Does anybody use shopgoodwill.com?

[theshizzle3000]

I have seen some pretty decent stuff on here has anybody used it before?

[qbertandernie]

i used to got here, but prices seemed to get out of hand, and very few items are checked to assure they work. oddly enough, when they started this website, all of the good game stuff stopped showing up at the goodwills around town. the money goes to help people so i understand completely why they do it, but its another step towards making game collecting less fun for me. 'the hunt' is the whole point of collecting for me...finding good stuff cheap wherever i can. if i wanted to pay ebay prices or just drop a bunch of cash on one thing, id go to ebay where most of the stuff is at least tested.

[norkusa]

Shopgoodwill.com was good for the first year it was up, before anyone knew about it. Now everything you see there sells way above ebay prices. I figure that's because the people who 'shop' there think that since it's Goodwill, that the prices must be good, so they'll bid ridiculous amounts on crap because they think they are buying it from a thrift store.

The heartbreaking thing about shopgoodwill.com is that almost all of my local Goodwill stores ship anything half-way decent that comes in back to the distribution center for it to be sold on Shopgoodwill. This includes dvd's, video games, tv's, stereo's, toy's, ect., etc., etc...

So yeah, I've pretty much quit going to Goodwill stores.

[PSerge]

Do I look there? Yes from time to time..
Have I ever bought anything there? No, too expensive.
I can shop at the expensive overpriced local game shops and pay less, you know the stores with the $100 Earthbound, and the $7 SMB/DH.

I would never pay the prices some of that stuff sells for on Shopgoodwill.com

Too overpriced anymore, even Ebay is cheaper most of the time.

[StakeRaiser]

I don't because....

I know they are trying to get the most money for stuff, but when Goodwill started, it was a place for people to buy things cheaply, supposedly made so lower income people can get things for their families. Stores sending all the good stuff to the auction center and letting people's donations go to the highest bidder seems unethical to me, and defeats their original purpose.

The prices seem to go way higher than ebay prices, maybe because people are feeling they are doing something good by paying more, since it is "goodwill"

Not to mention, local goodwill stores around me, the quality of the merchandise has gone down dramatically, and their prices keep going up. They charge .99 for a used book, The goodwills used to charge .50 for a used book.
The salvation army store charges .25.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

I was just looking at the prices on some stuff and it doesn't look too bad. The shipping and handling, however. :-( Thankfully I have been able to find some stuff locally, but I'll keep checking back there from time to time.

JY

[MarioMania]

Times are changing..Pricese are going up this year..

Anyways, There's like people that work in my local Goodwill that kinda knows me..One guy said he would hold on to game..when they have it for me

[Wookie]

I don't because....

I know they are trying to get the most money for stuff, but when Goodwill started, it was a place for people to buy things cheaply, supposedly made so lower income people can get things for their families. Stores sending all the good stuff to the auction center and letting people's donations go to the highest bidder seems unethical to me, and defeats their original purpose.

The prices seem to go way higher than ebay prices, maybe because people are feeling they are doing something good by paying more, since it is "goodwill"

Not to mention, local goodwill stores around me, the quality of the merchandise has gone down dramatically, and their prices keep going up. They charge .99 for a used book, The goodwills used to charge .50 for a used book.
The salvation army store charges .25.


To be fair, Goodwill is primarily a job-training organization and the money from the stores (and auctions) is intended to fund those goals. Being a cheap place to buy stuff was the attraction, not the goal.

However, as one who lives in an area where the local Goodwills send most of the good stuff (including videogames) to auction, I think it's overall a loser for them. While I used to go into a store looking for games, I usually walked out with books, clothes, and other widgets. Now, with the games off the shelves, I don't bother going at all. I've tried explaining the concept of these lost sales to the manager, and how it offsets the increased revenue from auctions, but they don't seem to get it.

[Slate]

So this is the reason why I rarely find anything at goodwills anymore? It looks like I was lucky to buy some loose SNES games from a goodwill yesterday.

But then, If they don't know what it is, They'll throw it away or put it on sale for dirt cheap. I bought a virtual boy from a goodwill for $3 last year.

[zwackery]

I was wondering why I couldn't find anything in the Goodwills around Toledo - I thought maybe it was because there are a ton of collectors in Ohio - but it turns out they were really gung ho about slapping anything deemed "collectible" up on shopgoodwill.com, so now I mainly go to other non-Goodwill thrifts. I agree that stuff on shopgoodwill.com tends to get a lot more bids when compared with eBay.

