Savers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Savers is a multinational corporation based in Washington state that owns a chain of thrift stores with over two hundred locations in the United States, Australia, and Canada. In the Pacific Northwest and English Canada, these stores are called Value Village, and in Quebec, Village des Valeurs. In Australia and other regions of the United States, the stores share the corporation's name.
Savers has provided customers with a department store atmosphere in which to search out high-quality used goods, such as designer clothing, antiques, and first edition books, among a constantly-changing stock which includes some brand new items, redefining the concept of a thrift store. Savers defines itself by its slogan, "Savers: The Thrift Department Store."
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[edit] History
Savers was founded in 1954 by William Ellison, who based his idea on his family's experience working with the Salvation Army's thrift wing. However, Ellison sought to start a business instead of a charity organization. He opened the first store that year in San Francisco, California, and sold exactly $777 worth of merchandise during the first day of business. The current owner and chairman of the company is Thomas A. Ellison, the son of founder William Ellison.
[edit] Business
While Savers is not a nonprofit organization, like most other thrift store operations, it does have numerous nonprofit partners, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, which collect and sell used goods to the company in bulk. Savers locations also accept individual donations on site, for which the company still pays its nonprofit partners. Though only a fraction of what the company receives is in good enough condition, much of the merchandise the company is unable to sell in store is instead sold in bulk to distributors for resale or charity donation in the Third World, or further recycling. The end result is that very little of the material a store receives is sent to the landfill, making Savers a very environmentally friendly corporation.
[edit] Trivia
The company's internal mascot is Otis the OK, an anthropomorphic box of used goods with a penchant for rap music.
The book Pass It On documents the history of the company.
