Discover Goodwill’s New “Buy The Pound” Outlet Store

After years of discussion and planning, Discover Goodwill of Southern and Western Colorado has opened a new retail support center that’s 92,000 square foot, which will allow Goodwill to centralize and consolidate support services for its retail operations. Within this facility, there’s a “Buy The Pound” outlet retail store that is not your typical Goodwill retail store, and believe me, it really isn’t.

I was at the ribbon cutting ceremony that kicked off the opening of this facility and got to take a tour of all the different areas and see first-hand how they operate, which was pretty interesting. I kept wishing I’d “accidentally” get locked in overnight and get to go through all the merchandise for hours, getting first choice of all the stuff.

*The address is 2855 South Academy in Colorado Springs.

Discover Goodwill President & CEO, Karla Grazier welcomed guests and shared her enthusiasm and passion for this new facility. I’ve personally met Karla and so admire her dedication and desire to help others.

Along with Colorado Springs mayor, Steve Bach (holding scissors,) Karla cuts the “ribbon” of intertwined donated shirts.

Here’s a peek…

BUY THE POUND OUTLET RETAIL CENTER –

I actually stopped in the outlet center a week before the ribbon-cutting ceremony and let me just say, this is not for the faint-hearted shopper. And if you haven’t experienced shopping at Goodwill before, this is not where you want to start because even with all my personal Goodwill shopping, this was a bit, no, hugely overwhelming.

The outlet sells merchandise that didn’t sell in the other retail centers but still has marketable value when sold in bulk by the pound (89 cents a pound.) It’s open 6 days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed on Sundays. When I visited the first time I was totally confused. There’s all these blue “boats” (big rolling tables/bins,) that contain merchandise, and about every 15 minutes a new boat is brought out. The day I shopped, I saw people lining up to sort through the boats as they came out. A lot of them wore gloves and everyone waited to go through the new boats that were rolled out until an employee told them to “go.” I thought they were training so stayed out of the way even though I saw a ton of stuff I wanted to look at. Turns out, these weren’t employees being trained but rather shoppers.

The outlet’s target market is actually resellers, including flea market entrepreneurs and small businesses catering to niche export markets and they take their shopping very seriously. But now that I know how it works, I believe I can snag the items I want, just as well as they do! (This “frenzied” shopping is really centered on the new boats that come out. I was able to leisurely walk around the other boats and look at the merchandise.)

THE OUTLET TIPPER –

Oh my gosh, you just can’t even imagine all the items collected for the outlet store section. This is all unsold items that have been released from the stores. The merchandise goes into this big blue tipper and the merchandise ends up in one of the blue “boats,” and moved to the sales floor. The tipper is a marvel of power, safety, and efficiency-optimally executing 30 “tips” per hour. It’s uniquely designed for easy loading, increased speed, enhanced safety and labor efficiencies.

There are 200 to 250 boats rotated onto the sales floor each day, translating to nearly 30,000 pounds of product. (Think I’d need more than one night to go through everything!)

TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT & LOADING DOCK –

The transportation department/loading dock has 14 dedicated employees and operates 7 days a week. This operation-critical department serves 9 retail stores and donation centers, in addition to 11 stand-alone donation centers. The current fleet inventory consists of 3 semi tractors, 10 delivery trucks and 13 semi trailers. Last year, fleet vehicles logged over 250,000 miles, transporting over 37 million pounds of donations, nearly 50 tons of materials daily.

Besides the fabulous deals I can find when shopping at Goodwill, I know that when I shop and donate, it helps others in our community. One of the newest staff members who illustrates Goodwill’s mission to help individuals with disadvantages find their road to independence is dock worker, Ptolemey (pronounced Tall-uh-may.) He had lost his job as a computer programmer, along with his house, car, and practically everything else he possessed. Despite aggressive job searching, (making contact with at least 5 potential employers a week for over a year,) he eventually found himself homeless and in and out of shelters. At one point he was sleeping in the back of a truck, regardless of rain, shine or snow, which included Christmas day. Since starting work though at Discover Goodwill, Ptolemey has earned his certification as a forklift operator and is preparing to move into his own place. Just one example of how Discover Goodwill helps those in our community.

