silverdollarbill, I can't speak for anyone else here but as I explained in my original post it's not about whether or not I can make money off of them. Yes, it's annoying to have entire categories of merchandise disappear from a chain of stores when those items are items you've made money from in the past. However I was thrifting many, many years before I started "treasure hunting" and that is where my primary complaint with the ongoing changes at Goodwill lie. From my late teen years on I spent countless hours really thoroughly going through clothes and housewares and records etc, at hundreds of thrift & antique shops, scattered across several states. I learned an incredible amount about the differences between things that are well-made and things that are not (also learned a lot about seventies rock); up until a year ago that learning was all dedicated to curating a wardrobe/home/library/music collection full of things that I really loved, not on making any money from those things at all.
Part of that process entails looking at and sorting through lots of random dirty broken flimsy junk that got donated instead of thrown away through sheer chance, but it's still enjoyable because sometimes there's a payoff, whether it's emotional or financial. The GW stores in my area are now essentially shelves and racks full of over-priced, poorly-made, roughly used mass produced junk (I'm into that because I'm American, obviously, but I just buy it new at the same price from Wal-Mart or Target). GW no longer cares about helping the community by providing quality second-hand goods at affordable prices, they would rather divert those donations to the highest bidder. They're doing this while still implying that "thrift" is possible in their stores when it generally isn't, at least in my area. As far as their books are concerned, items easily sell for tens or hundreds of times on their auction site what they would have in-store but I don't see them ramping up their charitable efforts accordingly. I don't think anyone here is trying to directly accuse them of mishandling assets so I'm not sure why you keep ignoring all other points and demanding references, it's more like a pile of poor business practices that have begun to rub a lot of people the wrong way.
