Cucamonga Kids Consignment Shop: A Customer Review

This is a customer review of Cucamonga Kids, a consignment shop in Auburn, California. Cucamonga Kids is located at 1360 Grass Valley Highway (Highway 49), in the city of Auburn. This shop carries mainly clothing, however at times they also sell some children's sports equipment. Additionally, Cucamonga Kids usually has a selection of baby equipment for sale, such as strollers, high chairs, baby bouncers and baby slings/carriers. My most recent visit to Cucamonga Kids was in November of 2010.

Location - Cucamonga Kids is located in the Pioneer Village Shopping Center. It's a nice location, fairly easy to get to. Although there is no stoplight at Holly Vista Way, only a turn lane. This can make it a little difficult to get to during high traffic times of the day, as Highway 49 is very busy during rush hour times. Cucamonga Kids is the last shop in this tiny shopping center, and has 6- 10 parking spaces.

Service - Every employee of Cucamonga Kids that I have encountered has been pleasant, and helpful. It appears as though there is typically only one employee working in the front most of the time, which is adequate.

Quality of clothing for sale - It seems to me that only 40% - 50% of the clothing inventory on the floor at Cucamonga Kids is of high enough quality to be resold in a consignment shop. Although most of the items are name brand, a lot of the inventory seems outdated, in my opinion. For older girls, there seems to usually be a fairly heavy supply of jeans, pants, and sweatshirts that are made by brands like Roxy, Hurley, and sometimes even Abercrombie & Fitch. However, these items usually appear to be at least a few years old, so the styles seem dated. The same is true for most of the items found in Cucamonga Kids that are made by The Gap.

For younger kids, the most prominent clothing brand in Cucamonga Kids seems to be Gymboree. Much of these are in girls' sizes from 6 to 9, and the same items are seen over and over. It appears as though perhaps somebody who works for Gymboree purchases a lot of clearance items with their 50% discount, and then resells to Cucamonga Kids. Again, a lot of it seems outdated, although new.

During my most recent visit to Cucamonga Kids, I noticed many items that were not "upscale" brands, such as Circo (Target), and even Faded Glory (Wal-Mart). Since Cucamonga advertises themselves as carrying upscale brands, it would seem that these brands should be omitted. The items of these brands appeared mostly in the boys' section, which is quite thin for a consignment shop. So perhaps management was taking in off-brands in order to fill up space.

The clothing items for sale in Cucamonga Kids appear to be clean, and typically free of stains or fading.

Prices - The prices at Cucamonga Kids are quite good on many items, although prices did seem to have risen overall to some degree since my previous visit. Many items are priced in the $5-$6 range. Some items, on the other hand, seem unreasonably overpriced. During my last visit I saw Christmas dresses for $22 and up, and Winter coats priced as high as $40. These are used items. Not just used, but used by kids. No matter what the condition or brand, those prices seem unreasonable for used children's clothing items. Personally, I would go purchase new items somewhere else before spending that much on used clothing items from Cucamonga Kids.

A few additional points: the shop is crowded with inventory, so it can be difficult to actually see all that they have available for sale. And while Cucamonga Kids does sell some great toy items, like new puppets from Melissa & Doug, some of the toys seemed to me like they belonged in a thrift store rather than a consignment shop. Further, several of the pairs of shoes for sale during my most recent visit were too dirty, in my opinion, to be sitting on a shelf for sale. Although, in fairness, that isn't an uncommon practice in children's consignment shops, unfortunately. Overall, Cucamonga Kids is a consignment shop worth stopping into once in a while, in my opinion.