We have a religious affilinated thirft store here where the former manager sent all the good stuff to here sisters antique shop in another town, and marked up the junk so it would not be noticed by the accountants. Of course the after a few years the store was jam packed with unsellable junk and she got fired. Some of the Goodwill stores I have been in have a sign saying employees are not allowed to purchase items. I asked at the local store what they do with stuff that does not sell, because I have waited for them to lower the price and suddenly something that has been sitting there for a month disappears; they told me they send it back to the distribution center and they sell it for scrap. Goodwill also has a website where they sell really nice stuff https://www.shopgoodwill.com/. So it looks like the stuff is cherry picked by Goodwill themselves. I would guess they send a few nice items to the stores to keep people coming in to look. Unfortunately Goodwill has a history of being dishonest; remember when they used to have disabled people reuphostering furniture and stuff, and they got sued for not paying them minimum wage?

I understand what you're saying and I do believe that it's true to a certain extent. But I have seen many people that have been given vouchers by the Salvation Army to get items at the store for free. The bikes I've fixed and donated are not exactly collector's items generally, so I do think that they're ending up with people that either need them or could not afford a new bike.

Additionally, the store to which I donate is right on the city line and is generally frequented by people that need low-priced goods. I've picked it for that very reason. All things being equal, I would rather choose a thrift store that is not church-related, but around here they're mostly located in the suburbs.

The only bike co-op around is in another smaller city. They're great; I give them all my BMX stuff and many of my 24" wheel mountain bikes. They have a BMX racing team and a program where kids can get their own bike if they work there.

SOME Salvation Army and Goodwill stores send stuff to central processing center, some do not, it usually depends on how far the processing center is from the store. st. vincent de paul does not. The reason the prices vary so widely is usually due to the fact that the staff who do the pricing and the management overseeing them really have no idea what anything is worth. I say this having worked at a goodwill, and having a grandma who managed a local st. vincent de paul, as well as having a significant other who is currently the production manager(donation area) at a Salvation Army. And yes, these systems are "corrupt", you can bet on it that no bike will hit the sales floor of the Salvation Army or St. vincent de paul without me having a picture message with details sent to my phone first. the deal is, I tell them what are fair prices on bikes(and alot of other stuff) and I get first pick of any bikes before they hit the floor. While I don't flip bikes, I do collect them for parts, and refurbish some to give direct to a couple local programs.

Goodwill stuff that does not sell goes to the Clearance Center. GW Asheville has a clearance center where clothes and sundry items sell by the pound ($1.10). Bikes go for $5. Rare for a bike to make it to the clearance center, although I got a Kona Cinder Cone there (frame was trashed, but otherwise, an outstanding donor bike). GW SC also has clearance centers in Columbia, SC and Greenville, SC.

Each region of GW does their own thing. I stopped at a GW Clearance Center in Ocala, FL a couple of months ago. It was wild. I did get a King Joe 3 bike rack for $5 there.

Dropped some clothe's off at the local Goodwill this past summer.
Had a look around and found some golf club's at $2 each. PING Eye-2
copper iron's, 3 thru sw. $18 total, origninal grip's and matching serial number's.
I've seen them on C/L and e-bay between $400-$500. My one score there.
Went back a few time's but haven't found anything extraordinary.

Maybe some poor worker at Goodwill, making the min. wage and dealing with stuff that's at least 50% garbage and some of the worst customers in the world, takes the nice bikes and sells them on the side? What real harm is this doing? Beating bike flippers to the punch?

What a lot of posters here want to do is pay $10 for cool bikes at Goodwill....and flip them for $100 on CL or EBAY. Goodwill should get the $100 in the first place, because they actually help people with the money.

Ya, but when we flip bikes it is sold as a perfectly working bike with many new parts. I completely overhaul all the bikes I sell. My bikes sell for less than the repair bill would be at a local bike shop. We are effectively adding some value to the bikes in the end.

redfxj,

I've been around bikes for long time-- before MTBs even. I've seen a lot of fads come and go. I've flipped bikes, sold bikes I found in the trash, gave away bikes I paid good money for. I've got a lot of free miles on bikes over the years, but never made any real money.

EBAY is kind of an evil spawn-- the world is now crawling with cheese-heads who want to buy stuff cheap and sell it high. Bikes, cars, baseball cards, everything..... it's taking all the fun out of old bikes.

