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Originally Posted by confoosious The point of goodwill is to provide jobs and a place to buy cheap stuff for the poor and bargain hunters. Considering the clientele and the people that work there, I'll cut them a break for not knowing the latest prices for video games. I love how when people find rare games worth $40 for $1, they're so quick to brag about what a score it is, yet, when the same ignorance of video game prices goes the other way, people are so quick to call shenanigans on goodwill. You can't have it both ways. Do some of you people ever stop to think that maybe the world doesn't revolve around you?

Goodwill inventory is provided by the community. Their consumers are that same community, yet they overprice their items. This is stuff they get for free.

Before you go defending Goodwill google the salary of their top brass. Then google salvation army's executive pay and compare.

Given the prices here, if you do a little hunting at the retail stores you can get clothing for much cheaper than what Goodwill or the SA charges. Their mission obviously isn't to provide lower income families with clothing and other items at cheaper prices than retail. They are a store just like any other store, except what they get is for free and they sell for more than regular clothing stores do while dealing in used clothing. I have found more pairs of womens jeans than I can use for under $10 a pair just by shopping retail, at that price you can't justify buying a good for rags only pair from the SA for $8. I have even been able to root out cheap jeans (under $10) in Macy's of all stores. Kmart and Sears both have 2.99 or 3.99 clearance racks of clothing at times, and this past weekend Kmart marked what they had left down to 1.99 an item and there were plenty of wearable items left. My mom and I both have a huge stack of pants/jeans, and we never pay more than $10 a pair, most of the time $5 or under. We do buy second hand, but we get our stuff from yard sales where jeans are anywhere from 25 cents to $2 a pair.

Yea, a lot of times the thrift stores charge like close to 10 bucks or more for some jeans in good condition...and usually JC Penny or such have sales on the weekends and you can get a brand new pair for just a few bucks more...

Oh yea and that reminds me something really bugged me to death. An Arc Thrift out in the suburbs had a bunch of new Hot Wheels cars and were asking 6 dollars for each one! While all the retail stores are selling them for under a buck. Poor kids...

Excuse the terrible quality, all I had with me was my phone.





The kicker: there were 3 of them


I know not to bother going back to this store ever again.

Yep, looks like a typical Savers to me. Everything is either dirt cheap or so expensive you can't even believe what you're seeing.

Sam's club here has Men's jeans for $13.98 if you don't mind their brand. You can probably get a better brand cheaper, elsewhere though if you look around. For Women's jeans, I haven't paid more than $10 for a pair in many, many years.

Originally Posted by faa8146 Excuse the terrible quality, all I had with me was my phone. The kicker: there were 3 of them I know not to bother going back to this store ever again.

Was the sticker seal still intact? It would be really bad if it was a refurb

With the fan that dusty though you can tell it's seen some use; I've passed on overpriced PS2s like that for years.

Originally Posted by TiKi2 Goodwill inventory is provided by the community. Their consumers are that same community, yet they overprice their items. This is stuff they get for free. Before you go defending Goodwill google the salary of their top brass. Then google salvation army's executive pay and compare.

Yeah, in some ways I can respect flippers and retro stores more than Good Will; if you have to pay $20 for a game to get it in inventory, you're only pulling in a fraction of the $30-40 sale price as profit. Good Will though is milking it for all its worth, they want to price like a business and resupply like a charity.

Fatty PS2- filthy, vents caked with dust. no controllers or cables. $20
See through purple Gameboy Color- $8

This is the same GW I got a PS2 slim with cables for $5 and the Target edition GBA for $5

I think the idea of this thread is flawed. It should be stupidity in any form of local retail or thrift shop.

There are a chain of local used media outlets here that display stupidity quite often. Same with half price books. that place.

Originally Posted by jer7583 I think the idea of this thread is flawed. It should be stupidity in any form of local retail or thrift shop. There are a chain of local used media outlets here that display stupidity quite often. Same with half price books. that place.

Not a bad idea...I can always change the title of the thread.

I just figured that a good fraction of the stupidity I've seen has come from thrift stores, so I pegged them first.

And while I agree with you on Half Price, I have had some luck there. Picked up the Orange Box (360) for $8. Once.

