Our story begins in 1955, when our founder purchased our first location in Cleveland, Ohio. He wanted to serve his community by offering affordable, gently used items.A father of 3 young children, he worked day and night to support his family and make the store a success. It worked!
Today, we have 12 thrift store locations throughout Ohio and Michigan. Each store offers a huge selection and fair pricing on quality items.Our goals havent changed: were still family-owned, and were still committed to taking care of our communities.
Weve also helped save perfectly good items from being wasted. Over the years, weve kept more than 100,000,000 pounds of items from going to a landfill. When you shop at Value World thrift stores, you help create a better way of living. For all of us.
Its true, more than 6o years ago, when our family founded the company (or even 20 years ago), you could find items for a dollar (or sometimes less) at Value World. Over the decades though, weve had to gradually raise prices to cover our costs and keep up with inflation.
Some people think the items we sell are donated to us (meaning, we get them for free). In fact, 99% of our inventory is not. We buy almost everything we sell in our stores from nonprofits, recycling programs, retailers, and many other sources.
In addition, the cost of shipping and storing those items, operating our stores, and offering our employees competitive wages, means we have to price things fairly, while still paying our bills and staffing our stores.
And now, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, our costs as well as those of every other business have gone up even more. Even so, were committed to keeping prices as low as possible, so you get the most value for your money.
How do we price our items? Every single item we sell is sorted, evaluated, and priced by an individual. We carefully train our team members to price items as low as possible, based on quality, condition, brand, and fair market value.
Do we sometimes get it wrong? Sure. Were only human. If you find an item that seems overpriced, please email us with a picture and the store location, and well look into it. We appreciate your help in improving our pricing and procedures, and we thank you for shopping at Value World!