The Shape of Operations

Shepherding hundreds of thousands of donation drops and tens of millions of pounds of donated goods so they can go to work for our community requires stewardship at an enormous scale.

Goodwill of Southern Nevada diverted approximately 38 million pounds of donated goods—the equivalent of 9,500 Ford F-150 pickups—from our local landfills in 2021 alone. The operational excellence required to manage such vast quantities of goods is illustrated by the six-month lifecycle of a large commercial donation.

Just as Goodwill accepts residential donations from individuals and households, we also receive offers of commercial donations from business activities. Such donations can result from excess inventory, remodeled commercial spaces, or trade show leftovers where quantities justify Goodwill’s investment in labor, transportation, and logistics.

In July, Goodwill’s Commercial Donations team received an offer of new shapewear from a third-party warehouse and logistics company. Whereas commercial donations typically range from 7 to 15 pallets, the shapewear donation offer totaled a whopping 97 palettes—4,365 cases of 40 items each. The key question was whether Goodwill would be able to sell through 175,000 individually packaged body, pant, and torso shapewear.

To answer this question, our team asked for pictures to determine product quality and resellability. Since resellers on Amazon were offering similar items at a good price, the team concluded that our customers would be attracted to a new, desirable product offered at less than half of the going market price. The Goodwill operations team quickly leapt into action.

A large share of the donation was transported to the Nellis Store, where a team of managers sorted and priced the shapewear for all stores. From there, several pallets of product were shipped to each store, where the processing team took the merchandise to the sales floor and onto the racks. Remarkably, items picked up from the donor were on sale in Goodwill stores within a week.

Being that shapewear is a one-time purchase with a long life, the items were given special signage, yellow hangtags (not eligible for discounts), and gradual price reductions over the course of six months. Once sales declined and plateaued to low levels, the remaining product was pulled from backroom storage and the retail floor, then sold by the pound in the Clearance Center.

After 300 cases were sold at the Clearance Center, the remaining items were ready to be sold through the post-retail textile market. Goodwill cultivates relationships numerous post-retail partners who have been carefully vetted to assure product ends up in the hands of people who can use them rather than our local landfills. In this case, not a single piece shapewear ended up in a landfill, contributing mightily to Goodwill’s longstanding commitment to ending the waste in things.

Goodwill works to save the waste in things.