Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Seven Days at the Bin Store

defector.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 116 posts

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#21

Post by neilv »

> “You can buy stuff from here and then you can resell it,” Ahmed tells me. “Through eBay or Amazon. You can sell on Facebook market. You will get your money back in less than one day if you wanna resell it. Which is a good thing for everybody right now, for the public. A lot of people need to work.”

I'd guess that probably the store itself is picking out some of the more valuable items from pallets they source, to divert to eBay or Amazon.

This is one of the things that ruined a certain charity thrift store chain for me, which I'd visit often as a destination of daily walks. Although I knew how to spot some valuables (sterling silver, some electronics, some games), they'd never appear. It turns out that the chain does two things that work against brick&mortar hunters: (1) has staff trained to spot valuable items, and divert them to the chain's own eBay store; (2) the chain's distribution/sorting center lets in professional flippers there, to pick out, say, the valuable designer clothing. So the brick&mortar stores only ever get picked-over stuff that wasn't worth either professional group selling elsewhere.

If bin stores are also doing something similar, I'd guess that the smart ones are consciously sprinkling a token number of more-valuable items in the bins (even if they could make more diverted), to keep the lines of hundreds of people forming every week.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#22

Post by maketheman »

alistairSH wrote: post #14
tra3 wrote: post #10

Am I the only one that feels uncomfortable returning stuff? Took me years to get to get over, and yet I'd still prefer to forego buying something rather than returning it..

Nope, I hate returning things. But, brick & mortar stores rarely have clothes that fit me* AND I somehow end up between sizes, so I tend to order two of everything (in S and M, or whatever) and return the one that fits worst. From an environmental standpoint, I have no idea if this is better or worse than having fully-stocked brick & mortar shops. But, fact is, those don't exist any more, so this is what I do. * At 5…

1) Find a few brands with more options than just "S/M/L". You want fit variants, like Brooks Brothers' "Milano/Regent/Madison" (and some others) or Jcrew's "slim/extra slim". If button-ups, consider going with neck & arm sizing plus the above cut-variants, instead of "S/M/L" sizing at all. Also, look into Japanese brands (Kamakura?), they might fit you better even if they only have one or two variants of cut. These brands will tend to have pretty consistent sizing.

2) You're gonna want measurements of your own actual chest, neck, and natural waist. Easy to DIY close enough for this, no need for help.

3) Also, measurements of some clothes that fit you well. Shoulder, seam-to-seam; arm length; pit-to-pit width.

4) The brands from #1 will have charts that provide measurements for their clothes, or else suggested body measurements at a given size. Use the info from 2 & 3 to get good guesses at which sizes and fit variants will work.

5) Thrift or ebay some options. You can resell the ones that don't work out for close to what you bought them for, if it's worth it to you, or just dump them at goodwill. You're paying a few tens or a little over a hundred dollars in failures to find your sizing in a few brands. This is basically the only totally-lost cost to this process (and again, you can actually recover most of this if it's worth it to you)

6) Now you know your size in a few good consistent-sized brands. Ebay with your exact size in each brand (use saved searches, like "(jcrew,j.crew,j crew) 'extra slim' medium shirt") or sale-shop directly from the brands' sites. No, or very few, returns needed. You can also thrift-shop much more efficiently, at least at places that size-sort. You're just skimming for brand tags you recognize, and totally ignoring everything else.

[EDIT] And actually with the measurements from #3 you can ebay lots of shirts from brands you've never tried, with reasonable success rates—any listing worth bothering with will provide pit-to-pit and (when relevant) sleeve measurements, at least.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#23

Post by kubectl_h »

tra3 wrote: post #10

Am I the only one that feels uncomfortable returning stuff? Took me years to get to get over, and yet I'd still prefer to forego buying something rather than returning it..

I almost never returned stuff I bought with full research until prices started to increase significantly from 2020 to now. At some point the inflation of product prices flipped a switch for me. I won't return products I've used meaningfully but if I am not happy with the quality of the product or the initial experience I have no qualms, especially if purchased from larger retailers. Mostly what I'm talking about are outdoors/recreation products or purchases from Home Depot or Best Buy.

