A thrift store in which some items sell for over $20 must meet two crucial qualifications in order to pass the Cheap JAP test: 1. It must filter the worst of the damaged and fugly donations from the rest of the gently worn merch. 2. It must have a basic knowledge of brands and their corresponding retail value.
If you’ve ever shopped a Housing Works, you know the above checks out. Secondhand grossness goes straight to the warehouse; high-end donations are tagged as such. Fine.
If the max price as Goodwill topped out at $12.99 – as those in-store tag charts imply – its lack of a filtering system wouldn’t be cause for concern. Throw the ‘designer racks’ into the mix – a recent venture that results in a mishmash of subpar brands tagged at $15 – $45 – and it’s a different story.
I don’t give a rat’s ass if those Rodarte X Target strapless lace/ribbon/tulle disasters masquerading as dresses are NWT – they were overpriced to begin with, and what, you have the gall to tag them at $24.99? You’re GOODWILL, for fuck’s sake, and we’re talking about something from TARGET. If you knew shit about shit, I’d be finding Ella Moss and Geren Ford on those *designer racks.* Instead, I found them where I always find my genuine thriftastic gems – in with the rest of the muck.I don’t know why I felt the need to prove myself right at the 26th Street shop last week. Maybe it’s because I view the world of the gently worn as a safe zone immune to the practices of retail; a place that doesn’t rip us off; a place where hard work actually pays off.
Apparently, it still is.
Provided you have the patience to shop it.
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i think this is the very reason i gravitate toward the salvation army rather than the goodwill in my neighborhood. that and the prices at gw are 2x that of sa. i regularly find paige and seven denim in the rest of gw while name brand racks have ann taylor jeans. i’d rather do the work myself and pay less at the salvation army.
I love these finds!!!=)
That’s what I love about thrifting—if you are patient enough, you get to find treasures!!!=)
Nice!
OMG, you are so RIGHT!!!!! I never, ever shop the Salvation Army for this very reason. The employees wouldn’t know a designer if they fell over one but they have a whole ‘designer” section where you have to pay for the item separately before you shop the rest of the store. What a joke. Lis Clairborne, Gap, Target, even Forever 21 are routinely overpriced. Annoying, totally annoying.
My Goodwill hasn’t started really overpricing like yours but I noticed the prices have gone up a bit. At least everything in the Goodwill is clean, unwrinkled and sorted in color order and style unlike the SA. Good post!
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Goodwill employees are generally not educated on designers, at least not by Goodwill management. I worked at a Goodwill through high school and college and was the only employee under 40. The other emploees, managers included, basically new of Coach and Louis Vuitton due to the overwhelming number of knockoffs that we received. This is the beauty of Goodwill – for that reason, I have found Marc Jacobs top for $1.99, a vintage Dior belt for $1, it goes on and on. As for the Target dress – the Goodwill I worked for bought Target’s returns and unpurchased clearance items at a price-per-pound – I don’t know what that price is unfortunately. Then, the employees were told to price the items at half off whatever the final price was at Target. So in theory, if the dress had a $49.99 tag, the employee was simple doing what he/she was told and taking half off that price and marking it $24.99.
Mallory’s comment is very interesting and explains a lot!
Goodwill’s seemingly arbitrary pricing procedures are both a huge annoyance (most of the time) and a total jackpot (occasionally) to me. Case in point: on a recent visit I found a cute little Old Navy trench which fit me great, but I was completely peeved at the 20-plus dollar pricetag. I was walking around the store fuming to myself when my little eye fell upon…get this…a Badgely Mischka handbag (with the $850 retail tag still attached and tucked inside) for $7.99!!!!! HAPPY DANCE had to wait until I was safely out of the store… I felt like I was stealing something! So you gotta love their clueless pricing!
I got that same exact Ella Moss dress at a thrift store here in Los Angeles. My mom loves going to thrift stores to pass time, I do too once in a while. A day or two ago we had nothing to do and my mom had the day off so we decided to hit up the local shops. I started out picking the most crazy things I could find and walking around in them as a joke. As I was looking for more things to try on I started finding some things that I actually liked, I was shocked! My Ella Moss looks like it has never been worn and fits my long slim body perfectly. I have a hard time finding things that fit me because I have such long legs. I’m so glad that I found it and I’m so excited to go back and find more great things! My friends laughed at me when I told them where I was going because they know I dont need to shop there, I can afford to get the clothes new. But now they want to go with me because how much fun it is! You have no idea what you are going to find.
I once found a separate rack in Salvation army for designer jackets – for $79.99…. I was so bloody annoyed. What’s worse was every single one of that jacket was scribbled with blue ball pen in the front every single one of them.
did the blue pen scribble say SAMPLE in obnoxiously large letters? i’ll never understand why retail companies donate their samples after marking them as such; it’s a big fat eff you to the general thrifting public. pfft.