The Salvation Army

This review is about the set up of the Childrens Clothing only.. .
The Salvation Army in San Bruno use to be fabulous! Everyone loved shopping there for Children Clothing. No More! In the past year I have gone there several times thinking that I just picked a bad day and it would be better the next time. No Luck! The Children’s Clothing is over priced, smelly, dirty with stains, holes etc. Absolutely no organization! Go to The Goodwill or better yet Savers on Main St. in Redwood City where everything is priced fairly, organized by size, is clean with no holes or stains and smells good! I would like to suggest to Management at the S.A. San Bruno Store and the So. San Francisco Store that they go take a look and see how a store should be set up to attract customers. Your stores are pitiful!

Way over priced! Marshalls is cheaper than this place! 2 baby hats for 5 bucks! 15 – 30 for shoes that don’t even look wearable

Have requested large pickups on new or gently used items a couple of times with tags still on some and they have even failed to show up or been told that the donations weren’t good enough. Completely unprofessional and rude treatment. I would recommend donating to other organizations in the area more appreciative of donations!

Scheduled TWICE within a span of 2 weeks and both times cancelled. Super disappointed. The dispatch who called today didn’t seem to care. I need to find another organization to donate our furniture. It stinks since we had it all ready for pickup today.

The store has a odd, sour smell. This and the over priced merchandise keep me from returning.
Most quality clothing goes in the red tag section and is priced like they are curated vintage boutique, not a non profit. I saw used Ann Taylor pants priced at 20 dollars, and I purchased a pair of Ann Taylor pants at goodwill for $ 8 today. Prices for name brand clothes are 2 – 3 times what nearby goodwill and St Vincent de Paul charge and about what you might may for new clothes during a good sale.
Furniture is very pricey as well. Scratched up chairs for 20 bucks, saves in San Jose charges like 5 bucks a chair.
Not a bargain to be had here.

If I could give zero stars, I would! First of all, I have to say that whoever prices the merchandise must be on drugs. Why would you charge $ 25.99 for a used comforter, $ 19.99 for a used blanket and $ 9.99 for a used fleece blanket with paint stains?
I was looking for some used blankets for my puppies and expected to pay no more than $ 5 each but I could buy brand new ones at Macy’s for cheaper than here.
Obviously they are not a non-​profit store. I noticed a lot of people walking out saying that things were too expensive. I don’t think that I will be going back to this store again. I prefer St. Vincent de Paul up the street where I got nicer used blankets for two bucks a piece! Also, all clothes were $ 1.

Some prices are completely out of whack!
Drinking glasses for $ 3.99, versus $ 1.00 at the dollar store!
Pyrex storage container (no lid) $ 6.99 to $ 8.99, versus target regular price $ 4.24 with a lid.
When I see such pricing examples, it makes me want to run away and never come back!

Had the Salvation Army scheduled to do a pick up — they’ve rescheduled our pickup 3 times and today they didn’t turn up. Don’t waste your life scheduling with them and give away on Craig’s list or some other site. Really fed up.

First I want to say I wish I could give them zero stars. Horrible costumer service, but then again I wouldn’t expect better from this place. I did purchase quite a few items before and ended finding that they are cheaper if bought new at the store, but whatever. Don’t waste your time here. I decided to write a review because they really pissed me off this time. I bought an old digital frame for $ 25 the elderly with blond hair woman at the desk supposedly the manager Ana assure me it worked. I went home and tried on with a perfectly fine usb with my wedding pictures. It did not work, brought it back an hour later and told her if they could fix it I would keep it, but the lady kept saying it works it’s your sub that doesn’t work. Really lady how stupid are you. She gave me store credit and that would have been fine if I just changed my mind but the Item did not work like she said and it had only been an hour not 30 days.

