2nd & Charles — Local services in Gainesville

2nd and Charles has always been one of my favorite stores, but after today’s visit I won’t be going back any time soon. For starters, many items sold new in the store are marked up in comparison to all the other stores carrying the same items. Prime example is the Lego sets. The King Fisher set sold for $54.99 at 2nd&C is $49.99 or less at any other retail store including Lego.com and Barnes & Noble. The new Hei Hei set sold at $42.99 is $39.99 or less elsewhere. I do understand the company has a right to charge whatever to an extent but I got to looking around and saw the same thing across the board with books, record players, games, and many other products. Yes, the used books are fairly priced for the most part but they’re are some books with price tags that don’t match the condition they’re in. I will say I bought the Hei Hei anyways as I had store credit ($94+) and wanted to make sure I used it all. However, the real icing on the cake was “Sam” who acted like I didn’t know what I was talking about when I explained that my Driver’s license number was different from the one in the system because I recently got my CDL. He even went so far as to act like I couldn’t use my store credit without the physical copy of my old license, even though I had a picture of it and the physical copy of the new one. Thankfully the other guy that was at the registers told him to accept the photo and I was able to clear out the store credit balance. I was absolutely disgusted by the whole interaction and will not be spending any more money at 2nd...

I’ve been coming to this store for years and have had some great and horrible experiences. Everything has to do with the high employee turnover. I’ve never seen the same person working here twice. Typically there’s one person running the entire store - counter, stocking, cleaning, buying books back. It’s ridiculous. Sometimes they are training someone at the book buyback but it just slows them down, which is why it takes literally hours for them to give you a price. The buyback prices are a joke and you shouldn’t even bother selling anything to this place because they already have way too much stock and will get nothing out of selling to them.

However, I’ve gotten some good deals on used manga and CDs here - when there’s someone available that’s actually willing to check me out - and there’s a ton of variety. Books, video games, consoles, manga, vinyl, journals, backpacks, mugs, candy, you name it. I’ve also had some positive employee interactions, with one person helping carry a box out to my car and another calling me informing me I didn’t have to come back to the store to claim my buyback credit and that he could just add it to my account. I’ve also had experiences where nobody would wait on me at all, again, because of lack of people working, but I left with nothing because of it, leading them to not be able to pay for people working… it’s a cycle.

Variety and sometimes deals on used stuff, good. Lack of employees and buyback...

DISAPPOINTING. The buy back system at this store needs a lot of improvement. At 12:05pm, I brought in almost 100 dvds, a combination of 20 xbox one and ps4 games, samsung VR, a call of duty XBOX controller, and a large superman decorative print. They finished going through everything more than 4 hours later.....They offered me "10%" of the items values. A grand total of $61.50. If you opt for store credit, they offer approximately 20%. When i looked at the pricing of similar or exact items in their store, i did not receive 10% of what they sell items for. The manager, JOSH, gave me a long winded explanation of how they grade items based on condition, their inventory, and popularity of items.......and he said i could take my items back if i didn't accept their offer. I took the cash because i don't plan on coming back to this store..... the store credit can be used to buy their overpriced items. With amazon and google at your fingertips, how can this store sell new items for more money? For example, a minecraft lamp in their store sells for $49.99. The EXACT same lamp is sold for $34.99 at target.......so......buyers and sellers beware. I DO NOT...