Disapointed at my local Good will

[90snostalga]

Guys please help cheer me up and let me know if you think I'm wrong on this.  With all the problems we have with Good wills and pricing, I have only one good will that I have always supported for the most part.  It's about 5 minutes away, me and my wife have donated boxes of stuff there for years now.  Boxes of clothes, I have brought several tvs, cd players, I've even brought games there.   All kind of stuff.  Anyways, this is the same good will that I always say has not yet got corrupted.  If you recall in December I got my Virtual Boy CIB for 5 bucks at this particular good will.  I've gotten lots of stuff there and not just games, every birth day for all 3 kids, me and the wife go there to purchase presents because we always find brand new stuff all the time.  We highly supported it.  Always donate an extra dollar on top of all purchases, etc.

Anyways, I went there today and talked to the manager who is a great guy.  He knows me from going in there like 100 times a week.  So when I went in, I asked him if he had any games or systems he was putting out today because he knows I get that stuff.  He said "No. Unfortunately other than sports games, you may not find much games in here too much anymore".  I inquired about that and he said that last week, a new procedure started for his store that he has to put video games online.   I asked him for more detail and he said they have to put it on shopgoodwill.com and Ebay because they have to make more money.  I told him that he knows he can ask me first if I want to pay a little more money to buy the games and he said no he cant do that.  He said now, every time they get a game, he is required to type it into some goodwill intranet system and the computer lets him know if he should list it on ebay or shopgoodwill and rare circumstances, the shelf.  He said it's better for the community because the good will, will in result, make more money online and have more money and services to give back to the community.

I told him he knows thats bs because of all our local good will corruption with employees stealing games and he just said he has to do it to make more money.  I asked him if he thought in the end would it help lead to less retail stores and he said that the focus of the good will is to make more money and online is the new direction because it saves on rent, power for the store, employees, etc. 

I'm just very upset about this and I let him know clear as day that I am no longer donating any merchandise to his store and my wife bought a couple of dresses for her and he asked for us to donate 2 pennies at the end of the 4.99 total and I told him I'm sorry no I'm not donating 2 pennies.  He rolled his eyes and got upset and rudely said "well you have a great day even if you dont shop here any more"

I'm pissed about this but am I wrong??  Should I be excited for the good will making more money online to go back and help my community even tho' I have no idea what exactly they are helping?

[90snostalga]

Oh, I also wanted to mention that he said last week he sold a Nintendo 64 console with the cords and controllers in box and everything online for 120 bucks.    It makes me realize how much the internet market in the end, can kill our society.    I mean Ebay has already destroyed thousands and maybe millions of local mom and pop shops.  At least here it has.

[burningdoom]

Check out this thread, we already have long conversation going on about his:

http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,4566.0.html

[90snostalga]

Thanks for the link but this isnt really about their prices.  Just me explaining the situation with them and online.  I'm at the point to where I want to limit my shopping there from 4 days a week to 1 day a month.  I dont even want to donate anything there or money any more.   I was curious if others thought Im taking this far or what you guys would do if you experienced this same event that I did...

[burningdoom]

It's actually pretty common with Goodwill. Yours is behind the curve on that trend. You just have to bite the bullet and be happy you got the games you did for cheap while you could, is my advice. Because I doubt your local manager can change a company-wide policy.

[90snostalga]

It's actually pretty common with Goodwill. Yours is behind the curve on that trend. You just have to bite the bullet and be happy you got the games you did for cheap while you could, is my advice. Because I doubt your local manager can change a company-wide policy.

Im of course very happy about that Virtual Boy!      When he told me that, I was like stoned faced.  I could not believe it.  He knew I was upset too.  That was really the last good will here that actually had great stuff for a reasonable price and now its like, there is no uncorrupted good will left.  I used to go to all my local good wills on a weekly basis thrift shopping, thats 7 good wills.  Then it became just 2 good wills.  Then 1.  Now I may go to all of them only once every 3 months. Now I dont see the point of good will.  My prediction is that 10 to 15 years down the road maybe sooner, good will may end up an online only so called non profit organization.  They may have a few retail bargain centers but I just look at how its run.  When he said they will get more money online to give back to the community and I even told him I would pay the same as online and he still refused, it made me think that its part of their agenda to go online only bc they wont have to pay for the store.

