Growing Pains As Goodwill Arizona Moves Online

There are 115 Goodwill stores in Arizona and in 2017 made over $143,000,000 from the resale of donated goods.

Last year about 105 million people loaded up their car, drove a couple of blocks and unloaded old VHS tapes, clothes and Halloween decorations into a waiting bin at their local Goodwill store.

A much smaller group of people dedicate their days to digging through those VHS tapes, clothes and Halloween decorations for hidden treasures. They often call themselves “Goodwill Fanatics,” and there are hundreds of online groups for these fans to share treasure hunting tips.

“They have dollar Thursdays and every other Saturday is half off,” said Liz Wyser, who runs the Facebook group Arizona’s Goodwill Treasures. “I shop on those days when I can get a really good deal.”

However, Wyzer said she was unhappy when she learned Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona began listing some donations on its national online marketplace ShopGoodwill.com in January.

“It's very unfair to shoppers that they would pull items and not give shoppers a chance to, you know, experience that thrift store shopping,” she said.

There’s pleather jackets, nice tennis shoes, a fair number of cowboy hats and even a listing for three pounds of nearly new, size 10 to 12 girls clothing. The starting bid is $6.99.

But Soto Graham stresses that a very small percent of donations to Arizona Goodwills will end up online.

“We have thousands of new items come in everyday, and the items that are donated to the Goodwill generally stay at the store they're donated to,” she said.

Members of online communities on Facebook and Reddit say they’re already seeing an impact.

An Arizona shopper wrote in a Facebook group that it’s been harder to find high quality items in recent months and she’s turning to other thrift stores.

“The purpose of shop Goodwill and our online marketplace is to maximize the donations that the community entrusts with us to turn into revenue to help fulfill our mission.”– Ryan Smith, director of online operations

Shoppers living in states that have been sending items to ShopGoodwill.com for years say it’s affected their communities as well.

One woman in Oklahoma said she feels it goes against the mission of Goodwill. She can’t afford the shipping and handling costs and without regular access to a computer, she’s cut off from the electronics and business clothes that populate the site.

But Ryan Smith, director of online operations at Goodwill, sees the website differently.

“The purpose of shop Goodwill and our online marketplace is to maximize the donations that the community entrusts with us to turn into revenue to help fulfill our mission,” Smith said.

Although there are more than 3,000 physical stores in the U.S., Goodwill isn’t primarily a retailer. The nonprofit uses thrift stores to fund their charity work of job training and other community services.

Smith said when people complain about high prices or bidding wars online, they aren’t looking at the big picture: Goodwill is trying to raise money to provide job training.

Some of that training takes place in the store when employees learn how to choose and price items for the website.

“Then there's the actual physical job traits that they learn such as taking the photography, cropping the images,” he said. “There's the writing of the description, so they get to learn how to clearly and succinctly identify and describe an item and then there's interacting with the website and at the end of it fulfilling a customer service request.”

Items sent to ShopGoodwill.com from Arizona stores run the gamut from nearly new children’s clothes to sewing tables to designer shoes. ShopGoodwill.com

Employees sort and price items that will go up for sale in-store or online. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Employees sort and price items that will go up for sale in-store or online. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Employees sort and price items that will go up for sale in-store or online. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Bret Duke, a Goodwill employee, packages a badminton racket. Duke usually spends his days pricing electronics, and he makes those decisions based on online research, quality and internal guidelines. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Employees sort and price items that will go up for sale in-store or online. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Full donation crates are extremely heavy and require forklifts to move from the initial donation area to sorting stations. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Employees sort and price items that will go up for sale in-store or online. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Employees decide how to price items based on online research and internal guidelines. Lea Soto Graham, marking manager for Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona, said their goal is to sell items as quickly as possible. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Sorting items from the large crates into more specific categories, such as homegoods, clothing or electronics, can take hours and employees need to make decisions quickly. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Employees sort and price items that will go up for sale in-store or online. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Sorting donations at the Goodwill store on Indian School Road and 7th Avenue in Phoenix. Goodwill of Central and Northern avenues Arizona opened ten new stores last year.Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

Donations to Goodwill range from the ordinary to the extreme, and employees say they never know what they’re going to find when they open up a donation box. Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

When items are unloaded from donation bins they’re broadly sorted into large crates. Once the crates fill up employees organize and price the items.Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

A pile of donated shoes wait for pricing at a Goodwill store on Indian School and 7th Avenue in Phoenix. Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona garnered more than 2 million donations in 2017.Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

When items are unloaded from donation bins they’re broadly sorted into large crates. Once the crates fill up employees organize and price the items.Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

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