You're joking, right? Who in his right mind would donate an item to Goodwill if he thought the employees were going to flip that item for personal gain?

+1 Ditto. While I might pick up a bike for $25, it takes a fair amount of work to make them rideable. I have yet to find a thrift store bike (or a garage sale bike either) in a ready to ride state. And if someone wanted to just pick up one of these "bargains" and haul it to their preferred LBS, in most cases, they would pay more for the repair than I charge for a complete bike.

The opportunity for anyone who buys and sells any item, is that with some research and learning, you can quickly know more about that item (and its value) than most sellers. So whether the seller is on ebay, Craigs List, or a thrift store, such knowledge becomes an advantage. I have known people that made a living just selling used golf clubs and another selling just used guitars. Ditto certain niche antiques. Know your product and you have an advantage.

My best flip FWIW was on a bike I bought on ebay. The listing was posted by a PROFESSIONAL store front business (one of those we sell for you stores, with over 10,000 feedbacks). Someone paid them to "HELP" them sell their bike. Well, the pros screwed up the ad so much (like they didn't even know what model the bike was even though the frame was clearly marked with the model number, they didn't know what kind of components, even though they were clearly marked, etc.). Is the original owners beef with me, or with the store front?

95% of what is in any thrift store, I have no idea what it is worth. On the 5% where I do know values, I occasionally do find some good deals.

Well, look at this way, gridplan. I take a bike to Goodwill and an employee buys it for $25 before it hits the sales floor. Goodwill makes $25, so the manager is happy. The employee then cleans/fixes it up a tad bit and sells it CL for $125. The guy makes a little cash--- remember he's working for min. wage. The manager knows what's going on as well, but turns a blind eye to it because the employee is a good worker and deserves better than $7.50 an hour.

That's how stuff works in real world a lot of the time. I can live with that. But posters crying because they couldn't buy the bike for $25 at Goodwill and make that quick $100? Are they any better?

The person who really suffers is the poor person who needs a quality bike to ride to work on. Used to be you could get a nice steel ride at Goodwill for a little cash and ride the heck out of it. Not anymore. Dishwashers shouldn't have to ride Magna bikes!

I don't know about you, but I don't give to charitable organizations so their employees can turn a profit. If that's what's actually going on, I'll turn the profit myself. And I can't imagine that a manager at Goodwill would be happy if he knew his employees were buying up the best items so they could flip them. What's left is junk. It's bad for business. People will be less inclined to crawl in the car and drive to one of those stores if they think the best stuff has been cherry-picked by the staff.

P.S. I still own the club's with no intention of flipping.
They're as good as anything I've ever used.

I do not see a problem with flippers who set up a bike and resell it. I bought a stereo receiver the other day for $10, I cleaned it up and checked it out and will replace a couple of parts. I bought it for myself, but if someone took it to a repair shop they would have charged them $40 for what I did to it, so if I was to sell it for $50 who would I be ripping off? Whether you find something you want or not tends to be the luck of the draw, I guess. However if they allow the employees to buy stuff, they should not have a sign saying they don't.

My original question was because when I have donated things and I never see them in the store, of course I do not donate things because it's cheaper than taking them to the county dump either so they may just go to the floor and out the front door.

I couldn't imagine any real bike person flipping bikes without making them roadworthy first. That involves quite a bit of labor and some cash outlay for materials. I have never flipped bikes, but if I did they would be at a fair price with plenty of value added on from my labors.

I have reconditioned many bikes (for free) for friends and know what it would take to make a decent bike out of a thrift store bike.

Here's how Goodwill works in RVA (Richmond Virginia). Items dropped off at the stores are sold at the stores. Items dropped at remote locations (ie trailers at shopping centers) are taken to a central location, and then either redistributed to the stores, sold at auction, or sent overseas. In addition, items that do not sell at the store are sent to the processing center and auctioned.

