The Goodwill Store

This is a pretty good Goodwill! Sure, it could smell a bit more inviting and have more than two dressing rooms, but the employees are always ridiculously friendly (whether you’re dropping stuff off or here to browse) and the selection is good. They seem to have about twice as many books as the BU Goodwill, which is a plus for me. The special costume section around Halloween was super cute and useful for any last minute bargain seekers. Also, they always kill it with the window displays. Keep it up!

I see why people love this place because it’s full of good quality clothing, books, kick knacks, etc. but I just didn’t really see anything that caught my eye (except for a gray v-​neck Comcast sweater.
I was looking for an army style jacket that I could up-​cycle and recreate, but didn’t find anything remotely similar.
Other notes:
–Packed with folks that had their arms full of goodies.
— Very well kept store.
–Street parking.
–2 floors– women’s and shoes are ground level. Men’s, kids, books, home goods are in the basement.
— In my opinion the best Goodwill’s are in San Francisco, California.

I’ve definitely found some good stuff here over the years… some good records and shirts and the usual thrift store fare. But sometimes the folks at the registers are slow as the slowest molasses this side of the Mississippi. Granted, sometimes thats because they are dealing with ding-​dongish customers, but not usually. To make matters worse, I’ve been there multiple times, suffering through an unnecessarily long line, and I’ll see the woman that I suspect is a manager walk right by everyone without concern, or even worse yet, just sorta fart around behind the registers and help no one. I’ve walked out of the store without buying what I wanted on multiple occasions because of the lack of snap in their check-​out.

I’ve been back and had better (much better) experiences at this store and was about to up my rating. Unfortunately, the manager wrote to me offline… a quick sorry, a claim not to recall the specific problem– oh, and a complaint about my review. (sigh)
What started out as a possibly nice gesture underscores the problems I see in this store. People are shopping there and need to be treated like people and not as an obstacle to the store’s staff. This could be a really, really excellent store – all it needs is a slightly better attitude.

As my main man Marshall Field once said, «Goodwill is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.»
This particular Goodwill seems to be doing just fine, even though there’s a Buffalo Exchange right down the street. Maybe it’s because the prices are so cheap, and maybe it’s because Melinda, the owner, is a sweetheart. She keeps her employees so happy, they’ll hum while checking you out (at the cash register, silly.)
So, why the 4 stars? There are certain things on sale in this store that aren’t worth your time:
Most shirts. Someone else has probably picked out the best by the time you make your way through the reds in the ROYGBIV layout)
Electronics. They never seem to work and even though there’s a return policy, you don’t want to have to keep bringing back electronics for them.
I was also surprised to find that if you are looking for something particular, you will have to constantly stop in to search for it. i.e. You cannot have Goodwill contact when something comes in (like a record player, cough) so that you can scurry over and nab it before someone else gets their grubby hands on it.
Overall, the deals I’ve found here astound me. Goodwill for all!

I used to love coming here and rummaging for hidden treasures but my recent experiences have been disappointing. I am especially disappointed w the staff. The avg wait time for checkout is 10−15mins which I think is too long for a wkday morning. Today was horrible; the two cashiers were chatting it up w their customers for 15 mins! while the line grew and grew… I appreciate small tall sometimes but not at the expense of the 8 customers in line.
Also, they have increased prices for children’s clothes to $ 2.99 from $ 1.99. I know 3 bucks is still cheap but honestly I can get new clothing for a buck or two more at a clearance sale.
All in all, I may go back occasionally but no longer love this store and have become really disappointed w it.

