Sozo Trading Co. — Attraction in Birmingham

Bar none- this is the best thrift/consignment shop in Birmingham. The prices are excellent- the store is clean and well organized and the people are the BEST. The store is arranged in an a-typical way, so do NOT cheat yourself... explore. The interior structure at the center of the store contains hand made items and crafts from the SOZO children and villagers from around the world. Go in- look at these amazing items and ask anyone there about their stories. To the left on the racks surrounding the SOZO crafts you’ll find women’s, children’s, and men’s thrift clothing. And in the back left corner- dollar and half-priced items. To the right surrounding the crafts you’ll find furniture and knick nacks and whatnots galore... art is against the right wall and on the front right wall are interesting and antique thrift items. On all of the other walls are consignment, handmade and antique booths. People pay a rental fee and percentage to the company to display their treasures and finds. NOTE: before you saunter off to those booths, check the sign at the front of the store. Some vendors will mark their whole booth down (like, “booth 50 is 30% off). I love this place. It’s a rare week when I do not...

We have gone here on several occasions. Our visit on Friday, Sept. 23 was very frustrating. My wife bought a package of place mats with 4 written on the outside. Also written was "Do not open". She bought another package of what she assumed was 4. Once in the car, she opened the package that said 4. There were only 3. The next package only had 3, and one did not match. We returned to the store within 5 minutes. The manager said she could do nothing about the 3 in a package marked 4. She said we could keep the 2 in the other package that had 3. In other words, no refund. I find this very poor customer service. I also would describe this as deceitful and fraudulent merchandise pricing and packaging. Forcing someone to keep something which was not presented as packaged is wrong. I told the manager that I would just donate it back to them and left. We will not be going back. I leave you with the old adage "Buyer beware" ...

You don’t want to go here… and find all the wonderful things. You don’t want to go here and be amazed at the color of the day tags where you might get 50% off yellow and 75% off green that day. You don’t want to find the most amazing dollhouse for $50 and wish you were a kid again to buy it. You don’t want to find some boutique brand new clothes for actually great prices. You don’t want to go here and find the most perfect dress that somehow fits like an absolute tailored glove. You don’t want to explore the individual stalls around the outside of whole store, where individual’s taste and collections range from cute and kitschy to antique and elegant. You don’t want to find unscratched Ray bans for $20, you simply DO NOT WANT TO! Because this place is frigging awesome. You’re never going to want to leave. You do however want to donate all your wonderful things so I can luck out each time...