THE WAREHOUSE –

The warehouse occupies the largest area of the retail support center at approximately 36,000 square feet. This centralized storage facility for donated goods collected throughout southern and western Colorado is used to stock their 9 retail stores. The warehouse is staffed by 11 full-time employees and operates 7 days a week.

As you can see, the warehouse is currently near capacity, containing about 6,000 pallets of stacked donations. No, they are not hoarding but rather, this surplus is intentional as they are preparing to open 2 new stores before the end of the year and this is what they will use to stock the stores. These 2 new stores will be located east of the intersection at Austin Bluffs and Academy, and north of Baptist Road on Jackson Creek Parkway in Monument…and will employ another 120 job seekers.

ATTENDED DONATION CENTER (ADC) –

The retail support center also has a stand-alone attended donation center where you can drop off your gently used donations. Each year these stand-alone ADCs collect over 160,000 donations, which are then sold in retail stores to maximize the value of donations and expand their life-changing mission to more disadvantaged individuals in the community. There are 11 ADCs throughout southern and western Colorado which welcome donations 7 days a week and employs 31 workers.

I love the fact that even when I don’t have the finances I can still help my community simply by donating items my family doesn’t use anymore. Nearly 90% of Discover Goodwill’s budget supports job training and life skills programs. Each year, donations help serve over 60,000 individuals with disadvantages and disabilities. When you donate, you also become a job creator. Last year, donations helped 5,894 people access the career, family and support services they needed to find a good job; including single mothers, veterans, people with disabilities and many others.

*In addition to donations collected, there are business and community partners that participate in donation drives which enables Discover Goodwill to reach out to even more individuals in need – such as their emergency voucher program for individuals that have been significantly impacted by disasters (like the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires,) or face major economic challenges.

You know, sometimes when our lives are going along just fine, we might forget that at any moment, something could happen where we too might need some temporary help. Take for example the two fires I mentioned above and the flooding we saw in our areas last summer. Discover Goodwill’s collective disaster relief efforts associated with the 2 fires (Waldo Canyon and Black Forest,) included over 3,000 emergency vouchers valued at over $75,000 assisting more than 3,500 displaced individuals and families. They also provided vouchers to impacted residents of last summer’s flooding in the Manitou Springs region caused by the Waldo Canyon burn scar.

PURCHASING DEPARTMENT –

There’s also a centralized purchasing department at the RSC (retail support center,) to streamline the order and delivery processes and maximize bulk purchasing opportunities, with one very detailed and highly energetic employee dedicated to purchasing.

RECYCLING –

The recycling area was fascinating to see!

Items that don’t sell in the outlet store are transferred to Goodwill’s recycling and after-market operations with an end goal of diverting them from landfills while generating additional revenue for Discover Goodwill’s programs and services.

Discover Goodwill’s ultimate goal is to achieve an 85% landfill diversion rate by 2015. Just look at all this that could have ended up in landfills but won’t.

Every once in a while I’ll have someone ask me why I write about Discover Goodwill so much and do all my “makeovers” there. And my answer is always, “Because I believe in what they do.” My personal shopping at Goodwill for fabulous but inexpensive clothes that I wear on a regular basis was actually one of the reasons I even started this website, trying to help those on a budget feel good about how they looked. I can shop there and save money, donate things we don’t use and help others by doing so, and know that the money generated is going back into the community. (Your donations are also tax-deductible.)

Another reason I support Discover Goodwill? This first-of-its-kind life skills program for individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities called Possibilities, which is not only unique here in Colorado but also in the entire United States. When my husband and I toured it last year, we were amazed at what they were doing and how it was set up. Just look at what it is, what it does, and you too will be amazed. (We actually had tears in our eyes as we left Possibilities that day, which were tears of happiness.)

https://www.719woman.com/blog/goodwills-possibilities-a-new-town-in-town/