I noticed a much older light skinned lady with curl hair and wears a long skirt behind the counter doing the transaction. this is the second time I noticed how she price items. first one I had a small mini figure 1″ tall fairly new of a Disney princess, asked her what price and she gave me 8.99 $ which I thought was a lot considering the same kind can be found at dept stores for 50% less. next week when I looked for that minifgure, it was already torn apart and out of its package… today I saw a playdoh. the original price from toys r us was 3.29 $.she rang it up at 4.99 $.I was like forget it. I would probably take it but given the fact that original price was still there and she bumped up the price up front and started to scratch away the price tag from its original store. so sad! I bet you 100% that play doh will be open, played at, and no longer eligible for sale:.i should’ve taken a picture of the price and her «price». There was also an older lady who checked out first. she was short of .90 cents and she wouldn’t give it to her.

I used to enjoy shopping here. Even when they jacked up their prices they used to have 50% off on Fridays and Saturdays. I heard a while ago that the «powers that be» decided they were «giving stuff away» by doing half off days. Now even on a holiday like Memorial Day you are lucky to get 25% off. I find it ironic that a charity that relies on donations is worried about giving things away that they got for free in the first place. I have heard other customers state that they can no longer afford to shop here as much as they used to because of the lack of sales. It’s a family store and a lot of the time they miss holes, stains, etc. Compare 12.99 for a dress here vs 7.99 for a dress at Goodwill who does a better job of going over the clothing they put out on the floor. Shame.

A relative was leaving the Bay Area and coming back to Hawaii.
Because shipping costs overseas were prohibitive, we decided to donate items to the Salvation Army including bulky items like a dining room set, sofa and a mattress set. We scheduled the pick up via the internet with some anxiety based on some previous Unilocal posts– my observations:
They have a pretty good system in place– you list the items for pick up, chose the date and verify through the internet.
On the date of the pick up you can call a central number where they will give you a 3 hour window to work with.
On the day of the pick up they came right in the middle of the 3 hour window– two very courteous guys came and took 95% of the items for pick up.
If you read the instructions carefully it does say the drivers have the right to refuse items because of condition or item type.
Bottom line is if they don’t think they can sell it they’re not going to take it. Understandable because they are not suppose to be a dumping ground for rubbish. Luckily our large items were taken because they were in acceptable condition so no issues there. They turned down rolling plastic drawer storage pieces because they said they had too much of it in stock and they weren’t good sellers– no problem.
Conclusion: the process was smooth, courteous, quick and painless. A win/​win situation for both sides.

CONSUMER FEEDBACK FOR PICKUP:
Salvation Army comes across as a cunning, shrewd, for-​profit organisation rather than a non-​profit through its conduct in collecting donation goods.
ALL IT CARES ABOUT IS GETTING NEW ITEMS AND EARNING MONEY SELLING IT AT A VERY HIGH PRICE. WHILE COLLECTING DONATIONS THEY DONT CARE IF THAT ITEM COULD HAVE VALUE TO SOMEONE IN NEED AS THEY SAY ON THEIR WEBSITE. ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS MAKING $$MONEY$$. THEY SCRUTINISE EACH AND EVERY ITEMS BEFORE PICKUP AND WONT PICK IT UP IF IT HAS SIGNIFICANTLY MINOR DEFECTS.
There was no explanation about drivers’ discretion when fixing up an appointment. I found the drivers to be arrogant when they came. They only follow instructions from the organisation when it equals to making $$money$$ out of the pickup items.
My experience donating goods to Salvation Army made me realise that Salvation Army doesn’t want to help it’s community members receive a «clean and healthy living environment, good food, work therapy, leisure time activities, group and individual counseling, spiritual direction and the resources needed to develop life skills and a personal relationship with God.»
There are tons of other charitable organisation who will respond way better than Salvation Army. Talk to them about drivers discretion before scheduling pickup. Don’t donate here! Ever. You’ll regret.