Still some kind of sense of personal responsibility for the decisions I made changed for me in the last five years. I still don't buy 5 pairs of shoes and return 4 or anything like that, but maybe that's more out of laziness.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#24

Post by fortran77 »

nancyminusone wrote: post #5

>I don’t want it, but what am I supposed to do? It will end up in the garbage one way or another. I stuff it in my bag. This seems to be the common thread here - judging by the pictures, the stuff in these bins seems to be 95% junk. It's trash brand new in the package. Hard to believe anyone would pay any amount for it. Almost seems like you're losing money by not dumping it directly into the ocean. Apparently, I'm w…

You're not wrong. This store is not good.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#25

Post by Freak_NL »

neilv wrote: post #21

> “You can buy stuff from here and then you can resell it,” Ahmed tells me. “Through eBay or Amazon. You can sell on Facebook market. You will get your money back in less than one day if you wanna resell it. Which is a good thing for everybody right now, for the public. A lot of people need to work.” I'd guess that probably the store itself is picking out some of the more valuable items from pallets they source, to d…

The article doesn't hint at that though. The store's owners seem to have their hands full at just running the store. Besides, they seem to want those bargain hunters in there. Not just for the guaranteed $10 sales, but also to keep up the hype that gems are to be found there.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#26

Post by kubectl_h »

neilv wrote: post #21

> “You can buy stuff from here and then you can resell it,” Ahmed tells me. “Through eBay or Amazon. You can sell on Facebook market. You will get your money back in less than one day if you wanna resell it. Which is a good thing for everybody right now, for the public. A lot of people need to work.” I'd guess that probably the store itself is picking out some of the more valuable items from pallets they source, to d…

There is a surplus and salvage chain in Maine called Mardens. It's been in business for 60 years and basically purchases pallets or shipping containers full of products that were written off by retailers for some reason or another and re-sells. They take the highest price they can find online and discount the product 20-40%. Sometimes you'll go in and run across really high end products that could easily be sold at full price but they don't really seem to care. Think a Moccamaster coffee maker or Arcteryx jackets. Most of the time it's junk. In any case it seems like they buy at some percentage on the dollar (20, 30?) and resell at 60%, regardless of how expensive it is. Seems like it makes more sense to make a consistent profit in volume rather than optimize profit on individual items.

Fun store to stop by and check in on in every few weeks.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#27

Post by jp57 »

I'll bet if he changed the pricing from $10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1 to $16, 8, 4, 2, 1, he'd make as much or more money and give himself a day off on Wednesdays to boot.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#28

Post by neilv »

kubectl_h wrote: post #26
neilv wrote: post #21

> “You can buy stuff from here and then you can resell it,” Ahmed tells me. “Through eBay or Amazon. You can sell on Facebook market. You will get your money back in less than one day if you wanna resell it. Which is a good thing for everybody right now, for the public. A lot of people need to work.” I'd guess that probably the store itself is picking out some of the more valuable items from pallets they source, to d…

There is a surplus and salvage chain in Maine called Mardens. It's been in business for 60 years and basically purchases pallets or shipping containers full of products that were written off by retailers for some reason or another and re-sells. They take the highest price they can find online and discount the product 20-40%. Sometimes you'll go in and run across really high end products that could easily be sold at f…

I like that model. If they have the shopper traffic to move stock, I'd guess the 20%-40% discount off highest online price is better than they could net by selectively diverting that item to online.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#29

Post by giarc »

tra3 wrote: post #10

Am I the only one that feels uncomfortable returning stuff? Took me years to get to get over, and yet I'd still prefer to forego buying something rather than returning it..

I've always wondered if customer service reps have a "customer score" on their screen when evaluating whether to accept a return or not. I hardly ever return things, and on the rare occasion that I do, if I need to chat with an Amazon rep they are always very willing to bend some rules. I'm not sure if that's the case for everyone, or if they can see I hardly return things (and buy a lot) and therefore have the green light to let some things slide.

Re: Seven Days at the Bin Store

#30

Post by joezydeco »

neilv wrote: post #21

> “You can buy stuff from here and then you can resell it,” Ahmed tells me. “Through eBay or Amazon. You can sell on Facebook market. You will get your money back in less than one day if you wanna resell it. Which is a good thing for everybody right now, for the public. A lot of people need to work.” I'd guess that probably the store itself is picking out some of the more valuable items from pallets they source, to d…

I'm guessing you don't read /r/goodwill.
Post reply on HN