An Open Letter To Value Village Regarding Continued Negative Experiences

As an avid trend jumper and thrifting maniac, I’ve been a highly enthusiastic Value Village shopper for as long as I can remember. My grandparents took me there to thrift while I was very young, my mom as I got older, and I have continued to spend my hard earned money at your shops throughout Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.

Over the last five years, your prices have faced an extreme jump. While I acknowledge that there must be a monetary buffer as the years pass, though your current prices do not match the economy or world’s shopping habits.

This company needs to understand who its demograph is; a typical Value Village shopper is on a budget, enjoys shopping for ‘new’ things in a sustainable manner, and enjoys the thrill of the hunt and find. What I’ve seen [especially] over the last few years is that items are unclean and priced highly inappropriately.

For instance, not half an hour prior to writing this I found a delightful leather jacket which stank of cigarette smoke. This jacket was $70 Canadian. This piece would have had to been professionally cleaned and mended, and yet it was priced by some lackey in the back room for seventy freaking dollars. When I inquired about the pricing of a clearly uncleaned item, I was told that many people would find this a ‘good deal’ – I’d like to know which Value Village shopper would think this is such a thing, but since they don’t exist I may be waiting for a damn long time.

To add insult to gaping injury, the woman whom I assumed was in charge yelled at me for having a cart of clothing in the ‘designated area’, when no such signage was posted within customer view. She was very abrasive and took the cart from me and replaced it in the area where the carts were apparently supposed to go. Before I even began to collect a few items to try on, she rudely and loudly announced that there was a five item limit. Nobody is expecting grace and full service at this store, but for your employees to be rude and insulting is beyond what I find acceptable for a thrift shop.

When I negatively tweeted about this encounter with the official Twitter account @SaversVVillage, there was no response. I have posted positive tweet which included their username in the in the past, and have gotten an incredibly fast response. It is quite obvious that anything negative is blatantly ignored, rather than attempting to reach out to an unhappy customer to fix the situation. Using social media for customer service goes beyond thanking them for loving you – as a company you are equally as responsible for dealing with the customers that have had a negative experience. It isn’t as fun, but hey, life ain’t all sunshine and stwrainbows.

I really love that Value Village gives back to the community and provides such a large outlet for clothing and other items to be recycled to new homes, but this behavior is insanity. You’re alienating your customer base with poor attitudes and blatant price grabbing, and the majority of shoppers there aren’t doing so by choice, they are shopping used for financial necessity.

Don’t spit on your customers, Value Village. We’re watching, and we don’t forget.

If you are a Value Village customer that has had a similar experience, I encourage you to tweet your feedback and send an e-mail to VV headquarters.

10 Comments so far
Leave a comment













Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Name (required)

E-mail (required)

URI

Your Comment