This is not a place you should go if you are looking for something in particular to purchase. Of course, if you are seeking out something specific, your thrift shop game may be off in general. Just a tip.
Any thrift shop’s inventory is a direct result of the surrounding community, and this Goodwill’s proximity to apparently brand-​name-​loving West Somerville and Cambridge means its stock is pretty on-​point. Or, at least good enough to brave the faint smell of stale cigarettes that permeates the place. Today I picked up a green leather Coach purse and Woolrich bag, new with tags, for a little more than $ 20. Retail value for the duo would probably be in the $ 300 range. I’m into it!
A tip for purse/​bag seekers: they keep the nicest ones behind the counter. Don’t be afraid to ask to check them out, as they’re still pretty affordable. Aforementioned Coach bag was stowed behind the counter, hiding its cool $ 15.00 price tag. I’ve seen Dooney here, too.
Other highlights: dresses (along the right wall) and books (in the basement). And belts! I really don’t know why people drop loads of money on leather belts when I’ve been able to snag so many good ones dirt-​cheap from secondhand stores.
Cons? I personally find the sort-​by-​color way of organizing shirts so overwhelming that I haven’t bought many tops here. The pants section is also so huge that it’s hard to know where to begin.

I’ve been going to this Goodwill location for three years now. Overall, the selection is really good at this store. I regularly donate items and then walk back out of the store with more great stuff.
That said, the pricing is starting to get out of control. I am not referring to the regular price of shirts, pants. etc. I just have noticed that more and more items are getting special, higher prices. This year, holiday sweaters are kept behind the register and cost $ 15 each. Really. While I know that Goodwills around the country are starting to charge a little more for these since they know people are looking for them, $ 15 is absolutely insane. Sure, a $ 15 sweater seems like a bargain compared to $ 25 for a new one, but I’m not comparing Goodwill prices to store prices. If Goodwill is charging that much for a used sweater, I’m going to another thrift store or buying a cheap one on eBay.
I also saw a lot of dresses priced higher than the regular price. They also had a bunch of wedding dresses, one of which was about $ 500. I’m sure that someone will want to pay that price after all of your customers have pawed over that dress in the regular racks. Coats all seemed to get special prices, whether they were gently used or not, or a label or not.
I think this Goodwill location would be wise to remember that although people with money buy clothes there, so do a lot of people who don’t have much money at all.

Trixy and I had ridden our bikes from her flat in Cambridge down Elm Street into Somerville. Her child-​size neon pink Pacific Wanderer mountain bike was something of a conversation piece in the neighborhood. Today, its red plastic handlebar streamers and skull decals clashed nicely with her welders goggles, cammo pattern capri pants, and an olive drab Nutcase helmet. We stopped at the Goodwill store in Davis Square to look in the window.
The display here is always pretty good, and whoever does it has a real appreciation for details. Once I saw a roll top desk decorated with a framed photo of William Howard Taft and a stuffed green parrot perched atop an antique inkwell. If you looked close, you could see a 1912 penny sitting in the little depression of the ink reservoir.
Trixy decided to go in, flinging her bike carelessly against a tree on the sidewalk. I locked mine up, because, you know, this is Somerville. The street level of Goodwill is jam packed with women’s clothing, which for some reason someone has taken the trouble to sort by color, but the real action is downstairs. Broken vacuum cleaners, dented toasters and a sad display of hundreds of drinking glasses bearing college logos share space with seedy sofa chairs and cast off exercise equipment.
I found Trixy boldly rummaging through merchandise in a room behind a doorway marked «authorized personnel only». She’d fished out a pair of embroidered handkerchiefs from the bins. This room was obviously where workers sorted and priced donated items before placing them on shelves, so I reminded her of the sign, but she shrugged it off, claiming that «the %@*&! sign is just to keep tourists out».
There was a brief but bitter argument upstairs at the checkout register during which she blamed the store for not putting price tags on things and eventually got the clerk to sell her the two handkerchiefs for 50 cents each. I thought the unpleasantness might end there, but it didn’t. Outside the store, about ten or fifteen feet away, a rangy-​looking teenager in baggy pants and a white sleeveless T shirt was stealing Trixy’s bike.
«STOP, YOU MOTHER@%#!*» she screamed, and took off running out the door. Suddenly alerted, the kid wildly pedaled away on the bike, heading straight down the middle of Elm Street towards Davis Square. Right behind him, Trixy, her small but sturdy legs a blur, was gaining speed by the second. For a moment it looked like she was out for a mid day jog and just happened to be running alongside a guy on a bike. Then, right near Anna’s Taqueria, I saw her uncoil herself and jump up to execute what I consider to be a pretty spectacular tackle. Down they went, bike and all. The kid of course, ran away, but Trixy’s bike was saved from who knows what kind of potential Somervillian degradation.