[nildem]

I've made one purchase on ShopGoodwill, a lot of NES and SNES games that supposedly included a few sealed games. When my purchase arrived I found that these "sealed games" were actually empty rental display boxes.

[BydoEmpire]

I browse there pretty frequently, but never bought anything.

[joshnickerson]

Suddenly the reason my Goodwill dried up gamewise is crystal clear. The first year it was open, I worked at a store in the same shopping center, and I'd go there on my lunch breaks. I remember them having stacks upon stacks of gameage, and most of the time NES games were a buck. Then suddenly, they stopped having all these great games, and whatever shit managed to surface, it was vastly overpriced. I also noticed a weird pricing oddity; every cartridge based game, no matter if it was copy of ET for the Atari or Kirby 64, it would always be marked $3.03. Just weird, man.

Of course, once in a while something manages to slip through the cracks. I actually found a sealed copy of Kirby's Adventure there a few months ago. The price? $3.03.

Odd indeed.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I tried registering there but I never got a registration confirmation email.

I tried several times. Nothing. Bah.

[zc_guy]

I mostly use it for the lulz. Like when someone was selling a Sega Genesis, and they had managed to put the cart in backwards in the pics. Or when they claim that it "has all the wires." Or just at the outrageous prices people are charging for complete crap.

Basically, Shopgoodwill is aidsfail, about on par with eBay in terms of seller greed/cluelessness. I would never dream of buying anything from there, except maybe a Saturn, which actually go for pretty cheap.

[Slate]

I mostly use it for the lulz. Like when someone was selling a Sega Genesis, and they had managed to put the cart in backwards in the pics. Or when they claim that it "has all the wires." Or just at the outrageous prices people are charging for complete crap.

Basically, Shopgoodwill is aidsfail, about on par with eBay in terms of seller greed/cluelessness. I would never dream of buying anything from there, except maybe a Saturn, which actually go for pretty cheap.

Sounds pretty bad. It sounds as bad as that time in the butler flea market when that redneck tried to sell a filthy saturn with a 32x put into the cartridge slot. BACKWARDS.

[bangtango]

Suddenly the reason my Goodwill dried up gamewise is crystal clear. The first year it was open, I worked at a store in the same shopping center, and I'd go there on my lunch breaks. I remember them having stacks upon stacks of gameage, and most of the time NES games were a buck. Then suddenly, they stopped having all these great games, and whatever shit managed to surface, it was vastly overpriced. I also noticed a weird pricing oddity; every cartridge based game, no matter if it was copy of ET for the Atari or Kirby 64, it would always be marked $3.03. Just weird, man.

Of course, once in a while something manages to slip through the cracks. I actually found a sealed copy of Kirby's Adventure there a few months ago. The price? $3.03.

Odd indeed.

You are right. This is probably why they get so mad when you ask to check stuff that hasn't been placed on a shelf yet or go "out back."

Thinking about it, it is easy enough for them to get some generic price guide for video games or other products that they consult as they sort through stuff. It is also easy enough to have an internet ready computer hooked up and check out Ebay before ever setting a game 'free' (onto the store shelves).

I have been finding a lot of garbage at Goodwill recently, come to think of it. Not my friend Shawn though, from these forums. That dude found some complete Jaguar games this afternoon at a Goodwill which is an hour and forty minutes from my house.

[StevenH]

I have gotten a few things off the site. I got a complete Odyssey 2 for about $30.00 in it's original box that was in great shape. I also got a Sears telegame for about $20.00 in the original box. You do have to be careful though. I got a GameBoy that was dead, but it was in the original box and had 8 games for about $20.00. I tend to look for the original boxed stuff. I do agree that it's sometimes a joke. I have seen people bid up really crappy stuff. It really depends on who is running the site at the store. I can tell you that I know a guy who works at the Santa Ana in California in the computer store that said that they will grab computer that have not been checked out by the techs and say on the site that they have.

My advise is to buy low and always ask questions if you are not sure.

[ml8ml8]

I have used Shopgoodwill for a long time and like it very much. More people have found it now so you can't get some of the really great bargains that you used to be able to. You also have to be very careful because people on that site seem to be really caught up with wanting something very much and the bidding can go to several times what the object is worth.
Does anyone know of a bid sniper that will work with this site?