I visited the new Goodwill store located in Fayetteville, Georgia today March 26, 2011. The store is huge and carry mostly the same merchandise as other Goodwill stores. The prices however seem to be a little higher than the store located in Jonesboro. I get the feeling that the prices may be based on the fact that the store is located in Fayetteville and the management may fee that the area is a more affluent area of Atlanta.
I believe that a thrift stores should be cheap enough so that people who are on a fixed income can afford to shop at the store. The prices on clothing is about the same as other thrift stores. However, other items such as handbags, jewelry, home decor items and shoes seem to be more expensive.
The store was extremely clean and the shopping experience was comfortable. The dressing rooms were monitored by a clerk at all times to make sure that more than one person could try on clothes in a reasonable amount of time.
The store clerks were friendly and cooperative. They went out of their way to check to see if customers were finding everything okay. I saw clerks all over the store assisting customers in all areas of the store.
In case anyone is reading this from the Goodwill of North Georgia corporate office, I would suggest that you reduce the prices on some of the home decor items. For an example, something that would be regular priced $5.99 in Walmart should to not cost $4.89 in a thrift store. I am not the only shopper that says that the prices were too steep. While walking around in Goodwill today I heard several conversations regarding the prices. I would also suggest a lower price for Video Tapes. Video tapes at any garage sale and other thrift stores are no more than $1.50 each. $2.52 is too much to pay for VHS tapes. DVDs at most garage sales and thrift stores are no more than $3.00 each. The price in Goodwill is around $5. Your store would sell more volume in the area of tapes and CDs if the price was lower.
The shopping experience at the new Goodwill in Fayetteville was very good. However the purchasing power is very low because of the pricing.
