You may think you're getting a bargain... this is only true on rare occasion. Most selections you can find elsewhere for the same price, if not cheaper. Let me explain how this company works, for I am a former backroom associate. Through our partners, we would receive a truck loaded with donations. That truck is then unloaded and packed onto a large tall Cart which is weighed, and that's how our "Quota" was measured for the day/week. Depending on the time of year, we would go through 8k-11k pounds of donations. From the Cart, donations are separated from Furniture, Hard Goods, and Soft Goods. Hard goods included electronics, toys, books, etc. Soft goods primarily consisted of clothes, more commonly Women's clothes, but also shoes, scarfs, socks, etc. From there, specific categories are sent down and checked out by a line of staff members, who make a split second judgment on whether to send it down the line, or throw it away. The problem with this process, is how poorly we treated perfectly good items, that became poor items due to the lack of care. Millions in value, could have been lost to rushed quotas. This store had unrealistic policies for disposing of brand new items, however there has been new management since, and may have changed things. I would watch as mint-condition work uniforms were "recycled" along with wedding dresses that had a single wrinkle, overcoats with one missing button, hoodies with a missing hood-string, regardless of the quality of the fabric, we ended up tossing out over 90% of our donations.
I reveal this for any potential donators, who think that their former possessions will be put to good use. It's unknown even by managers what Savers does to "recycled" donations. The rumor is that they are sent to "countries in need" via cargo plane, but like I said, we're talking about over 10k pounds a DAY from a single store, the legitimacy of these rumors has yet to be proven. I was written up for arguing with employees over throwing away perfectly good coats and sweatshirts during winter, for having missing a single button or zipper latch. My argument was that there were homeless people in our town that could use such items, the response was punishment on my end.
My complaint as an employee, was the ridiculous labor that each employee had to sit through, for minimum wage. Backroom employees (Production team) was completely separated from the front of the store (Operations) and we all take breaks at the same time, however, they would severely penalize you for being so much as 2 minutes late coming back from break. Regardless of never coming into contact with customers, even before the store opens, the use of cell phones is strictly prohibited, even if you are using hands-free devices allowing you to work while talking. And 'speaking' of talking... Talking was also strictly prohibited from this establishment, a simple verbal warning was given if you spoke a single casual sentence to an associate. The use of headphones was not allowed, regardless of the isolated circumstances. My biggest complaint was the wrist injury that was caused from the repetitive labor required for 9 hours a day. I developed a very severe case of Tendonitis, as diagnosed by my doctor. Contacting him was nearly impossible, due to the schedule, and strict policy against cell phone usage. I also broke my toe due to an unrelated accident outside of work, but management did their best to ignore this sudden impairment, and had me doing things that other employees were more than capable of doing, and even had THEM leave work early because there was nothing for them to do. Make the cripple do all the walking, thanks Savers. Often times I would take off my shoe and sock, and show them the bruising that all of the work was causing me, and they would still refuse to allow me to leave work early, or find something else to do that involved being immobile.
Why does this matter to the customer? You are not getting the wide selection you think you are getting here. The prices are calculated by a minimum wage associate, most likely one newly hired, that's required to maintain a fast pace and make quick judgments. They do this by quickly scanning the item, determining its "Quality" on a scale of 1 being terrible, 5 being high quality, and 0 being brand new. The numbered quality of the item, combined with whatever category it fell under, automatically generated a fixed price for that item, and a tag would be produced. Before tags were put on the items, they would be finalized for a thorough check by a manager specifically hired for that role, and... she discarded about 60% of what was sent to her. This opens up way too much room for disputable prices, and often leads to poor customer service. This specific store location has terrible selections, a store SO dirty that you will actually see fabric/dust on your glasses after you leave, none of the clothes are clean, and the prices are not as amazing as they seem. read more
