Red White & Blue Thrift Store — Attraction in Clinton Township

It has been a year since I posted a review for this place and I wanted to edit it since things have changed over the last year or so. I have deducted a star, for reasons that will become clear.

To be brief, this store is under new ownership/management, and while they have mostly preserved what made the store good to begin with, their changes have mostly been to the detriment of the customer. It remains one of the best selections in the Metro Area, especially for men's clothing, but prices are going up in a way that feels contrived and actively anti-consumer.

CONS: -1: Cash only. Bring cash ahead of time if you can, because the ATMs in the store charge a $3.25 fee and sometimes run out of money during peak hours/closing time.

-2: No dressing rooms. Know your measurements.

-3: As far as I can tell, this store engages in pricing practices based on what they know people are buying. It seems to be store policy to mark down which items, sizes, and brands will sell even when they are not on sale or sell quickly. Staff will mark the item down on a notepad at the register, and what price it sold for. Over time, the prices on these brands have increased almost 100%. For example, a used Polo Ralph Lauren shirt used to cost $10 fresh on the rack, now their tags frequently read $20+. Brands and articles of clothing that the general public and pricing staff are not familiar with, however, continue to be priced at normal thrift store prices, despite being nicer items/marques.

-4: The tag sales are not as prolific as they once were. New management has introduced an additional "peach" tag color, for a total of six. This makes it take longer for fresh items to go on sale. This, in turn, makes it more likely that customers buy the grossly marked up items described above before they go on sale, as they know the item is desirable and that someone may snatch it before they are able to come back.

-5: Tags are stapled to clothes, often in highly visible places like shirt collars. If this weren't bad enough, the place has started using magnetic anti-theft devices on clothing that management knows from the data collected at checkout are desirable. These devices are attached to the clothing with stakes that leave large holes in the store's most desirable items. This is a baffling decision.

PROS: -1: The selection remains excellent. This store has one of the best men's thrift sections around, and an even more massive women's section to go with it. Most of my wardrobe has come exclusively from here. Housewares, electronics, and furniture all have much smaller selections, but it is still very easy to find nice things for reasonable prices if you go regularly.

-2: The tag sales are still good and regular, even if they are not quite what they used to be. It is still easy to use the tag sales to blunt the higher prices if you know what to look for and what items of clothing tend to get passed over.

-3: Staff are always courteous and unobtrusive while stocking the racks, which is something they are always doing. This store replenishes the racks multiple times per day, and this is a huge plus. You can go just about any time and still find nice things, because not everything nice is put out in the morning when the reseller vultures line up outside to try and snag it.

-4: Open every day from 9 to 9. This is perhaps the only positive change new management has made, and it sure beats the hours that most other stores have.

-5: Staffing has improved. No longer are only three of this place's nine registers...

I have been to many different thrift stores over the years which this one definitely has a lot of good stuff to rummage through; However, over the years the prices just keep going up which I feel is only taking advantage of people. Sure, some people go that can afford to pay any price but others truly rely on thrift stores to help outfit their kids and themselves. This store is a prime example of getting too big for their britches and over charging for DONATED items that they should be selling at a fraction of the cost. Their motive has turned into greed and that alone makes me not want to give them my business. The other issue is that they try to cram every spare space with stuff that it makes it literally impossible to try and maneuver through the aisles. Top that with a ton of different workers pushing their racks through these over stuffed aisles with people and their carts trying to shop and constantly being told to move because you, the shopper who is supporting this store, is in THEIR way. This happens constantly to the point you give up even trying to look. I have left my cart at the end of the aisle in order to look without constantly having to move it out of the way only to come back to find it gone because the workers thought it would be a good idea to start putting my items back away then being told I shouldn't have abandoned it. Absolutely ridiculous! We are talking two minutes with me only a short distance away. They have toys everywhere, including on the floor which is paradise to any kid but God forbid they touch the toy or you will be told that toys are not to be touched. After asking the logic behind such nonsense, I was told it is a safety issue of blocking the aisle. Ironic as they are monopolizing every spare space with their huge racks they are trying to shove past the shoppers. They make your experience stressed and frustrating. I personally think someone needs to do something about them over charging people and bring them back down to the reality of what a thrift store...

This store sometimes has decent stuff but you can be certain it will be priced extremely high if they think it is worth anything. Not to mention a lot of their items end up broken because it is poorly organized, like don't even bother looking through the frames and pictures section, almost everything's broken and there is broken glass all over that area all the time. But my biggest problem are the worker's attitudes. There are occasions when everything goes fine and they all seem nice. But most of the time they are extremely rude. For example if I am at the jewelery counter, I am usually waiting for 15+ minutes while numerous workers ignore me and my asking for help. There was also one time where they had the wrong sale colors up on their scrolling sign, so I picked out a whole bunch of white tag items, thinking they were 50% off because that is what their sign said. Only to be told at the register that they are not on sale and that their sign is messed up. At this point I am already attached to these items so I pay full price for them. But the more I thought about it after I left the more angry I got because other people are going to do the same thing I did. So I call and ask to talk to the manager because if the sign is wrong it should be turned off. Every "manager" I talked to claimed the sign is working fine and that I must be lying. Even though, it hadn't even been 5 minutes since I left and their worker told me the sign was messed up and that they couldn't fix it. I ended up being on the phone with them for almost 20 minutes, most of the time on hold, just to be transferred to another manager that just said "the sign is fine" and hung up on me. It wasn't like I was asking for a refund all I wanted was for them to turn broken sign off. I would...