shopgoodwillReviews of shopgoodwill.com

I do most of my shopping online, and shopgoodwill.com has become one of the worst places to do so. It's set up so that various Goodwill stores around the country can auction their own inventory. You can find tons of great brands on the site, however the merchant stores have made it clear that they can scam you and get away with it. In the past year, I have bought several jewelry items at what I thought were great deals. However, when the packages would arrive, items would have significant tarnishing, scratches, missing jewels or links, or other damage. The stores are able to get away with this by having a disclaimer that says to please review all photos. Except, the photos misrepresent the product by often times being overexposed to give the items a deceptive finish, or otherwise blurry, with product in shadows, or angled in ways to disguise damage. Clothing and shoes are photographed the same - every attempt made to hide the true condition, while calling it "detailed in photos" Starting bid prices have also increased exponentially. I think they're trying to compete with secondhand sites and resellers, but there's one problem - fewer and fewer of us online shoppers will be using a site that so obviously wants to misrepresent its offerings, not offer returns and have a pretty much non-existent customer service experience. (Like asking for additional details about an item only to be told it was photographed in is entirety). At least with reseller sites like eBay and Poshmark, we can expect an item to be represented clearly, or to have the ability to return the faulty item. Do better, shopgoodwill!

Their website is slow and sometimes like dial-up. Like many other ppl have said, "Shipping cost is ridiculous." Not all stores are ripping us off, but those that do should be ashamed of themselves. A very disgusting way to do business. To leave my comments on a good note, I got a refund for an item that was not correct. However, the same item is back up on their website with the same exact description!

There are questionable taxes being charged system wide. Most states have a fixed sales tax and there may also be a city tax applied to the item depending on where you live. However, shopgoodwill.com is now applying a tax fee that is above the sales tax. They claim that it is a tax for shipping/delivery although most states will not tax items when delivery/shipping costs are listed and are not part of the price. The only case that shopgoodwill.com will not apply the tax is if your state prohibits taxing that item, e.g. clothing. They do tax on items that are not taxable since that would be so obvious a violation. So, what could be the reason to collect this legally prohibitive tax? This could be a way to cover their fees for payment by credit card. It is hard to know at this point without an investigation and audit. But it is being done by them system-wide across all the states by them. Additionally, combining shipping items according to weight limits from same outlet store may not lower those costs since they have caveats and conditions in place like fixed rate on shipping and handling on items that won't give you any savings for doing so. Therefore, the only decision the consumer faces is one or two packages/boxes to receive the items.

Need more uniformity in training. Some participating store/regions are not trained to say, ship larger items , while others will. Feedback when I create a customer service ticket is spotty at best. If I do receive a response it's normally after the auction is closed. If you don't have personnel-just don't offer the service. Also, if you're bidding on an itemm. a great service would be a reminder text or email before the item closes. You would generate lot's more revenue.

Inaccurate vague descriptions on most all items. Honest straightforward descriptions are rare. I’ve purchased several items, giving them the benefit of doubt. Totally irresponsible on my part. Insult to injury, shipping is inflated. Another point of income for them.

I wonder if they are doing "shill bidding"? Meaning some employees bumping the bids up right at the end of the auction when they see that the highest bidder is quite a bit more than the next bidder. Search for "the-dark-reality-behind-americas-greatest-thrift-store-empire"

I really want to love this site. Sometimes it works out, but the SHIPPING and HANDLING prices are truly false and outrageous. The constantly and consistently make everything weigh much more than the actual weight. They do not offer media mail prices for legitimate media mail items. These are used, resale items and this goodwill site gouges people on shipping and handling. It's just wrong, and it's stupid!!!! They don't reply to messages about this either. Very very unethical.

While I buy primarily only from two locations where I can pick the item up I have had mixed experiences. The bad experiences are more problematic than the good, however. The firs thing that should make people nervous is the length of the disclaimers in the listing, they should just shorten it up to "We're Not Responsible For Anything". A couple other things I notice you have to be careful about. If it says the item was "not tested" you can rest assured that is was tested, found to not be working so they describe it as not tested. This is eveidenced by the fact that many items are listed and described as tested and working. They also have a different idea of what "factory sealed" means, LEGOS sets are particularly suceptible since with the heat of a hair dryer you can loosen the adhesive on the round clear tape, open the box, remove the ever-popular minifigures and seal the box back up. ShopGoodwill for some reason thinks that every scrap of donation must be sold, they refuse to accept that sometimes the donations are more like someone cleaning out the garage and dropping boxes off at the donation center. If someone donates junk, broken and otherwise useless items just throw them away. With regard to the exhorbitant shipping costs, it's the ridiculous handling charges, sometimes as high as $10 for handling if it requires extra packing material. They get a discount from Uline on the boxes they use, they pay no shipping to get them. They get a reduced rate from Fedex yet everything seems to be charged as a dimensional weight, even small stuff. Further, Fedex is doing very poorly as a company and is expected to raise rates by 7%, this is not going to help matters. Look at the Salvation Army auction site, better and more pictures, honest descriptions and you get to review and choose shipping carriers based on the price you want to pay for shipping. On the good side, I have had fairly good experience with some of the local employees that will work on adjusting the handling fees if you are picking the item up, you just have to inquire before you pay for the item. And in other cases where I bought something for resale, I asked to have the item packed for shipping and I'd pick it it just that way, you're paying for it either way, may as well get the free boxes and packing material. NEW INFORMATION 10/23 - I find out that they charge Fedex's (higher) Dimensional Weight cost whether or not the package actually meets the requirements for Dimensional Weight pricing, as a result they are also jacking up the shipping charges as well for profit.