OfferUp partnered with Goodwill thrift shops and now has over 200 stores across the country selling items through the OfferUp mobile selling app.
OfferUp offered up an example of how a store is using its app, writing, “the San Antonio Goodwill has seen tons of success within the niche market of retro video games. In the last two months, they’ve sold cool console bundles like the below and this MASSIVE bundle with 45 Games and 13 systems sold in just 9 minutes!”
When first announcing the partnership 2 months ago, OfferUp put that number at over 100 Goodwills based in in New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin Counties, South Florida, Greater Detroit, San Antonio, and Central and Southern Indiana.
Goodwills are posting gently used items such as furniture, clothing, collectibles, home decor, home electronics, jewelry, video games, and more.
Saturday is National Thrift Shop Day – happy shopping!
SOURCE: OfferUp Blog Post
Is that some kind of joke? The announcement of how the GW stores are able to list their cool merchandise before even being seen by customers and then says Saturday is National Thrift Store day and happy shopping. What shopping when the good stuff is gone? I used to find some truly great things at my local GW if not for resale, but for my own sewing/craft room supplies. Then they rearrange those departments and suddenly they are about 10% of the size they used to be with prices doubled or tripled. What happened to those donations. I find it hard to believe that they got the stuff for years and now the supply of donations has basically ended? Many people in my area shop in thrifts as it is all they can afford and my local, private store is super busy when they are open. I’m glad that they aren’t skimming off the cream of donations so that for us that it is the only store that we can afford things like quilting fabric. I used to get a lot of that at the GW but rarely find any anymore.
So, we’re supposed to be excited that even more of GW’s donated, non-clothing merchandise will never find it’s way onto B&M store shelves? 5 or 6 years ago, I could walk into any of the GW stores in my area and find all manner of interesting items. Now? There’s clothing and little else. What used to be a great place to shop for secondhand merchandise of all kinds is now basically a used clothing store.
Shame on a non-profit organization for succumbing to greed.
Even the clothing is getting winnowed out – there’s just so much of it that it doesn’t seem like it. Anything ‘good’ goes online or into boutiques. It’s a long, hard struggle to look for anything decent to put on my own back, much less to re-sell. I still find it, but it gets harder every year. I’ve been shopping at the Goodwills since 1972.
Ha, I tried to donate a Vanguard chair. Its mate had been damaged in a moved and thrown out. One of the dock employees walked around it like he was judging horses or buying it himself and nearly didn’t take it. It was a sun room type chair with a crackled finish and was about 4 years old. I even had it cleaned first.
Yet, when you go inside there are racks and racks Target/Walmart cast offs (check the labels people), from dishes to clothes and nearly all of it unwashed. Faded curtains and run over shoes galore and lots of late 70’s DARK pine nightstands and hordes of pickers clawing around hoping to flip something, not realizing that Goodwill has its own online auctions, is in direct competition and they are getting the most cast off of the cast offs. I feel sorry for anyone who actually NEEDS to buy anything there. And yes, there are literal fist fights in there over this crap.
Goodwill’s auction pages take too long to navigate and half the time, it’s local pick up only. I’m curious to know how much of this money actually goes back to their original mission. I sure won’t be dragging anything else there.
Just another sign of the times.
Goodwill and Salvation army has top management that make all of the money and not much is left over for the people that need it.