The Grid - Goodwill Spinoff Store

[Hazerd]

Found this on imgur front page currently, looks like a pretty sweet store, i cant imagine it being something they put all over America though, but if you live near it, should go check it out.

Hope the prices are competitive with the internet, otherwise this store will be eaten alive.

[flojocabron]

oh!

So thats where they've been sending all their games.

no wonder I cant find any good games at the goodwill anymore.

Well if the neighborhood is affluent enough and with plenty of hipsters it may just do okay.

[J T]

Looks pretty nice. Not like my local Goodwill. Prices probably are higher, and they're already pretty high at my local Goodwill.

[suprmonky73]

So this place is in Charlotte, NC for those who didn't see that part. I've visted this store several times. None of the goodwill's in the area have anything video game related whatsoever, it all gets set to this store, it used to be the Goodwill Computerworks Store. They sell video games, 3rd party controllers and accessories, retrons, used computer items, all sort of electronics. The staff is pretty knowledgable...the last time I was in there, two of them were trying to put together a raspberry pi into an NES to make a cool looking emulator machine.
Also, they have an Oculus Rift set up to try out. It's pretty damn cool.

Prices are generally from Price Charting, you can catch a few under priced games for the most part. I have found a few good ps2 games there for roughly the going ebay price.. Dark Cloud 2, both Drakengard games, Silhouette Mirage, Tales of the Abyss. When they opened they had several copies of Smash Bros, mario strikers, mario kart. Their glass case is solid too, CIB Metal storm, CIB Pokemon Yellow , other NES CIB games etc.

A few other interesting things:
1)Save Point Video Games is about 2 miles away, pretty direct competition especially when this store is getting their stock for free and it funnels in from all of the goodwills around this part of NC.
2)It's right across the street from UNC Charlotte. The store opened in early summer and it will be interesting to see what happens when kids come back to school and find this new game store. Even with it being summer, there are always at least 5 other people in there.
3) if you drive from The Grid to Save Point there is a used book store who also has a decent selection of games/consoles.

Charlotte has become quite the retro game area, as there are now around 10 game store within about an hour drive of downtown (it's called uptown here for some reason) Charlotte.

[Fragems]

I'd say their is a decent probability that their prices are bat shit crazy, but from the few price tags on the computers in the pics maybe they are semi reasonable for once. Around here the crazies at one store actually put $50 on a N64 with no A/V cable or Power Brick with AS IS written on the front in marker .

[CRTGAMER]

oh!

So thats where they've been sending all their games.

No wonder I cant find any good games at the goodwill anymore.

Well if the neighborhood is affluent enough and with plenty of hipsters it may just do okay.

Bah! This makes it too easy for the resellers to dig thru while also pulling product away from local Goodwill stores. A nice store which I would love to shop, just wonder how many treasures will be missed in the regular Goodwills due to others not willing to do the hunt. Convenience is nice, but I like the idea of discovering a game at a great price after digging thru the shelves.

Prices are generally from Price Charting, you can catch a few under priced games for the most part. I have found a few good ps2 games there for roughly the going ebay price.. Dark Cloud 2, both Drakengard games, Silhouette Mirage, Tales of the Abyss. When they opened they had several copies of Smash Bros, mario strikers, mario kart. Their glass case is solid too, CIB Metal storm, CIB Pokemon Yellow , other NES CIB games etc.

It's right across the street from UNC Charlotte. The store opened in early summer and it will be interesting to see what happens when kids come back to school and find this new game store. Even with it being summer, there are always at least 5 other people in there.

Oh crap. Goodwill getting into the Video Game Price Charting act. This on FREE DONATED stuff! So much for a non profit company that does not pay taxes. I hope that store folds since the online route at the same price will have a much larger selection.

[BRIK]

I agree with CRTGAMER, I go to op-shops explicitly because they're so cheap since they're selling stuff given to them for free. If I wanted to go to a central games shop full of internet based pricing, I'd just check out a pawn store =/
I doubt this will become a common occurrence though, not many op-shops are as big as Goodwill and probably wouldn't be able to start up entire game based storefronts.

[fastbilly1]

The Grid, is the renamed Goodwill Computerworks that we have spoken at at length here.
prfsnl_gmr has been going for years, I use to go everytime I went through Charlotte. This is far from being news.

[Tanooki]

It would be nice if it failed since they use the video game price charting website to price things because they're not the internet, they're local and really should serve the community even if it's just a little under to get people in the door. Asking top dollar internet pricing just makes it a matter of convenience for the impatient or untrusting of ebay. The thing is with UNC across the street, it won't bomb. All those college gamers and hipster types will scoop up stuff there left and right, all this nice stuff that's donated to them for free to the so called non-profit goodwill.

I have zero issue with retail, but I do have issue when retail wants to ask the mid-high (or over) ebay paid pricing with shipping on stuff as it's garbage. I know you can make a profit by paying a certain level of fairness while also asking less than online a bit. It makes return business better as you keep your customers happy, but you walk a line where you price it there and not low enough there to get poached for ebay scalpers. Save Point VG he has an account over at NA and has taken a lot of pictures and talked a lot about his model. He has a catch all setup like The Grid there has it appears. If your usual local store will pay 10% on a trade in for cash and 15% credit, he'll go a little higher so better stuff comes in, and if it's high dollar shit that moves fast he'll pay considerably more (I've seen a fair share of 100-300+ valued NES/SNES stuff pop up often in his pics) and he'll ask under what it sells for on ebay on the lower end but not low enough to get poached. Because of that a lot of good stuff comes in regularly and he has lots of return business, probably much of it from those college students too. I think he also runs regular competitions and other events to keep things flowing among other unique stuff. I think he'll keep the UNC people and other kids coming in, the Grid will get some, but if they find they can go a mile down the road and pay 10-20% less and have better variety they'll be ok.

[Hazerd]

The Grid, is the renamed Goodwill Computerworks that we have spoken at at length here.
prfsnl_gmr has been going for years, I use to go everytime I went through Charlotte. This is far from being news.

News to me! i never heard of it until i saw it on Imgur.