Im sorry Doom, it just has me very upset.  Thats the honest truth.  Just upset about it.  I've spent so much time and money with Good wills and over the last year, it has slowly declined and its like a break up for me.  About a month ago, I over heard one manager from a good will fussing at a cashier about how they need to get more cash donations because every good will in the region has not made goal for the last 3 months.  I'm sitting there like, really?  Do they really not know why people dont shop there as much.  I dont know how many times I have heard some one say "I like this shirt, but not for 5 bucks", or a dress or whatever clothing it is.  Put a dollar price tag on all the clothes and they would make thousands.  If you got 5,000 items of clothing at 99 cents each, thats 5,000 versus 50 percent of your customers refuses to pay for it if its 5 bucks. 

Ok im done venting.  Thanks for reading.    Sorry good will, I have to break up with you.  All the employee corruption and now the online thing, Im sorry.  I have to say good bye    

Thanks for the virutal boy tho!   

[turf]

It's actually pretty common with Goodwill. Yours is behind the curve on that trend. You just have to bite the bullet and be happy you got the games you did for cheap while you could, is my advice. Because I doubt your local manager can change a company-wide policy.

Im of course very happy about that Virtual Boy!      When he told me that, I was like stoned faced.  I could not believe it.  He knew I was upset too.  That was really the last good will here that actually had great stuff for a reasonable price and now its like, there is no uncorrupted good will left.  I used to go to all my local good wills on a weekly basis thrift shopping, thats 7 good wills.  Then it became just 2 good wills.  Then 1.  Now I may go to all of them only once every 3 months. Now I dont see the point of good will.  My prediction is that 10 to 15 years down the road maybe sooner, good will may end up an online only so called non profit organization.  They may have a few retail bargain centers but I just look at how its run.  When he said they will get more money online to give back to the community and I even told him I would pay the same as online and he still refused, it made me think that its part of their agenda to go online only bc they wont have to pay for the store.

Im sorry Doom, it just has me very upset.  Thats the honest truth.  Just upset about it.  I've spent so much time and money with Good wills and over the last year, it has slowly declined and its like a break up for me.  About a month ago, I over heard one manager from a good will fussing at a cashier about how they need to get more cash donations because every good will in the region has not made goal for the last 3 months.  I'm sitting there like, really?  Do they really not know why people dont shop there as much.  I dont know how many times I have heard some one say "I like this shirt, but not for 5 bucks", or a dress or whatever clothing it is.  Put a dollar price tag on all the clothes and they would make thousands.  If you got 5,000 items of clothing at 99 cents each, thats 5,000 versus 50 percent of your customers refuses to pay for it if its 5 bucks. 

Ok im done venting.  Thanks for reading.    Sorry good will, I have to break up with you.  All the employee corruption and now the online thing, Im sorry.  I have to say good bye    

Thanks for the virutal boy tho!   

Start donating to other thrift stores.  I'll be damned if I give Goodwill another thing.  There are plenty of other places that aren't so greedy.  The Salvation Army is a good place to start.

[Bwigdahl]

I'm not saying this is right or trying to justify them, but they are a business and at the end of the day a business is most concerned with making as much money possible in as efficient a way possible. This is why you're better off at places like Salvation Army since they are, to my knowledge, a non-profit organization. They usually have fairer prices and you can feel better donating to them since they are actually visible and active in communities. Not really sure what "community service" type stuff good will normally does, but Salvation Army is usually my goto for thrift shopping/donating.


Edit: ok, I was partially mistaken, I guess goodwill is a non-profit organization as well. For some reason I had them in a different category... however I still feel that Salvation Army is more reputable overall than goodwill. At least from what I've seen.

[blipcs76]

Yup, I haven't found anything of value or rarity at Goodwill (that wasn't in a display case and price-jacked) in several years.  They're not really a charity anymore, they're a business that gets their inventory for FREE.

Donate your items to actual charities or thrift stores, like Salvation Army.  We split our donations between the SA and a non-profit thrift store two church ladies own and operate where everything is $1 (or less in bulk) and really serves the needy.