Found two great items in the donation bins in the front of the shop today. I was not aware that I could not purchase anything from those bins. There was no noticeable sign and I don’t understand why they don’t place the bins elsewhere if the items in it are really that STRICTLY off limits.
But I found an antique globe I really liked, and my friend who is an aerospace enthusiast found a wooden plane set he really wanted to purchase too. However, we were approached by a staff who told us the items in the bins were off limits and were to be «processed» first whatever that means. There are plenty of items downstairs that are unpriced so I don’t exactly see nor understand what processing items in those bins even mean. I could’ve easily said I found it downstairs had they not seen me and the cashiers wouldn’t even have known.
Anyway, the owner who had just dropped the donations off was still in the shop and overheard us. And because he really appreciated how enthusiastic my friend was about airplanes, he wanted him to have it. It’s nice to have someone who knows how to appreciate it. And so he tried to retrieve it from the bin, having just dropped it off two minutes ago, only to have the staff tell him no and that whatever is dropped in the bin cannot be retrieved. The staff insisted that he couldn’t do anything about it.
Good customer service would understand that keeping a customer happy and coming back means more than just a few bucks. My friend has never had this problem at the Goodwill in Allston before. And I don’t believe there is no room for flexibility for a person who had JUST dropped off his donation 120 seconds ago. I mean given a general situation, what if it was an accident? If someone’s wedding ring had fallen in, is it suddenly a donation that cannot be retrieved? You must be able to budge a little.
After all that, he was only able to tell us was that we would have to wait a few days till it’s processed. But by then more than likely someone would have already purchased it or a staff would have kept it! So thanks Goodwill in Davis Square. I also don’t believe that owner will be donating anytime soon again as he left rather petrified.

I’ve been trying to walk to work to get some exercise and lose a few lbs (I know, I know I don’t really need it) so I popped into the goodwill and purchased a portable CD/​radio player and headphones to make my walk more enjoyable. Besides the equipment I needed they also had a plethora of CDs for me to choose from.
I picked up:
Alanis Morissette (Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie)
4 Non Blonds (Bigger, Better, Faster, More)
U2 (Zooropa)
Matchbox 20 (Yourself or Someone Like You)
Creed (Human Clay)
There was thousands more but I can only carry so many.
This place has it all and I will undoubtedly be going back for more.

There are so many hidden gems here, you just have to search for them. I could probably come here every day & find something to buy. It’s so inexpensive which is why their things fly off the rack. It is for everybody since they have a huge variety of things.

Very large place, but the signage for the pricing is usually missing. Belts are $ 3.99, scarves $ 2.99. I got a Royal Albert teacup saucer for $ 0.70. Women’s wear is all on the main floor, and you travel downstairs for everything else. Best deal I had was finding so many brands there! Lots of Talbot, Anne Taylor.
I got a pair of 7 For All Mankind pants for $ 6! If I came a day earlier and it was on the floor, it was red tagged, so it woulda been $ 3! Keep an eye on their calendar flyer to find out what tags are discounted further.
What is sad about such a large Goodwill is their lack of a single fitting room. I just try stuff on in front of the various mirrors provided.

i could spend hours here, & admit, yes, i have! I love that the store is basically organized by colors. I start w/​Shoes… then dresses, shirts, skirts, jeans… I do think the recent hike in jean prices is ridiculous. I am So less inclined to even browse the jeans now. Last time i did purchase a pair of jeans i made the mistake of not checking inner thigh wear, i paid about 8 bucks for a pair of skinny jeans i got to wear twice. yeah, i guess… i could patch them.
The staff is AWESOME. I only complain that the music played is under par. I ve been visiting for years. The fellow who used to manage opened Studio 54? in Allston. he played awesome music! He is missed.

This Goodwill is part of my weekend Davis Square adventures. So much stuff comes in through this area that you can always find something new here. I’ve snagged a solid wicker chair, a table, some awesome vintage silverware, numerous Halloween costumes, and classic picture frames. People here are really nice and the store is generally easy to navigate, as long as you’re ok with dodging kids on the stairs.
Pro tip: don’t give up on something just because it doesn’t have a price tag. The people who work here are really reasonable and will make you a deal that doesn’t feel like a ripoff.

