Talk:Savers

Neutrality

Savers Inc has been in business since 1954 as stated correctly in the article. This company has since, opened over 200 stores primarily throughout the continental U.S., although has recently expanded to a number of Australian stores, too. Factually, this article is severely lacking, however, ethically, Savers has many secrets which are not always made public.

Savers Inc, in the Saint Cloud, Minnesota location alone profited over $800,000 in 2008 with nearly 1.7 million in sales, and over $900,000 profit in 2007. Savers does, indeed provide very competitive benefits and payrates for their employees, however, recently the stores in the upper mid-west district have gone through an extensive management turn. During this period, a number of store managers and operations managers, plus their subordinates have all recently been losing their employment for a number of odd reasons. Nevertheless, Savers Inc is overall a very profitable company, and can far more than afford the compensation which it provides for the team members.

Much more information is available, especially to those still working for this company. It should be noted, however, that the information I have provided is public information, it is simply not information that Savers Inc would like too many people too know- it goes against their 'Community donation' image. Savers profits incredibly, just as any other department store does. August 17th, 2009

This page is little more than an advertisement for the stores. Does anyone want to take a wild stab at cleaning it up and making it a little more objective?CloutierFan02 (talk) 09:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

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Look, Savers is a business. It has never been advertised otherwise since its inception. People want to find something juicy or negative about it, since it competes directly with non-profits. People want to believe there is something unnatural about that. How is it not objective to give a description of the way Savers does business? Because there's nothing nasty written in there? Savers is a model for responsible business - it sells or recycles reusable product saving it from the waste stream, gives back to the community through its partnerships with charities, provides tons of jobs and benefits for workers, and makes money for its owners. Savers is a business.

I changed a statement I personally found very objectionable on the main page that said Savers throws everything in the trash compactor because it simply is not true. I have worked at the Burien store for over 10 years. We have a huge recycling program, we send a semi-truckload of recyclables to our Fife Distribution Center every week. We also do not sell all of our recyclables to third-world countries, we sell them to buyers throughout the world. We recycle some stuff that clearly would be of no use to third world countries like plastic bags, cell phones, ink cartridges, etc.

Each store employs around 50 people who have benefits that are unheard of in Thrift retail (including the non-profit giants), such as medical, dental, 401K, profit sharing, vacation, sick leave, paid holidays. We sort through 8000 lbs. of cloth and 3000 lbs. of hard goods each workday. We place 6000 new items on our sales floor each workday. We feel we make a major impact on decreasing waste in the world and we help people in the process. Sorry if this is an unpopular view.Antsygrl123 (talk) 05:19, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The Value Village near me is popular and gives every indication it is a non-profit. From what I can see, the local non-profit does not collect the materials and sell them to Value Village. The donation point is part of the store and it is the only donation point for Value Village in this area. Everyone I have asked thinks it is non-profit like the other thrift stores. Savers is apparently very much aware that as it will only whisper that it is a for-profit business. Many Canadians would not participate if they knew it was not a non-profit. There are plenty of thrifts in town to donate one's stuff to. Also, they have used the pandemic as an excuse to significantly raise their prices, just like the current windfall profits to oil companies. Their expenses or what they pay out did not go up. Other thrifts just clean out the booths regularly and have a reasonably way to return something that does not work when you get it home. Also, they have removed permanently all try-on booths and their return policies, limited as they are, are nearly impossible to meet. So, they do some good. But, it is not entirely unsoiled. Mooseremote (talk) 19:11, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

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It is the practice of almost any company (and most humans!) when referring to itself to promote the responsible and ethical aspects of its operations. however, that is not the practice of a good wikipedian, nor the function of a wiki page. While i agree with the points posted above, they are biased (the poster is an employee of Savers) and portray only one side of the companies' impact on the communities it operates in. The page either needs a critical counterpoint to the positive points raised, or should be slimmed down to a neutral description of the store and its operations. As a former employee, i recognize most of the info and phrasing from internal P.R. articles. Wikipedia is not a P.R. tool, and this page needs some attention - --Theinterior (talk) 20:54, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

