Value Village in Greensboro NC

So Value Village (which bills itself as a "thrift department store") just recently opened up in Greensboro. It's located on High Point Road in a nice big building, which is a plus. However, that is the only plus I can see.

I went to Value Village the other day, at a friend's behest, expecting something similar to Carolina Thrift. I left quite disappointed by my visit. First of all, the clothes, of which there were many, were organized terribly. There didn't seem to be much organization at all, in fact. In the women's section, all the clothes had handwritten store tags on them with an "L" next to the price, which was quite confusing. At first we thought they just had nothing smaller than a large for some weird reason, but then we realized that there was an L on every single tag of women's clothing. Why, I don't know. Most places will write the size of the clothing on their store tags to make it easier to find what you're looking for, but this was not the case. It really made it hard to find the right size, especially since the clothes didn't seem to be organized by size at all. The women's clothing was mostly chaos.

I couldn't find anything that looked good (or the right size) in the women's section, so out of curiosity I headed to the girl's section. That was as big a mess. There were juniors dresses in with the girls dresses. There were juniors tops in the girls dresses section. There were even maternity tops and pants in the girls section. It was like the people who had organized the store had no idea what they were doing and just threw a bunch of stuff wherever. It was completely ridiculous.

Despite the poor organization, I did manage to find--after much hunting--a handful of various items that I wanted to try on. So I set out for the dressing rooms. After wandering around the store for awhile, coming upon door after door that was for employees only but nothing resembling dressing rooms, I asked at the front of the store. This was no easy task, considering that while I stood there waiting, a cashier stood there talking to a friend while completely ignoring me. Finally, without apology or anything that could be considered customer service in the slightest, the cashier directed me to someone else, who informed me that there were no dressing rooms.

Wait, what? No dressing rooms? I was really confused. How can something that claims to be a department store not have dressing rooms? How can a place that sells that much clothing not have dressing rooms? My friend suggested that maybe it was because they were new, and they hadn't gotten around to putting them in yet. I thought that made sense, since they clearly had the space to put in dressing rooms. So I asked, and the answer was that they didn't have electronic security tags (you know, those little tags that set off electronic store alarms when taken out of the store) on the clothing, so they didn't have dressing rooms and they weren't planning on getting them. Well, that was about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I don't think I've ever been to a thrift store that has electronic security tags on the clothing, but yet every thrift store I've been to before Value Village has had *dressing rooms*, for goodness sake. Because it's ridiculous not to have dressing rooms! I mean, yeah, a few people will probably steal stuff but a) I used to work at a store that had security tags on all the clothing---people find a way to steal stuff anyway, and b) hello--your clothes cost like $4, if a few things get stolen, you'll live. You'll probably lose more money on losing customers like me because you don't have dressing rooms than you would getting a few cheap items stolen.

Anyway, when I found out the no dressing room thing, I decided right then and there never to come back. The way clothing is made these days, everything fits differently, and you never know how something is going to feel or look on unless you try it on. It's just not worth it. So I put back my pile of potential clothing but I decided to buy one shirt, as it was cheap, really cute, and it looked like it would fit. So my friend and I got in line, which took a ridiculous amount of time. It was like the cashiers were in slow motion. There were two lines open, plus one person who appeared to work there who was just standing around or talking or something. Anyway, in both lines there was only person ahead of us who only had a few things, so it made no sense that it was taking so long. When I finally got up to the front of the line, I found out--and here's the kicker--they don't allow refunds. You can exchange items or return them for store credit, but no refunds. Oh great. So I can buy something I can't try on, and if I get it home and it turns out it doesn't fit, I can come back and exchange it for something else I can't try on....and so on. Are you kidding me? If you don't have dressing rooms, the least, the very least, you can do is allow refunds within a few days time. That's just too ridiculous. This, I thought, is definitely a place that doesn't care the slightest about its customers. That was definitely the last straw there. At that point, I decided to not only never go there again, but to warn other people about it (hence this article). (Oh yeah--at the point I found that out I had already started the transaction for my shirt so I went ahead and bought it. When I got home, I found it fit but was uncomfortable. If I had been allowed to try it on I wouldn't have bought it, but I wasn't about to go back there to exchange it.)

Value Village does have items other than clothing, including some really cheap furniture, but I just don't think it's worth it. There are better options than going to a store that basically says "f@#k you" to all its customers. So next time you're wanting to go to a thrift store, check out Carolina Thrift. It's huge (way bigger than Value Village), more organized, has a large selection of items including furniture, has better customer service, and--the best part--has dressing rooms. Or go to Goodwill, even. Just don't bother with Value Village.