Despite coming here numerous times, I have yet to see the inside of the fitting rooms. They’re a nightmare. Don’t even bother. There are only two despite how popular the store is. And some of the people in line were very vocal, shall we say, about other customers taking too long in there – I had the pleasure of watching some guy knocking on both doors every fifteen seconds and yelling at people to get out because he needed to try on a shirt. And then he started pretending to be the manager. It was fun to watch.
I found a small corner with a full length mirror tucked away near the men’s suit jackets, had my boyfriend stand in the adjacent aisle, and voila I had my own dressing room. I suggest you do the same if you’re like me and don’t care about trying dresses on over your clothes in the middle of the store.
As others have said, this place requires digging, but I’ve always had that experience at thrift stores. I got a black skirt, fall Beatlesesque boots, a vintage purse, a gap shirt, and a dress for $ 30. The downstairs is a great adventure, especially the tacky glassware. I’ve found: a mug with ‘super lover’ on it, multicolored margarita glasses, a martini glass with a porcelain rooster in lieu of a stem, thin glasses with ‘Irish coffee’ written on them, eight thousand port glasses, and a personalized engraved mug that Scott got as a present for being somebody’s Best Man in August of 1989.
The cashiers are fun too. Mine told me my shoes were $ 10 as she was ringing them up and asked if that was okay with me. She also kept telling me she left her water bottle outside and asked a random customer to go see if it was still there.
Lastly, I guess I’ve never noticed the smell. Like, yes, it smells like a thrift store but no worse or better than any other ones.

I’m a frequent browser here. The store is consistently clean, the staff often do «deals» with customers for items lacking price tags or with damage, and the stock turnover is very fast. See something, snag something or else have a tissue in hand to dry your tears of remorse.
There are a good number of UnderArmour, NB, Nike and other sportswear. I’ve discovered lovely Danskin and other high quality yoga togs. As others have said, it’s fairly easy to find natural fabrics such as cashmere, alpaca, fine merino, linen, silk and flax. I’m not telling you which label I covet and consistently find because there aren’t that many, but overall, seek by color and ye shall find.
And the combined basement archeological/​anthropological exploration is simply better than any computer game.

I love thrift store but I was a little scared of this one. Since I live «up north» in MA but right on the NH border, prices in my area are cheaper than most in the Boston area. So I figured that, yeah it’s a Goodwill but I’m still going to pay more.
Not so, not so (and yay for that!). I had actually just been to a Goodwill in Londonderry NH about a month prior. The selection of «name» brands at this location topped what I found at the other. That doesn’t mean I didn’t find Anne Klein in NH, just not as many names overall.
Scarves at $ 3, brand new never worn unopened package of Gold Toe socks for .50 cents per sock (75% of the tag on the package).
The store was quite crowded but I expect that. Somewhat organized but I have no patience for digging. I am more of a grazer when shopping in stores like this. All that means is if there was a stupendous purse for sale at the bottom of those huge bins, I wouldn’t ever know it.
Other reviewers are correct, look over everything carefully. I did find several stained pieces and things with holes/​tears.

We’ve all been to Goodwills, yeah? Donated goods, meagerly washed (where applicable) and haphazardly assembled (never applicable), displayed cheaply for your penny-​pinching needs.
And if the needs are square with the following, you’re golden:
— Ugly holiday sweaters that smell like perfumed death ($ 5)
— Lionel Richie Sings Popular Commercial Jingles CD ($ 1)
— Books. Lots of books. Insane stacks of books (Varies)
— All men’s clothes, color coordinated to showcase the orange ($ 1.50-$ 8)*
For all others, approach cautiously and when in doubt, poke with a stick. Not crazy about sequestering the penile possessive to the basement with kids’ wear, bent spoons and dragons, but c’est la vie.
*Costuming, absolutely. To actually pull off as actual clothing (ironically or otherwise), not a chance.

Okay.