I actually like the SA here, however they are overpriced on clothing to some extent, but not nearly as bad as other thrifts I have been to. Their toy prices are pretty good and they charge 29 cents for stuffed animals, most toys and small electronic games are like a dollar. The only people that work there to my knowledge are a few ladies, who admit to knowing nothing about electronics or video games. I asked to see a video game controller that was in the case, it was a wireless one that went to some kind of TV system, I told them it was missing a part and they threw it in the garbage (not that it was at all useful). However they don't get donations of this stuff very often, otherwise it would be really good.

Originally Posted by juangrande386 Fatty PS2- filthy, vents caked with dust. no controllers or cables. $20 See through purple Gameboy Color- $8 This is the same GW I got a PS2 slim with cables for $5 and the Target edition GBA for $5

I honestly don't think either of those prices above are really that bad. PS2 controllers are easy to come by cheap as are cables. So for $30-40 you could have a fully functioning complete PS2. Yes. Stores are starting to clearance them out(even GS) and you could possibly buy a brand new one for $30-40.

But by the time I even cared to check the local GS stores after they converted the new slim PStwos to pre-owned they were all bought up. Besides which, I have a Toy Story 3 bundle PStwo from the Target clearance that I paid $50 for. I was totally happy with that price, since I got a brand new console for what is normally the lowest price they hit before all stores clear them out.

I can understand your viewpoint though based on your prior experiences with that same Goodwill store, but compared with the one pic someone posted(of a $79.99 fat PS2) a $20 gamble on a console only fat PS2 is a steal by comparison.

I bought a dust caked PS2 at a yard sale and honestly its still going, its worked fine for like 2 years and is still working. I just dusted it off before I started using it, the front vents were clogged but that stuff comes right off when you dust it, I was able to get a lot of it off the fan too with just a little dusting. I think pretty much every used PS2 is gonna be dust coated at this point.

The $20 price isn't too bad, but its not great either, I have seen them for $45 dust clogged and missing everything at yard sales.

Originally Posted by jer7583 I think the idea of this thread is flawed. It should be stupidity in any form of local retail or thrift shop. There are a chain of local used media outlets here that display stupidity quite often. Same with half price books. that place.

I don't suppose you would be refering to cd warehouse? cause there prices (around here at least) are retarded. EVERY game is either 10 or 15 dollars, with the exception of new stuf which is jacked up to gamestop prices.

half priced books is good when they have the 50% sale. but thats about it.

At a goodwill I stopped by on my way home from memphis they had some decent prices on some sega saturn games but saddly I don't have one. One thing that got me disiponted was that I saw a bunch of OG xbox controllers. I needed some since I got an xbox recently for cheap so I was going to buy 1(they had about 10 of them) but it was missing the controller hookup at the end of the controller. So I looked at the other ones and they had the same problem. I did end up getting a ps2 usb racing controller for $3 so I at least got something. They also had a fake n64 controller that played famicom games but I passed since I don't have any to test it out.

It looks like somebody has been hacking the cords for XBMC.

Originally Posted by detectiveconan16 It looks like somebody has been hacking the cords for XBMC.

No, I think he means the breakaway ends that have the actual plug that goes into the Xbox.

You can get the breakaway ends really cheap online

i skimmed through this thread and i just wanted to make a few quick points as a manager of a major chain thrift store. no, savers does not sell consoles that don't sell to 3rd world countries. they do that with clothes, but most children in those countries don't really care much about ps2 fat consoles since they can't eat or wear them. unfortunately if it doesn't sell within a certain amount of time, it is thrown away. we do try to price stuff to sell at a fair market price but with that in mind:
1. we carry almost everything that ever existed anywhere so we do make mistakes and try to learn by what sells as well as what doesn't sell
2. if we did not price games that are valuable as such, then most customers would never see them. at my store alone, we have 30-40 resellers that come by every monday thru friday with only one goal, to make a profit.
3. customers decide our prices, not us. if something does not sell at a specific price, we will not price it that way again when we get another one, which we always do.

i am willing to field any questions that anyone has, but remember that stores can be very different in their pricing and i can only offer my stores philosophy. please be respectful and i will do the same. i have to head to work but will check back within the next day or so to see if i can clear up any misconceptions questions