How it works

What a bin store actually is, and how ours works

One price for the whole bin, and it falls every day. Here is the model, where the merchandise comes from, and what to expect walking in.

If you have never walked into one, a bin store looks like chaos on purpose. Long rows of open bins, no shelves of neatly faced product, no price sticker on anything. People are digging with both hands. Somebody just found a name-brand vacuum and is carrying it around like a trophy.

Here is the part that confuses everyone the first time.

We do not price by the item. We price by the day.

Every bin in the store is the same price, and that price falls every single day of the week.

Day 1
$10
Day 2
$8
Day 3
$6
Day 4
$4
Day 5
$2
Day 6
$1

Day one, everything in the bins is ten dollars — the phone case and the comforter cost exactly the same. Day two, everything is eight. By the last day of the cycle the whole store is a dollar. Then we close for a day, tear the bins down, refill them from the truck, and the ladder starts over at ten.

Nothing gets restocked mid-week. That is the whole tension of it. Come on day one and you get first pick at the highest price. Come at the end and the price is almost nothing, but so is what is left. There is no right answer — regulars pick a day and stick to it, and plenty of people come twice.

Where it all comes from

Overstock, closeouts, seasonal shelf-pulls and customer returns from major retailers, bought by the truckload. A lot of it comes from Amazon. Some of it never sold. Some of it sold, shipped, came back, and was cheaper for the retailer to liquidate than to put back on a shelf.

So yes — some of what is in the bins has been opened before. We are not going to pretend otherwise, and you should know it walking in. That is exactly why every one of our four stores has a testing station on the floor. Plug it in, press the buttons, open the box, see what you have actually got. Then decide.

What is not in the bins

Prime dealsHigher-value items on shelves at a fixed price. We price them once and leave them alone, always well under retail. If you see something good on a shelf rather than in a bin, that is why.
Clothing and shoesRestocked more often, on their own shorter ladder: eight dollars, then four, then one.
Some things go to the auction insteadElectronics, household items and essentials, organizers and other useful things get posted in our Facebook group, where you bid on them from home.

The honest version

Is it worth it? Depends on the week and on your patience. What we can tell you is that things worth fifty dollars go into a ten-dollar bin every restock day, and they do not sit there long. As our co-owner Salem Okasha put it to the Macon Telegraph, a Stanley cup selling for fifty dollars online is “a good buy for $10.”

The people who love this place treat it as a hunt. The people who do not were expecting a department store. Now you know which one it is.

Keep reading

Which day should you shop →Three years, four stores →Why every sale is final →
Ready to go? Check your store’s price day and hours before you drive over. See all four stores →