Goodwill, Clark County thrift stores satisfy bargain-hunting cravings

Lucia Mercado spends her work shifts among giant cardboard boxes full of stuff.

Old shoes, clothes, toys, books, obsolete technology and appliances — one can find just about anything in the heaping piles of things donated to the Fisher’s Landing Goodwill store.

Donations — and profits — have been on the rise in recent years at many thrift stores as attitudes toward them have shifted and evolved. While some retail stores and chains have struggled to stay afloat, the resale industry experienced a boom as more middle class families accessed resale shops following the Great Recession, disrupting the narrative that only low-income consumers would set foot in them.

Changing neighborhoods

Mercado paused while at her pricing station at the back of the store, where she focuses on houseware items. That’s the most difficult pricing station, employees say, since it encompasses such a huge variety of objects. Mercado stopped to inspect a pink, LeapFrog-brand toy teapot with blue googly eyes and a purple top adorned with hearts.

A new LeapFrog Musical Rainbow Tea Party set on Walmart’s website goes for $19.89. Mercado placed a $2.99 sticker on it and put it in a cart of items that would eventually be placed on shelves in the store.

According to Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette, the Fisher’s Landing store attracts some of the city’s best donations. That’s because as the population has grown, so have median household incomes. In 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income in Clark County rose to $62,879. For the city of Vancouver, that number was $52,004.

“The population used to be less affluent, and now there are more people coming in with money. The items in the store will reflect that — and the prices will reflect the value,” said Dale Emanuel, public relations manager for the nonprofit agency, which supports Goodwill stores in Southwest Washington and Northwest and Central Oregon.

Denise Berking, the Fisher’s Landing store manager, said, “Donations we’re known for are probably our antique furniture, our housewares and athletic ware. But basically it does differ from store to store.”

Goodwill employees are trained to rate individual donations as they come in at a “Good, Better, Best” system. They must know and understand what brands are “in.”

“In one store, where the income is higher, ‘Better’ might be a Gap item,” Emanuel said. “But in another location, it might be a ‘Best’ item because the location doesn’t have a very high income.”

Some of the seemingly higher prices might throw off some patrons who regularly shop at their neighborhood Goodwill in search of good items for bottom dollar — at times prompting less-than-stellar reviews left on social media by unsatisfied customers.

“I have been very disappointed to see how expensive the pricing has become mainly the salmon creek location,” Facebook user Anne Murray wrote on the business’ page regarding the store at 14300 N.E. 20th Ave., giving it a rating of two out of five stars. “I love shopping and donating at goodwill however, lately I have decided to donate elsewhere. While visiting today there were many people talking about this issue and some customers asking for pricing and leaving due to the outrageous price tags.”

‘The Goodwill myth’

“That’s kind of the Goodwill myth,” Emanuel said. “There is a pervasive understanding that’s not true, that Goodwill is for people who don’t have a lot of money. We don’t check your financial statement — Goodwill is for anyone who wants to save money.”

That’s not to say the organization doesn’t help the less-fortunate. While the area’s income has risen, there is still a significant amount of people living in poverty. The rate of poverty in Clark County was 9 percent in 2016; in Vancouver, it was 13.5 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

While Goodwill is known for its retail thrift locations, the nonprofit’s main mission is to help people get connected to job services. The money that comes from its thrift store sales goes toward that mission. According to data provided by the company, 10,172 Job Connection participants found work in 2017. Additionally, through its Ancillary Services Department, Goodwill gave nearly $29,000 in Goodwill gift cards to more than 1,400 people participating in its Job Connection program who needed “proper work apparel for job interviews.”

Mercado immigrated to the United States from the Philippines when she married an American citizen. She found her job at Goodwill through its job connection program three years ago after she was laid off from Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. in Camas, where she helped test products for 15 years as a laboratory technician, she said.

As Mercado was sorting through items coming in at the Fisher’s Landing store, she also was keeping an eye out for particularly stellar items to be hauled off to Goodwill’s boutique stores, which have been popping up in the area to appeal to a higher-income customer base, putting only luxury and high-end brands on the shelves. An average item sells for $20-$25 at a boutique shop.

