Deseret Industries Thrift Store & Donation Center — Attraction in West Valley City

I’m disabled so I have a lot of spare time and have been visiting this location 2 to 3 times a week for a couple of years now. While overall the store is well kept, and the prices are reasonable on some things I’ve begun noticing what really is lack of knowledge, training, and common sense in the pricing of certain items. Some of the worst over pricing is what they consider “collectibles”. Over the last couple of months I’ve seen two prime examples the first was some display knives and swords they had priced at twice what they are on Amazon. In fact a couple of the Japanese sword sets they had each sword priced at $30 for each of 3 swords when they were a matching set that sells for about $60 on Amazon brand new. Another example was a couple of weeks ago someone had donated a bunch of old NES games. They priced each one at $15, and while that was a decent price for 2 of them being an avid NES collector who owns all the games they had most were only worth $2-$3. The most egregious over pricing in my opinion is the fact that they have started charging for the missionary editions of the church’s scriptures. These are the ones that the church gives away for free. So, they are charging for somethIng they got for free from someone who was likely given it for free by the church that owns the store. Honestly I think if the church leaders were to actually see some of what’s going on at the various locations they would be extremely disappointed. I’ve seen broken furniture and electronics, dirty kitchen appliances as well as pots and pans, and worst of all a few weeks ago I was looking for some jeans and one pair had poop on the inside of them, and they weren’t just stained it was crusty looking. Knowing a few people that work at the various locations they have focused to much on pushing as much onto the floor as they can. The people in the back processing the items have a specific volume they have to put out daily. This greatly reduces the quality of what is going out on the floor when they only have just enough time to tag something. From a former management position I can honestly say things will only get worse as long as the mentality of quantity is the driving factor. In the last two years not only this location, but every other one in the Valley has gone from about 4.5 star to a 2-3...

I've been shopping this location in West valley City since they opened somewhere around 20 years ago. I've shopped all the desert industries from California through Las Vegas and into Preston Idaho (The store featured in Napoleon Dynamite) and this is by far my favorite location.

If your family oriented you can appreciate being treated like family as I have always been treated here. I can remember the managers here going back beyond Patrick , yeah that was a while ago, hey Patrick!

The employees are great too, a big shout out to Paula, Dawn, Winter, Alexander and anyone else whose names I can't remember.

I saw someone else leaving a negative review because they were bringing too many carts out? Isn't that a positive? That's my favorite time is when they're bringing all the carts out at the best indoor yard sale on the planet... Aka Desert Industries If you want to invent something or wondered how something works, buy it here for $1 $5 $20, take it home chop it up and figure it out. The potentials for art and creativity are endless here. If you're going to paint your house come here and buy some oversize stuff so you don't get paint all over your good clothes.

The possibilities are endless if you have any imagination or spark of creativity in you whatsoever.

Now let's not forget the most important part and that is the training and the charity... The deseret industries does on the job training and puts people to work, beautiful brilliant people who otherwise might not be given a chance elsewhere are put on track two become functioning members of our great society. Remember these are your neighbors, friends and family so yeah for less than it cost to go to a movie you can have a lot of fun here and change someone's life for the better.

Thanks for reading my review, I'm out of...

It's really out of character for me to leave a bad review on a place, but I'll make an exception for this location. I was hunting around for some cheap baking trays, found some items I liked, and went to the register. The two cashiers that had been standing there prior were gone, so I just waited for a few minutes. A few minutes turned into a line five people deep, and still no employees in sight. Everyone is standing there, looking around trying to find someone to help ring up our items. Minutes keep ticking by, and every now and then I see an associate in the clothing racks. We'd make eye contact, and they'd stop, look left to right then they'd quickly walk away. I think it'd been close to ten minutes, abandoned stuff was getting piled up on the registers as people were getting frustrated and walking out, and someone runs over. He hops on the register furthest away from all of us, so the line awkwardly shuffles over. He rings up my stuff, and then tells me I can't pay with my card. So I just left my stuff on the counter and walked out. I think I can safely say I won't be visiting this...