In the Wild hunting just got harder
I was cruising ebay today and I noticed this listing by the Seattle Goodwill. I'm just wondering how much longer it will take before the rest of the company follows suit. I have noticed a severe drop in good games at my local goodwill as of late,. Oh well.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-16-Nintendo-NES-Games-8-w-Original-Boxes_W0QQitemZ310127860858QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVideo_Games_Games?hash=item310127860858&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:4|65%3A10|39%3A1|240%3A1318
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-16-Nintendo-NES-Games-8-w-Original-Boxes_W0QQitemZ310127860858QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVideo_Games_Games?hash=item310127860858&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:4|65%3A10|39%3A1|240%3A1318
Comments
and from time to time they actually have some good lots... i remember one lot they sold having a yellow zelda test cart in it..
"Member: since Jun-03-02" - certainly not new. It is already expected that many places like Goodwill have people working there who go through the inventory first. No video game from any system ever appears at my local Goodwill and I think I know the employee to blame...
We get a handful of games put out but never any good deals as there are a couple resellers that work at the two thrift stores in town who pull anything worth more than a couple bucks.
Makes me sick that Goodwill does that.All the stuff they get is free and alot of their employees are volunteers at least at my local Goodwill.
They're not volunteers. Goodwill hires criminals and retarded people to give them work experience, since no one else will hire them. They're charity work isn't selling cheap stuff to poor people, their main goal is to help people who normally would have trouble getting work, get a job.
My local Salvation Army/Goodwill never put anything out front as far as games go. If you go the back of the store though and ask if they have any video games I've been fortunate enough a few times that employees will take me to a huge box of gaming stuff.
I've gotten a couple Sega Saturns, Ataris, Tons of Games from this method. If you get to know the people that work there and treat them well, they'll look out for you.
Interesting to note that Seattle Goodwill has a policy preventing employees from buying anything that hasn't been on the store shelves for at least 48 hours. The policy exists because they feel that allowing employees to cherry pick the good stuff will discourage shoppers from coming in. When I asked the local store manager if the online selling didn't have the same effect, the answer was "Ummmm....". While they might get more for the items they sell online, if I don't go in looking for games I also won't be buying a shirt, book, or other item I might've bought. Overall, this policy is *not* helping thier bottom line but they are unwilling to admit that.
Ok but the problem with your arguement is this... so say they don't sell their NES games on eBay? Ok fine... so instead they sell them on the store shelves and a reseller comes in abd gets them. So in your arguement the reseller buys say 10 NES games for $2 each and a T-shirt for $1 and a book for $1 so they make $22. They put that same lot on eBay and it's gonna sell for more than $22 everytime. I see some of their lots that get up into the multiple hundreds of dollars that someone else would come in and buy from them for nothing and let's say they buy 5 books and 5 shirts, still isn't gonna equal what they get on eBay.
Interesting to note that Seattle Goodwill has a policy preventing employees from buying anything that hasn't been on the store shelves for at least 48 hours. The policy exists because they feel that allowing employees to cherry pick the good stuff will discourage shoppers from coming in. When I asked the local store manager if the online selling didn't have the same effect, the answer was "Ummmm....". While they might get more for the items they sell online, if I don't go in looking for games I also won't be buying a shirt, book, or other item I might've bought. Overall, this policy is *not* helping thier bottom line but they are unwilling to admit that.
Ok but the problem with your arguement is this... so say they don't sell their NES games on eBay? Ok fine... so instead they sell them on the store shelves and a reseller comes in abd gets them. So in your arguement the reseller buys say 10 NES games for $2 each and a T-shirt for $1 and a book for $1 so they make $22. They put that same lot on eBay and it's gonna sell for more than $22 everytime. I see some of their lots that get up into the multiple hundreds of dollars that someone else would come in and buy from them for nothing and let's say they buy 5 books and 5 shirts, still isn't gonna equal what they get on eBay.
If I were the only person who stopped shopping there because of thier online policies, your argument would have merit. However there are lots of collectors in the Seattle area and I'd venture to say that a high percentage of them have quit shopping there. Now Goodwill can't sell those people anything. And you've neglected to mention that Seattle Goodwill has 2 or 3 people doing online sales full time. That's a lot of salary & benefit costs, plus the lost incidental sales, ebay & paypal fees, and other expenses to overcome just to break even.
But my original point wasn't to argue the profitability of the online sales, just to point out the irony. Employees can't cherry pick because that discourages walk-in shoppers, but the corporation allows itself to cherry pick and it has the same consequence.
Those people weren't their target clientele to begin with if they were just looking to make a profit off of the pricing staff's poor marketing.
No matter the venue, it's up to the purveyor to decide how best to make money with the resources at hand. More power to them for getting top dollar for the stuff that's donated to them. If I donated video games to Goodwill, I'd rather Goodwill make the most money possible, than some kid in trying to make a buck without joining the workforce.
Although I'm no watchdog, I can't personally say how much actually goes towards this, and how much just lines pockets along the way -- but if the corp follows its charter perfectly, this is how it should work.
If I were the only person who stopped shopping there because of thier online policies, your argument would have merit. However there are lots of collectors in the Seattle area and I'd venture to say that a high percentage of them have quit shopping there. Now Goodwill can't sell those people anything. And you've neglected to mention that Seattle Goodwill has 2 or 3 people doing online sales full time. That's a lot of salary & benefit costs, plus the lost incidental sales, ebay & paypal fees, and other expenses to overcome just to break even.
But my original point wasn't to argue the profitability of the online sales, just to point out the irony. Employees can't cherry pick because that discourages walk-in shoppers, but the corporation allows itself to cherry pick and it has the same consequence.
Working in retail as a manger myself I would imagine the real reason they don't want employees purchasing the stuff is they would probably mark it even lower then it should be. The temptation and justification would be to easy for employees, especially the ones at the bottom of the food chain