A different kind of shopping experience is attracting an increasing number of bargain hunters ready to roll up their sleeves to dig, root and paw through plastic bins, troughs and boxes.
It’s called bin shopping, and everything for sale is deeply discounted — all items returned or unsold from online companies. There’s a surge in new stores, with names like Krazy Binz, Rich Bins or Get Lucky Binz.
There’s nothing orderly about the stores: the prices are constantly in flux and the stock is never the same.
“There’s so much stuff here that you might as well have found it on the ground, it’s so cheap,” said shopper George Gregorev, who was at Binge Bins in London, Ont.
“You can get a $100 item for, say, $2, which is unheard of,” he said. “You can’t get that anywhere but here.”
The items are often Amazon returns, with some shoppers digging for treasures with the company’s barcode scanner opened on their phones.
Gregorev checks the regular prices of items against those in the bins. He said he’s made thousands of dollars buying items at Binge Bins and reselling them on Facebook Marketplace or Kijiji for half their price on Amazon.
“In this economy, you’ve got to be smart, so come be smart here,” Gregorev said.
Prices at bin stores change daily, becoming cheaper the longer an item has been in the store. At Krazy Binz in London, all bin items are $25 when they come in on Saturday and eventually drop to $1 on Thursday and Friday.
“I like coming in when they’re fresh and you can sneak in, open up the boxes and see what’s inside,” said Carol McIntyre, who said she visits the store once a week. “People miss things — like, I can’t tell you how many things I’ve bought that are all good deals.”
Some bin stores have exceptions to the daily prices, like at Binge Bins, where all graphic T-shirts are $10 regardless of the day and items on a shelf of collectibles are priced individually.
Psychology of sales
McIntyre is so committed to finding deals that she has a photo album on her phone where she tracks all of her best bin shopping purchases. She said she feels pride when looking back on the pictures.
There’s also research to back up that feeling.
“There’s been some really interesting research on bargain hunting that’s found, that it has a number of emotional benefits to it,” said Jamie Hyodo, an assistant professor of consumer behaviour at Western University.
“It’s kind of thrilling and exciting to find a really good deal,” Hyodo said. “Even people who don’t necessarily need the savings associated with buying discounted goods are still pursuing that activity.”
There is a downside — buying discounted items that you don’t need. Hyodo said a shopper’s judgment can be clouded when confronted with limited stock and short sale timeframes.
“Because it’s seen as limited or more exclusive, then we are worried about missing the opportunity,” Hyodo said.
Alex Heuvel and Emma York travel to London from Strathroy, Ont., to go bin shopping once a month, often filling their cart with $50 worth of costumes, dog toys and craft supplies, or whatever else they dig out of a bin.
The pair said they try to make certain they’ll use the items they buy, but admitted that’s not always the case. Heuvel said she typically donates the items she doesn’t actually need.
“When it goes to the Goodwill, I don’t give it a second thought. Somebody will be able to use it, right?” said Heuvel. “I only bought it for a dollar, so I’m not concerned.”
Thrill of the treasure hunt
Some shoppers said they see the digging and picking through countless rows of bins as an environmental act because they’re rescuing items from the landfill.
But the majority said it’s simpler than that — it’s the thrill of the hunt that keeps them coming back.
“It’s full of surprises, like you never know what you’re going to find,” Gregorev said.
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