Goodwill is in the process of promoting a “being green” campaign, with management officials at the store chain noting that every costume or item bought at Goodwill is one less item in a landfill.
According to Goodwill, the 26 stores in Northern New England are stocked with items from nearly one million donors.
The Goodwill store on Loudon Road still has a bunch of different costume ideas and many other Halloween accessories.
Assistant Manager Dawn Cole noted that they have already gone through six racks full of clothes with Halloween costume potential, including old prom dresses, wedding gowns, princess outfits, superhero costumes, scrubs, “crazy jackets,” or orange T-shirts with Halloween slogans and logs.
“What we do is when we’re process things, which is how we go through our donations and hang clothes to sell, we’ll find that have been donated from the 1960s, things that people aren’t going to wear, and we’ll set them aside for Halloween,” she said.
Goodwill also receive costumes from stores that go out of business.
“For usually under $10, they can get a $200 costume,” Dawn Cole said.
Dawn Cole said there have been “lots and lots and lots of people” coming through the store of late. She said there were more sales on a Saturday last week than when the store held a bridal show earlier this year. Cole said business has been steady and growing in recent years.
“We’d like to think we’re recession proof, because of where our price line is,” she said.
“But that’s not always the case. The customers can vary from a guy who lives in a tent down by the Merrimack River to the guy who drives up in the Mercedes. That’s my customer base. It’s not just people who can’t shop in regular retail stores. It’s everybody.”
Goodwill not only sells used items but also new items that are often bought by the store in bulk, according to Dawn Cole. She said the store offers new items of things one might not want to buy used like socks and underwear. Those items tend to be priced lower than most retail outlets, even if they aren’t donated to the store, she said.
