Marden’s

This is my favorite Marden’s store. As a long time Marden’s shopper I can tell you that this place, and the entire chain, is not as good as it used to be. That is I used to find amazing deals but the amazing deals are mostly gone and I occasionally find a pretty good deal.
This location has a phenomenal fabric selection. You can leave having spent $ 100 and have an amazing haul of last season’s and the season’s before patterns. Name brands and awesome patterns. When you compare the amount purchased to a place like Walmart you easily have double the amount of fabric. When compared to Joanne’s hell it’s 3 or 4 times the amount.
If you need bolts and tools, this is a good place to get cheapo made in china junk. Occasionally something better.
Another location to look is shoes. They occasionally get in name brands and sell them at 50% MSRP. (In contrast to their old pricing which was a mystery but was always about 25% of the MSRP) I picked up a snazzy pair of Tretorn sneaker that list for about $ 65 and I snagged them for $ 32. Not bad at all. Occasionally you can still find $ 5 shoes if you look hard.
The Marden’s organizational «system» must always be mentioned in a review of Marden’s. They have general areas where stuff is dropped. That is to say there are aisles for the sneakers, clothing, tools, etc. The shoes and fabric are pretty well organized, but the rest of the store really follows that pallet drop mentality. Drop it and unload it in that area. In some case the pallet is simply cut open and left to sit.

There’s a certain other «discount department store» in this state that calls itself a «Maine adventure,» but if we are really being honest, there are bigger adventures to be had at a Marden’s. The nature of the surplus/​salvage model means that offerings at each store are different, and the inventory can be quite eclectic. This Brewer Marden’s is one of the more balanced franchises. There always seems to be something that catches my eye in every department here. Housewares, clothes, fabric, books, electronics, shoes, you name it. And though you really have to want to pore over every shelf and rack when you shop at a Marden’s, you have the added bonus of finding things you didn’t even know you were looking for.
For me, one of the biggest draws at Marden’s has always been the fabric center. The prices are insanely low. They have whole clearance racks of bolts under $ 3 a yard, and I rarely see anything over $ 10. Even Wal-​Mart is more expensive. Joann Fabrics? Forget about it. If you are a crafty Mainer who isn’t shopping for at least some of your fabric and notions at Marden’s you do not know what you are missing — besides many unnecessarily spent dollars.

You need some steely resolve (and maybe some latex gloves) to shop here. BUT — get over yourself long enough to do some diving through the store, and you can find some pretty amazing stuff. Occasionally if you look hard enough, you can find high-​end shoes, designer label clothes, and salon-​brand hair products. Not every trip to Marden’s will yield diamonds instead of coal, but if you’re the gamblin’ type, it can sometimes pay off.
The furniture section is something else, by the way. Ignore the appliances — the refrigerators and shit are way overpriced for what they are here — but the deals on furniture and home accessories cannot be beat. Man, I wish they delivered to California. Because we would have bought a whole new living room set complete with leather sectional last weekend for a fraction of even the most bargain-​basement prices found out on the west coast.
It smells funny in here… the floors are dirty… you might feel like you have fleas afterward… but Marden’s has this strange pull that I cannot resist whenever I’m back home.

My sister lives in Maine, I went to visit her and the first thing she told me to do was to visit Mardens. I drove past several of these huge stores and always wondered what was inside. I am about to unlock the mystery of Mardens.
Let’s say you run a Wal-​Mart in Torrance California and thers a fire and you need to get rid of some crappy die cast models or perhaps random lawn furniture. Mardens will buy that garbage off you and resell it. Great business model as the stuff they sell at Mardens is still in pretty good shape. The problem is that you can’t really find anything, it looks like an obsceen amount of goods were dumped on a commercial lot site and then four walls were built up around it.
It’s a place to buy random hand tools and some fabric, but I wouldn’t get your prom dress there (even though you can). The check out lady asked me if i found everything I was looking for, to which I asked if she was trying to make a joke. Mardens: Come to feel better about your own organizational skills.