Shopping at a Goodwill store is not what it used to be. In the past it was easy to find good deals. Some people even made money buying items at Goodwill and reselling them online. That has become very difficult because prices at Goodwill have gone up and shipping is much more expensive now. You can still find an item below market price once in a while, but it isn't easy. If you are buying something for yourself, you can still save money vs. buying new, but they have taken all of the profit away from resellers. Even on their online auction site (ShopGoodwill.com) it is difficult to get a good deal.
At times, the Goodwill auction site will not let me connect. If you get a "The request is blocked" error message, you need to delete the ShopGoodwill cookie from your browser. After that, your browser should be able to load the home page. I've seen other technical issues with the auctions, like slow load time and not being able to pay for an item. On one recent auction, my bid was the high bid, but it didn't show that I was the high bidder. I my bid was the same as another bidder. Somehow the bidding system failed, and they ended up cancelling all bids and relisted the item. The item eventually sold for much more than I was willing to pay. This happens a lot. I often lose auctions by one dollar, when someone places a last second bid. I don't like sitting at my computer waiting for the clock to run down before I bid. I decide how much I'm willing to pay and put my bid in a few hours ahead of time. The last thing I want to do is overpay for a used item that is being sold as-is.
When shopping on the website, I have a set of rules that I follow. The first is to never buy from a Goodwill store that is located in California, Florida, New York, or Washington State. For me, the shipping charge is too high from these locations. Second, is to avoid bidding on items that have a handling fee that is greater than 3 dollars. The only exception would be if they were offering one cent shipping. I mainly bid on video games, so my third rule is to never bid on a game assortment that includes Disney, Just Dance, or old sports games. That may sound weird, but it rules out a lot of assortments. I don't want to play them, and no one wants to buy them. The ones that get a new version every year, like Madden Football, FIFA, NHL, NBA and Call of Duty, are in every assortment. It is rare to find an assortment that does not have one or more of these games.
There are many ways to search for items on ShopGoodwill.com. My favorite is to enter a keyword into the main search window. That works well if you are looking for a specific brand like "Olympus" or "Logitech". The results will find items in all categories with that keyword in the description. I also use search by category when looking for video games for a specific console. On the advanced search page, you can search specific Goodwill stores that are closer to you or ones that have low handling fees. And, if you are not looking for anything specific, try clicking on the "Newly Listed" link. Items are being added continuously, so you get to see a wide range of items that may be of interest. If you bid on an item, just be prepared for disappointment, because many times items go for more than you think they are worth.
No comments:
Post a Comment