• MiltownClowns@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I worked at Goodwill sorting donations 20 years ago. This is nothing new. They price according to what they think they can get for it. And if we got in designer stuff that we thought we could make money off of, there was a Goodwill website we sold it on. This is the way it’s always been.

    • mindaika@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      They’re also upfront about it: Goodwill exists to give (mainly disabled) people jobs, not to sell things as cheap as possible

      • Baaahb@feddit.nl
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        2 months ago

        Goodwill exists to make rich people richer. The disabled people they “exist to give jobs too” are super exploited.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Don’t make me laugh. They get their product donated, they get their labor at subminimum, and they sell at market price. That’s not a non profit that exists to help the people working there. It’s exploiting them and extracting money from them and the shoppers who are deceived into thinking it’s a thrift store.

      • Alteon@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Then why does anyone donate shit to Goodwill. I thought they purposely sold things cheap so that people that needed it could afford it.

        • DillyDaily@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          This is a common misconception with “charity shops” in the UK and “opportunity (op) shops” in Australia.

          The assumption is that the charity/opportunity is for people doing it tough to be able to buy cheap clothes and home goods.

          But the “charity” is because many shops like this are partner retailers of larger charity organisations, eg: the “profit” from Salvos stores helps indirectly fund Salvation Army Housing and food relief programs.

          The opportunity comes from who they hire, if you’re disabled or elderly, these shops are more likely to hire you than other retail providers.

          But of course, a large number of charity and op shops abuse their staff as much as Amazon and Walmart do. Wage theft and unethical labour practices galore

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          That’s been their marketing for decades. It’s been coming unraveled recently though. There are actual thrift shops that charge enough to keep the doors open and do their other projects. There’s also homeless and near homeless donation places that will take your stuff in and use it to furnish a place given to a homeless person.

          Really we should have all been very sus of a “thrift store” with Goodwill’s marketing budget.