Savers thrift stores expanding in Las Vegas Valley

Just ask Savers, a nationwide chain of 220 for-profit thrift stores.

Even in Las Vegas, where nervous consumers held tight to their cash and sent taxable retail sales tumbling roughly 45 percent in the recession, Savers is growing. The Seattle company announced on March 24 that it will add a sixth Southern Nevada store in June, and company executives are eyeing other parcels for additional area locations. And those new stores mean new jobs: This summer’s opening in Summerlin will create 50 positions.

"The economy really hasn’t affected us. We’re almost recession-proof," said Brad Jackson, regional director of Savers’ Southwest region. "When the economy is good, we tend to get better donations, but when the economy is bad, we get more customers buying. Las Vegas has proven a strong market for us."

But is Las Vegas a strong enough market for more thrift stores? Some big local charities, including the Salvation Army and Goodwill of Southern Nevada, operate thrift stores here as well. They shared mixed opinions on what Savers’ expansion means for them.

"Retail sales are generally down across the board for everybody. That’s just a fact of life," said Charlie Desiderio, director of marketing and development for the Salvation Army, which runs nine local thrift stores. "Every time a retailer opens, it takes a slice of the pie. But competition is generally good, and we have two different sets of customers. We’re not really worried about it. We have to run our business our way, and as long as we do a good job running our business our way, we’ll get the amount of donations we’re supposed to."

Executives of Goodwill, which runs eight area thrift stores, expressed little concern about Savers’ advance in the market.

"They are a good thrift store, and in this market today, there’s a lot of need for value-oriented shopping," said Jon Guy, Goodwill’s local director of marketing and development. "We look at them as a good competitor."

Savers is also a competitor with a very different business model from nonprofit thrift stores.

Savers affiliates with charities nationwide to collect items for sale in its stores. Those nonprofits seek donations of reusable clothes and household items, and Savers pays the groups based on the number of bags and boxes of merchandise they collect and deliver to Savers. Savers also accepts direct donations from consumers. The company says it has paid more than $1 billion to nonprofits since its 1954 founding, including $117 million in 2010.

In Southern Nevada, the company works with Safe Nest, a nonprofit shelter and crisis resource center for abused women and children. Safe Nest will use revenue from the Savers partnership to help finance 24-hour emergency services, counselors, support groups and parenting classes.

Savers didn’t always enjoy its current sales and growth pace.

"A few years ago, we had poor standards, and we said, ‘Let’s clean up our stores, and provide a good experience with a great product for customers,’" Jackson said.

So managers at Savers began paying more attention to how they organized merchandise on the floor. They cleaned up dirty donated goods before placing them on shelves. And they rotated items onto and off of the floor instead of letting unsold goods pile up. Today, walking into a Savers store feels no different from walking into a T.J. Maxx or Ross Dress For Less store, Jackson said.

Still, both Desiderio and Guy agreed that Savers hasn’t curbed their nonprofits’ thrift-store sales.

Transactions inside Salvation Army stores have been up and down in the recession, and donations are down at least 10 percent to 15 percent in the recession, Desiderio said. But he attributed the declines to the economy, and not to competition from other thrift retailers.

"We have 7,000 empty homes. How do you market to an empty home? We have another 5,000 to 8,000 houses that have one or both working members laid off or working on reduced hours or reduced salary," Desiderio said. "If you have a husband and wife both making a low wage and one gets laid off, that’s called a disaster. They were going to buy a new lamp and give us the old one. They aren’t going to buy a new lamp now."

And fewer donations mean fewer sales.

At Goodwill, the story is different: Same-store local sales are up 30.7 percent since 2007, Guy said.

Both Desiderio and Guy noted that all of the dollars their nonprofits earn locally stay in Las Vegas. Goodwill uses the funds to provide training, development and job placement services for disabled workers, while the Salvation Army directs its retail income toward rehabilitation services for locals addicted to alcohol, drugs and gambling.

Jackson said Savers turns over about 65 percent of what it earns to local nonprofits.

"They get the biggest return," he said. "And we still have to make money, so we have to be a better retailer."

Savers’ status as a for-profit company also means it receives fewer tax breaks, so it has a bigger fiscal impact on the community, Jackson said.

As Savers’ local presence continues to grow, nonprofits will study up on the competition.

Desiderio said he’s been inside Savers stores a few times.

"I think their stores look good. They’re very visually oriented. They want to make sure their stores look good, and they do, which is a plus for them. You have to excite the people’s palate when they look at a rack of blouses," he said.

But he also said he’s convinced that Salvation Army shoppers will stay loyal to the organization. The Salvation Army gets one-of-a-kind donations, while Savers often obtains multiple copies of a certain product, Desiderio noted. Salvation Army customers appreciate the unique and the unexpected, he said.

Guy said Goodwill’s retail executives have checked into Savers as well, to "go to school" on what their for-profit rival is up to.

"Sometimes competition is a good thing. I don’t lose sleep over them opening a new store," Guy said. "It makes me feel good that we’re going to put our nose down and make sure we’re doing our best by our community with our businesses."

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.