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It looks like this page still hasn't been fixed. Much of the language is still not from NPOV. SableIsland (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I see that and sure wish someone more capable than me might be interested in making it more neutral. I do still stand by everything I stated almost 14 years ago. Haven't worked for them for 12 years. Some asshat had made a joke page of Savers stating they throw everything in the trash, etc. That sure wasn't the practice of a good Wikipedian nor the function of a wiki page either. I was purely offended and young, took it personally, so yeah maybe my writings were a bit pro company. However, I still find Bill Ellison incredibly inspiring and one of the most ahead-of-his-time businessman and feel the intent was there to do something good from day one of him partnering with charities to buy merchandise from them and sell used merchandise rather than throw everything in the trash. Also wanted to note that I had absolutely incredible training in how to run a thrift business while working for V.V. and was treated amazing. Every year every single person in our stores was given a Christmas bonus, we had a $2,000 catered lunch, and they sent every manager and supervisor on a 3-day all expenses paid retreat where we were trained on skills like behavioral based interviewing and given rewards for our store metrics and things like highest retention. It was the first time I got to fly on a plane in my adult life. I went to some really cool places, like Nashville (my personal favorite) and Edmonton to the World's Largest Mall (at the time). I later worked at 2 other ACTUAL non-profit thrift stores. Both were run by people with zero thrift business acumen that were making 6 figures and not interested in making any changes that could make more actual profit for their charities. It was all about image and I was kind of disgusted. So it is what it is. 2601:601:CB80:6970:C48:3734:3D5F:81CF (talk) 11:51, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Logo Savers.GIF

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Objective Views

Savers Inc has been in business since 1954 as stated correctly in the article. This company has since, opened over 200 stores primarily throughout the continental U.S., although has recently expanted to a number of Australian stores, too. Factually, this article is severely lacking, however, ethically, Savers has many secrets which are not always made public.

Savers Inc, in the Saint Cloud, Minnesota location alone profited over $800,000 in 2008 with nearly 1.7 million in sales, and over $900,000 profit in 2007. Savers does, indeed provide very competitive benefits and payrates for their employees, however, recently the stores in the upper mid-west district have gone through an extensive mamagement turn. During this period, a number of store managers and operations managers, plus their subordinates have all recently been losing their employment for a number of odd reasons. Nevertheless, Savers Inc is overall a very profitable company, and can far more than afford the compensation which it provides for the team members.

Much more information is available, especially to those still working for this company. It should be noted, however, that the information I have provided is public information, it is simply not information that Savers Inc would like too many people too know- it goes against their 'Community donation' image. Savers profits increadibly, just as any other department store does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by R.breen21 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Charities not Listed

No where in the article or on their website does it show which charities they work with. How do I know how they define "charity"? How do I know whether the money is going to a political or religious organization instead of an educational, arts, or poverty charity? How do I know whether it's going to a charity that pays its CEO a 7-figure salary?Bostoner (talk) 02:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I suspect they don't list the charities on their site because they are not the same for all of the stores, but it would be nice to see a list of the organizations that get money from them. In my area,(Nova Scotia, Canada) they have signs in the store indicating that the Canadian Diabetes Association is one of the recipients.

Maybe Wikipedians should include the lists from their local stores, to help fill in this missing detail. Colin Pye (talk) 19:40, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but am pretty familiar with Value Village's business practices (in Ontario, Canada), and two US lawsuits against the company for misleading/inappropriate business practices concerning their "for charity" claims...

Their business practice is to push the narrative that they are "for charity" as far as they can without actually breaking the law by saying so, and have become quite expert at it. Their own wording is carefully couched in "legalese":

"1. We accept your donations (thank you) on behalf of a local nonprofit

2. We pay our nonprofit partners for your stuff, helping them fund programs in your community.

3. Your one-of-a-kind finds are given a second chance to be loved again by thrifters like you.

4. Together, we champion reuse and keep millions of reusable items out of landfills every year."

That sounds great, but what does it mean? The way they present themselves is problematic (and used to be more problematic before the lawsuits).

Their corporate statements - and the in-store PA announcements - are carefully worded to give the impression that the company collects donations, sells them, then gives the money to charity. But in actual practice, it means that they collect our donations, price them as they want, and sell them for a big profit while paying a pittance to their "local non-profit partners". Bags of clothing are weighed and literally just pennies a pound goes to the charity (some sources say as little as 1 cent per pound). Items like furniture get 2 cents each. Items not covered in the deal (nicknacks etc, reportedly including media, electronics, all glassware, etc), VV does not pay the charity for at all. On top of all of that, VV weighs and prices all items themselves with zero oversight, and the charities they partner with simply have to trust that they are properly weighing, counting and reporting everything.

So VV just needs to find a charity partner willing to let them use the name so they can make themselves seem (basically) like a non-profit. A charity will say yes (Canadian Diabetes is the big one right now) because, why not? Even if it's less than 0.5% of what VV takes in it's still found money to them. And the Savers board rakes in the rest of the cash for themselves.

Also who are the other non-profits? Are they tied to Savers board members? Do they even exist? Why has VV always been so secretive about them?