There are two in Portland, including downtown and on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, and a store in Hood River, Ore. One is set to open this month in Lake Oswego, Ore., as well as another in Newport, Ore., on the Oregon Coast — both considered higher income areas, which Goodwill pinpoints via their own zip code analyses.

There aren’t any boutique-style Goodwills in Clark County yet, but another standard Goodwill is being built in the Orchards neighborhood, with a projected opening in November.

Changing the model

Meanwhile, other smaller thrift shops that benefit a nonprofit have been struggling — changing their business model or shuttering all together.

The owners of the former This-N-That Thrift Store, which benefited the Clark County Christian Center, closed their shop at 7601 N.E. Vancouver Plaza Drive in February after being told to vacate because The Arc of Southwest Washington, which had plans for its own thrift store, planned to lease the space.

By August, owners Annette North and her husband, Erik Holcomb, opened a smaller boutique-style antique, small furniture and home goods store at 10411 N.E. Fourth Plain Blvd., called Rusty Gold.

They said this store, which still works to benefit the Christian Center and those experiencing hardships, better suits their needs than This-N-That.

“We’ve dialed it down,” North said. “I don’t know if I necessarily felt the need that I had to. More so, I wanted to go more into specialty items while still being able to keep the mission and vision of the nonprofit. We’re still serving disadvantaged families.”

They are aware that the boutique-style store attracts a different type of clientele — people who aren’t necessarily haggling with employees.

“What I have noticed is that there’s just no question about pricing,” North said of the new shop. At the previous store, there were customers who “always wanted the lowest dollar.

“They wanted the bargain,” North said. “Where here at Rusty Gold they know it’s a specialized item and they’re looking for the more decorative piece that’s going to be more of an heirloom rather than purchasing items just because of a budget.”

Additionally, the overhead of running a thrift store became too much. North called it “at times extremely overwhelming” and “just a very high, intense pace” involved with handling a robust stream of donations.

More staff also means diverting more revenue into wages — a struggle for yet another neighborhood thrift store that decided to close after nine years: 2nd Chance Thrift Store, 3414 N.E. 52nd St., a revenue arm for the faith-based nonprofit, Friends of the Carpenter.

They previously had a strong core of volunteers who over time decided to move onto other things, said Tom Iberle, executive director of Friends of the Carpenter. The shop worked to keep their prices lower than Goodwill.

“It would’ve been nice to have another four to five volunteers step forward, but that didn’t happen,” Iberle said. They hired a part-time store manager, Jim Gutierrez, which added to their operational costs.

He added that they “haven’t completely written off” operating another thrift store in the future. “It’s just right now, it’s not working out,” Iberle said.

For-profit stores like Value Village have faced their own struggles; their Vancouver store closed in 2016 after being unable to find a new location when their site was sold to property owner Dick Hannah Dealership. Additionally, an InvestigateWest investigation into Value Village’s Washington-based parent company, Savers, found that the privately-held company with more than 330 stores was deceiving customers by dressing itself up as a charity.

Still a need

North expressed similar sentiments to Iberle. She said there needs to continue to be thrift shops that cater to a lower-income demographic. There are places for people in need to go, including the Westside Food Pantry of Vancouver (FISH), St. Vincent DePaul, the Giving Closet and Food With Friends.

“I know that that’s a model, and that’s extremely important. If one is to organize and open another thrift store, the niche, or one of the things that needs to happen and stay, are low prices to cater to the low-income demographic of the community,” North said. “It’s extremely important, but there needs to be an entity that can do that.”

Goodwill employees still work to keep items priced fairly — although occasionally, there are disagreements. If someone feels a price isn’t fair, they can talk to the store manager. Of the toy teapot, Mercado said she felt $2.99 “is affordable. Kids will love this,” she said.

“It’s pretty common,” Mercado said of customers who disagree with prices. “There’s a lot of stuff. It’s hard. So if we make a mistake, we smile and try to explain your best to them. We’ve got guidelines and everything, but sometimes we slip.”

Correction: This story was updated to reflect the correct reason for the closure of Vancouver’s Value Village location in 2016. It closed because its site was sold. InvestigateWest’s investigation focused on its Bellvue, Wash.-based parent company, Savers.