. I wanted to go into a consignment store and she had never been in one. She was amazed at how “nice it was” and bought a couple things and just tickled pink at the prices.
@conmama funny about your mom. My mother grew up in opposite circumstances from your mom-very wealthy, new clothes from the best NYC stores. Then she married my dad, had five kids and lived in a smallish city away from high end anything. She could thrift like nobody’s business. That, and she could find the best deals in regular stores and taught all of us how to do it. Full price wasn’t her thing. That all came in handy during years where Dad’s business was slow or the economy went bad. It also helped her get a job when she semi-retired-working in a jewelry consignment store.
That is really interesting! There’s definitely some psychology at work!