I was shopping in the store this afternoon and giving Jacky, Steve, Michele, and Judith 4 stars. They were working really hard putting merchandise and cleaning the store up constantly and helping customers and greeting them. I love seeing the special bond that the employees have with each other in this store. Every time im there Jacky and Steve makes me feel like im an important shopper and and always makes me feel like im welcome! I love seeing them two work togher. Michele is a new associate there and also so very kind hearted, she greets everyone and always has a smile on her face. I also enjoy seeing Josie, Jasmina and Martha! These employees are so dedicated to there work and store. Im so glad to be apart of the community and living near the area. These employees had to sacrafice so much this last couple of months from there hours being cut, new rules and new management. All the employees works very hard and The Salvation Army of San Bruno wouldn’t be as succesful as it is without these employees. I will keep shopping there on a regular, daily basis as long as i get to see the wonderful employees there. Keep up the great work you all!

Any organization that will lug away my old, humongous, 200 pound, 36 inch tube TV without scratching up my place is a winner to me. They even took the stand that it was on. Made an appointment online, gave all the details, including that it was going to be a real heavy TV and three guys show up to pick up all the stuff. Very polite, very quick and very clean. Now I can finally enjoy the world of flat screen HDTV.
Did I mention the pick up was free? Yeah it was.

2.5 stars.
I want to give it more stars but I can’t. The store is old and a little dingy looking. This doesn’t really bother me but I can’t stand that the clothes are not organized by size. Nearly every thrift store I go to now is organized by size. I don’t have the patience anymore to look thru racks. I do come here to peek thru the books and check out furniture. They usually have some nice pieces. Will continue to peek at clothes waiting for the day they are organized by size.

I wish I could give it more stars because it does have a really decent furniture selection. The housewares sections is the hottess mess I’ve ever seen from a salvation army, I mean everything just looks like the clearance isle somewhere. Not impressed. They also have a good selection of picture frames and art work. I’ll have to add more comments later when I actually search through the clothing.

I have lived in SB for awhile now, and LOVE searching thrift stores for that awesome find, but for some reason this place just gives me the yucks.
BUT — I was on a quest for Ugly Xmas Sweaters for a friend and thought maybe this store might have that awesome sweater she needed.
The racks were SO packed, and in NO way labeled or organized in sizing so how the heck do you find anything? You literally have to go item by item. Ugh. I had time for it but really, who enjoys it! You can’t slide the clothes so you are pushing them to even look and see what they look like!
I did find a ugly sweatshirt — and a a decent sweater for myself. Then found out all items were 40% off :) So I went back and searched and found a few more things…
I am glad there is a place like this but the place needs a little TLC. The staff is a bit unfriendly, and for some reason huffed and puffed thru my purchase — which there was no reason to. .. I didn’t even get a bag!

I enjoy finding a good bargain and have gone to this thrift store frequently over the years. However, the cumulative negative incidents I have witnessed and negatives about my shopping experience here have finally led me to a decision not to return.
Pricing is erratic-​very high or very low, or no price at all which leads to an accusation that you have removed the price tag. Selection and quality of merchandise, too, is highly variable.
Atmosphere is okay: this store gets unbearably hot on warm days; racks are generally so packed that it is difficult to get items out and there is a urine smell in the dressing room.
I’d have to agree with Sonja K.‘s assessment of the staff as far from friendly. I’d add that many staff members are apt to talk about customers in a second language that they don’t think they speak in a less than respectful and/​or creepy way. I’ve also observed the manager of this store to be extremely self-​righteous and combative in his attitude towards customer complaints or questions.
With so many other thrift stores in the vicinity that provide better merchandise and customer service that represents the attitudes this organization is supposed to champion, I won’t waste my time here any more.

I used to like this store, the new manager really cleaned it up. The selection is big, and they have better quality than most stores. No Thrift store smell.
Their prices are high, but they have sales often.
Very unprofessional and unfriendly sales people. Distrusting and disrespectful, items have more than one price on them, they always try to charge the higher one.