Impact - the Stores

So it's time for part 2 of my day yesterday - Impact thrift stores. As I mentioned in yesterdays post they are SUPERSIZE in every way. I have had one or two previous experiences like the first store we visited in  Montgomeryville, 979 Bethlehem Pike, PA which is 18,000 sq feet but seriously nothing could have prepared me for the second and largest Impact store in Feasterville which is a staggering and frankly overwhelming 50,000 square feet of sales space. To give you some comparison the largest Mercy in Action store is around 2,000 square feet!

Montgomeryville, 979 Bethlehem Pike, PA:


The store frontage & one of the cash desk areas

The Impact thrift stores are almost entirely staffed by paid employees (250 across the stores & warehouse), with two managers per store and number of sales assistants. This ratio could shift in future as Impact have recently appointed a volunteer co-ordinator who is developing this area for them over the coming months. Jo and I spent a good deal of our time together discussing many of the shared areas of challenge in the non-profit retail business which was helpful to us both I think.

360 picture of the store to give you an idea of it's size

Of course always on the look out for those high value vintage finds....this store had it's fair share of desirable and very saleable vintage furniture. Both the record player & Singer table were in the silent auction area, however the vintage school table with lift down chair in the front (so cute!) was marked at around $30 (£20) I think, a total steal at that price.

 

 

The book area is something I really enjoyed in this store. The bookcases are high quality and make the area feel good. I soon discovered they had been purchased from Boarders when a local superstore closed of couple of  years ago, what a result!

 

Impact bar scan all donated books, any low value but popular books are added to this bookcase which shows customers they are in demand on Amazon. Impact can clearly undercut the online price. A clever but effective little marketing trick. Higher values books are shipped to Amazon to be sold directly but incur a standard $4 shipping fee.

 

 

 

Feasterville, 1 E. Street Rd, Feasterville:

 

After a tasty lunch we headed over to the 'monster of Feasterville' (as it is now nicknamed in my head!).  Impact Feasterville, 1 E. Street Rd, Feasterville, opened it's doors in April 2012, and I think it would be accurate to say a store of this size has been a mixed blessing. The staffing, operations and logistical demands of the store proves challenging, add to this daily opening times of 9am - 9pm, you catch my drift right? It's hard to even capture the dimensions of this store in a single image (especially with my less than great photography skills!), below shows the front of the store, but if you look at the lighting you will get some idea of how far back it goes.

 



Each of the Impact stores has a boutique area. This seemed to house the high end, middle aged clothing rather than the young trendy/vintage stock we may classify as boutique. This is probably about demographics. Most of the shoppers I saw were middle aged women.



A large counter/area for the Silent Auction. I had poor Jo running around finding prices on things I wanted to know the current bid on. I could have been very tempted to bid on some lovely items given another 7 days in the area, probably lucky I'm leaving on Friday.

 

There simply isn't time to tell you about the Impact corporate and community partnerships as I want to leave time to tell you about what we did today as well, so watch out for part 3 tomorrow....