[kamikazekeeg]

I'm basically stopping going to Goodwill now.  All three Goodwills I go to have noticeably cut out all gaming, dvds, and CD stuff to the point that those section barely exist anymore and this is just within the past few weeks I noticed them cleaning out these sections.  Very disappointing, but the Salvation Army has always been much better anyways.

[dashv]

90snostalga

I agree with you about ebay in general. From time to time I have found some great deals on there.

Last month for example I picked up the Famicom version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for $20 with free shipping.

But as far as video games go I see more scam catridges than legit merchandise and for legit stuff I see absolutely stupid things. Like broken Sega CDX's on buy it now for $1,300. Or blatantly fake relabeled Duck Tales 2 carts going for more than the real deal.

I've watched one particular (authentic) game in rather rough shape being listed repeatedly with the price bumping up $5 every 30 days.

I think the problem is only going to get worse as clone systems like the Retron5 are released and more and more people rush onto the scene willing to pay crazy prices.

A local store here always has great prices. He beats amazon, ebay, and jjgames. He's been in business for less than a year and already expanded into a bigger space. I asked him how he manages to stay in business with the prices he offers and he simply said "I both buy and sell at fair prices."

The worst prices I've seen have actually been at flea markets. I've seen $5 games like Mario/Duck Hunt being touted as "Vintage Collectors Items" for $20 or more.

Disclaimer, jjgames tends to have pretty good prices, free shipping on orders over $50, and they show you pictures of each copy of the product they have so you can choose what you want. Highly recommend them. When my local shop doesn't have what I am looking for (very rare) jjgames is my next stop.

[kamikazekeeg]

The worst prices I've seen have actually been at flea markets. I've seen $5 games like Mario/Duck Hunt being touted as "Vintage Collects Items" for $20 or more.

I go to the flea market for the garage sale folks that show up there that aren't really looking for resell prices.  I get good deals every so often there.  Probably more regularly than I tend to find stuff at the Salvation Army around here.

[bikingjahuty]

I have not shopped at Goodwill for about 2-years for this exact reason. They are constantly preaching all this "giving back to the community" and " helping others help themselves" BS with very little to actually show they are doing this. However, while their employees make minimum wage or less (some sheltered employment loophole allows them to do this), their execs are making hundreds of thousands if not millions a year from selling merchandise they paid nothing for, for market or inflated prices. They hide behind this self righteous attitude of charity, which to my understanding was originally based on redistributing peoples donated items for far less then what you'd pay at a store. That includes video games. Who cares if the person buying the games is going to resell them for way more then what Goodwill sold them for! Goodwill makes money even if they sell the stupid game for a buck, it was donated to them! But no! That's Goodwill's slice, how dare others get a piece! The corruption and greed of that company is astounding, and like many have said, it is pretty much a waste of time to look for games there, unless you are looking to build up your sports game collection.

I fortunately have many alternatives to Goodwill in my area in terms o thrift stores. There are several indi ones, one of which I found Earthbound and Breath of Fire II CIB at at for super cheap. I also have no problem with going to Salvation Army or ARC, however some of the ARC stores in my area seem to be just as greedy as Goodwill (ie Super Mario World for $20).

It sucks man, but you are better off going some place else. Goodwill shouldn't even be an option for anyone expecting to get good prices on games, at least not anymore.

[spac316]

Yeah man you're not alone on this. My Goodwill sucks to. I can't find anything good anymore.

[dashv]

I guess I am torn. For stuff that still works but needs a good home I've saved a ton of money by donating literally 3 truckloads of stuff. Old toys, clothes, etc. (not games. ever.)

Those would have cost me a couple hundred dollars to drop off at a dump.

To date I've never bought anything at a goodwill.

On the other hand, yeah. Both Goodwill and Salvation Army used to pride themselves on dirt cheap prices on things for people down on their luck or in need of a bargain.

As it's been stated all their stock is donated.

Moving stuff to online... I don't know many homeless or truly poor people with internet access.

Seems like they are forgetting and shutting out the very demographic they were instituted to support.