VV does a lot of good things. They DO help keep reusable items out of landfills (though you could argue donated items would simply find their way to another thrift store if VV didn't exist). And the general opinion seems to be they are quite good to their employees, as well as good recyclers. But their business practices concerning how they present themselves are problematic. Do they break the law? I don't think so. Are they still deliberately misleading their donors and consumers? Absolutely.

The article should reflect this, imho.

I don't have time to take on a project like this (sourcing articles etc) but I hope someone else does.

If they simply waid "We give __% of our profits to registered non-profits/charities" detractors like me wouldn't have a problem with them. The fact that they keep that number so secret says a lot about how they actually run their business.

That's my two cents. No, it's not neutral, but this is just the talk page and I'm hoping to spur Wiki editors to look into and include the "other side" of VV since this article really does read like it was written by Savers' own PR department. MisterBobbyJ (talk) 15:59, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Savers / Value Village - Lies and Half Truths

Savers/ Value Village can probably be seen as the longest running scam, as they have lied to the public, and have pretended to be what they are not, while giving very little information on their operations even thought the company has a long history. They have gone undetected in and the United States and Canada because they partner with non profit organizations. Most of the public think they are not profit, while they have never, ever have been.

As late as February 21, 2011, they had advertising on Time.com, a very online portion to the magazine, calling themselves a "nonprofit" in their advertising line.

Advertising Tag It’s a Deal: 50% Off at Savers on President’s Day

"On Monday, February 21, the non-profit secondhand store chain Savers is selling all used clothing, shoes, accessories, and bed and bath items at 50% off. " http://moneyland.time.com/2011/02/18/its-a-deal-50-off-at-savers-on-presidents-day/Starbwoy (talk) 22:58, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

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Value village seems to have their PR people/ employees scouring the net for any articles/ blog to chime in, and fix their image. I've seen this on several articles. Perverted and very disturbing.

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I started asking questions about Value village around 2005 after being in the store in my area. Their annoying brain washing over audio PA store advertising always mention that the money goes to charitable organizations, Yet they would never mention the charity. A year ago they have since up a large expensive on the glass storefront signs covering the whole half of the front window, a charity they in bed with, and to stop people from asking questions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Starbwoy (talk • contribs) 23:28, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

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Most of these articles always seem seem to disappear from the internet

http://www.angelfire.com/indie/tvi_report/Starbwoy (talk) 02:38, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I dont know how to get this into the reference section, dosent seem to stay yhere the bot keeps removing it.Starbwoy (talk) 03:07, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm removing fair use warninf, its taking up too musch sapce...its from 2007Starbwoy (talk) 03:09, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I think Angelfire is on the spam blacklist. Have to find something more reputable. The Interior (Talk) 03:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

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The article mention is from an original report written by an Alberta newspaper. The newspaper is not in business anymore. As mentioned before many articles mentioning Value Village Business practices dont stay up. there are several blogs and threads that have popped up the in the last few years...these should be accepted as reference materialStarbwoy (talk) 03:33, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I remember the Alberta Report. It was pretty wild. We had the BC Report here, same people, I think. The article mentions an LA Times piece - "In 1987, the Los Angeles Times documented ...." Should try track that down. The Interior (Talk) 03:38, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Please find it if you can.

Whats interesting is that my expose, and others peoples expose was all taken down, but Value villages marketing was all left up, even though none of it is referenced.Starbwoy (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:30, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

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The description of their donation model is incorrect. Only soft items, like clothing or stuffed animals, benefit the store's non-profit partner. Hard items like books, housewares, and furniture are pure profit for the store; the non-profits don't see a dime of that. So while they might boast about paying non-profits 'by the pound' they are only partially truthful-- anything that weighs a substantial amount is worth nothing to the non-profit. Valuepillage (talk) 23:35, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

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A problem with articles on Wikipedia that appear deficient is that Wikipedia is not a medium for "original research". You might know something interesting but posting it in Wikipedia before it has appeared in a trusted public source is not allowed. If you write something hard-hitting and it is submitted to a newspaper and the fact-checkers and lawyers there pass it for publication and it is published, then it can be referred to on Wikipedia.truthordare (talk) 16:19, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Lawsuit/updating page

This page needs a lot of work, including clear mention of the ongoing lawsuit against the company filed by the Washington state attorney general in late 2017. There are plenty of sources, [1] and [2]for example, that show how newsworthy this is. This is different from the Minnesota AG's suit, which is mentioned, but rather vaguely. I may try to clean up this page when I have more time; but if someone else has a better handle on it, I am all for them jumping in. Kerdooskis (talk) 17:16, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I added details about the King County Superior Court decision against Value Village, but not the background Kerdooskis mentioned. I am also unaware of whether or not Value Village has subsequently appealed the decision or not, so my update may already be dated.Glandrid (talk) 15:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)