Bikes at the auction are strictly hit and miss. In the past (3-4 years ago) the auction would often have fifty or sixty bikes per auction, three times a week, with the perponderance being bike boom roadies and kid's bikes. Now you see sometimes as few as three to four bikes an auction, largely mountain and kids bikes. It used to be a real treasure torve-- I bought many a bike there for five bucks just for the brooks saddle. The regulars at the auction had come to the conclusion I was completely insane, as all I bought was roadies, which no one wanted. Amoung my finds were a Bridgestone RB2 (unridden, 40$), a couple of nice Shogun touring bikes (about 15$ apeice), my UO8 (5$), syke's Magneet ($5), two trek 410s, a trek 400, several Cannondales, a 1965 Raleigh Sports (5$), and much more; I would often buy a bike simplyfor a part.

Alas, with the coming of Craigslist and the fixie boom here in RVA, the source has pretty much dried up. It's turned into a bunch of CL dealers squabling over each and every bike that comes in, paying far too much-- and the flow of old roadies has dropped down to almost nothing. I rarely attend anymore; just not worth it. The dealers finally figured out I know what I'm looking at and pester me incessantly about the resale value of the bikes there; I've taken to telling them the frames are cracked or otherwise damaged on the rare occasion I go and there's a roadie there.

Your area may differ.

Amen, brother!

Good explanation and tip.

The SA stores in the tonier suburbs around Detroit are actually very nice, especially in the northern, wealthier areas. A few years ago when I worked in that area, I got the idea to play a trick on my female manager by replacing her casual-dress jacket with an ugly used-car salesman plaid jacket from the Salvation Army. I went to five Salvation Army stores before I found such an ugly jacket at the sixth one -- because the first five had nothing but really nice, attractive, brand-name and even designer clothing.

I should add that I was not interested in bicycles at that time, so I didn't notice what they offered. Nowadays, I don't work in the northern suburbs, so I don't have much excuse to go to the Salvation Army stores up there. It would be quite a drive.

Someone must infiltrate the Salvation Army and report back. I'm sure some of you old "semi-retired" dudes have been laid off from your wally world greeter job and have some time to spare.

Umm -- Goodwill (or whatever thrift) is selling a bike the needs bearings repacked, tires/tubes/rim tape, bar tape, a bunch of clean up, perhaps a little wheel truing etc etc. A BF flipper buys it for $10, puts in the LBS equivalent of about $180 in work and sells it for $100-125. So, why should the thrift get the $100?

Ah, quality road bikes are worth a heck of a lot more than $10 before any work is done to them.

Check EBAY for real prices. Truing the wheels and repacking the bearings adds little value to the bike.

There is a college town not far from me, so bikes are in high demand, & the Goodwill type stores are expensive. I have seen Roadmaster Mountain Fury's there, several years old, 15 spds, & rusty , that their price was $89-100 ! Goodwill Stores, in particular, seem to have high prices on their items. If you want a good cheaper bike == yard sales.

I think $10-30 is about right for the highly neglected bikes you usually find at those places. I've never flipped bikes, but I've flipped cars & the recipe is about the same, I would guess. If you know what you're doing, you buy the $25 bike, put the LBS equivalent of $200 of work into it & sell it for $125 or something, right? Well, the general value of the bike, imho, in it's thrift store state, should be estimated as the resale value in working order (+/- depending on cosmetics like paint condition) less the market value of hiring the work (at a LBS) to get it in that condition. I don't see why the thrift store should collect more...or why they should bother, for that matter. The hypothetical $25 for rolling it from the back door onto the floor & putting a price on it is much more profitable work than the hypothetical $100 for restoring it into a functional state.

The vast majority of the managers at these stores have only a foggy idea of what is a good vintage bike and what's a crap vintage bike - much less having any idea of what's a fair price for them. My wife worked at three Salvation Army stores for about a year for four or five managers, and none of them had a clue - although one had the sense to ask me about some bikes they got in.

If the bike gets priced at $25.00, it doesn't really matter who buys it.

you guys have some stupid priced thrift stores.
I'm not trying to brag here but I've scored a few times and i only go maybe once a month. This summer i got an Araya road bike ($9.99)for my girlfriend that matched the one i found on the side of the road in a garbage pile that i ride. It just needed a front shifter cable and air in the tires otherwise was in perfect condition.
And my best score, A Motobeacane Mirage ($6.99 but i happened to catch it on the right day for whatever colored sticker it was to be 1/2 price so it was $3.63 after tax) again in perfect working order, just a little dirty and the bars had been flipped up bum style.

granted more often than not i do come up empty but i cant believe some of you guys find $150 vasities and such.