From the goodwill website: It is against Goodwill’s policies for any Goodwill employee to “hold” merchandise in the back room and release it to the floor when certain customers are shopping. It also is against Goodwill’s policies for store employees to sell items directly from the back room.
Outlet store employees are allowed to shop in the stores, but they are not allowed to shop during their work shift or to purchase items that have not been on the sales floor for a minimum of two hours.
Employees also are not allowed to ring up purchases that their family members make.
It sounds like they make a good faith effort to keep things fair.
@john65pennington Tell me, if you just go to goodwill as a hobby, why would the decline in quality matter to you? Your only loss is that your hobby is less enjoyable. I’ve shopped at goodwill when I was broke because I had nowhere else to get clothes, and found plenty of great things because I put in the time and effort. Thrift stores are cheap, so they’re not going to be as convenient as a regular clothing store.
It really bothers me when people jump to blame retail employees for problems that they may have nothing to do with. Part of Goodwill’s mission is to help disadvantaged people find dignity through work, so I read your suspicion as prejudice against the disadvantaged. That’s not cool. The quality has probably gone down (if it even has; that’s subjective) because of the recession. Less people donate to charity during economic downturns, so Goodwill would have less items to choose from and might have to put some inferior stuff in the store.