storewanderer wrote: ↑September 20th, 2020, 12:42 am
pseudo3d wrote: ↑September 18th, 2020, 9:17 pm
I'm not sure about the Goodwill connection, I know Goodwill tends to have a bunch of "franchisees" (for lack of a better word) that do things slightly differently, like how some Goodwill stores will move into a dead retail building but then you have the ones in central Florida with attractive new builds.
Technically the Goodwills are different non-profit entities by region completely separate entities, 990 tax return filed, management, etc. but members of sorts of the national Goodwill entity. As far as the stores go, they all say Goodwill, but the actual operation of the stores is quite different depending on the controlling entity.
Value Village/Savers works with non-profits to source items (they have historically been big at buying donations from MS) but they are a for-profit business and I believe all of their stores are corporate owned. They let MS and other non-profits collect items for them then pay MS by the pound for the items and sort them for resale (or disposal). A Savers recently closed in Sparks, NV.
The one here has announcements playing over the PA system that mentions Suncoast Goodwill Stores. It's in a former Office Max and takes up the whole store so it's pretty big. Plus it has concrete floors and warehouse ceilings. I don't remember if Office Max originally had concrete floors or if it had tiles and Goodwill removed them, but I'm thinking the former.
I remember years ago there was another Goodwill in my area in a shopping center (which that section has since been demolished). It felt more like a typical mom and pop thrift store in that it was much smaller, and there were no new items for sale, unlike the current Goodwill where I'd say 1/5 of the items are new. That store seemed to have a southwestern flair to its decor, and had teal and pinkish colors if I remember right. This was in the late 90s/very early 2000s.
Back to Halloween stores, I guess it is possible Spirit did team up with Goodwill in order to continue to run a store here. Still at this point, seems they could easily open in the former Kmart or even now, Sears, and have lots more space, vs Goodwill where the selection is very condensed vs a typical Spirit store. I would think the mall would be interested in getting any revenue they could for those spaces, even if it is just seasonal.