The St. Francis Thrift Shop on Hilton Head is definitely worth a visit. It is one of the larger shops, with one full room for clothing and household items, and a separate area for furniture and other larger pieces.
The prices are generally good, with an approximate $3.00 starting price for clothing separates (ie shirts, shorts). Of note is the .50 t-shirt rack, where you can find a nice variety of event-specific, advertising-type shirts. I pickup up a nice pink one from the Hilton Head Rugby Club.
Everything is well organized and sorted by type of item. There are also typically several specials, which are posted near the entrance and throughout the store. On the day I visited, items with a certain color tag were all $1.00, and another color tag was 50% off. There is a designer section in the back that is worth checking out; it has its own half-price section, and there are plenty of reasonably priced brands in that area.
My biggest complaint about the shop is that the sale prices can be somewhat *flexible”. Just because the signage clearly states something is on sale (ie blue tags are 50% off) does NOT necessarily mean that all items with blue tags are 50% off. I tried to purchase a blue tag item and was told that this specific item was excluded from the sale. I asked for an explanation, as it was clearly stated in multiple places throughout the store that blue tags were reduced, and was not given a satisfactory answer. (The explanation that “the cost of this item is already low enough” did not work for me. If ALL blue tags aren’t 50% off, then the signs should say so. If a volunteer put the wrong tag or price on an item, the store should still honor it.)
The cashier who assisted me was not particularly friendly, and did not seem at all familiar with the store’s pricing and specials. While not overtly rude, she didn’t smile or seem happy to be there. (I will mention that the gentleman doing the bagging was very personable. I enjoyed chatting with him, and it was because of his friendliness that my overall rating isn’t lower.)
This cashier also had no clue about the specials. She didn’t seem to believe me when I told her that the two t-shirts I had found on the .50 rack (these were not priced individually) were actually .50. I had to point the rack out to her so that she could read the sign for herself. Then she didn’t know that one tag color meant that the item was on sale for $1.00; I had to direct her to the nearest sign (which was ON the checkout counter) before she would honor the price. There was also the above-referenced “THIS blue tag is excluded from the 50% off sale, although we have no real explanation as to why” issue I mentioned above.
I should also note that, last summer, I had a similar problem. There was a sign by the belt rack saying that cloth belts were on sale for .50. I spent quite a bit of time looking through them all, and selected several cloth belts. The cashier tried to charge me $2.00 each for them, as that is the standard price for belts. I explained about the sale sign; she said that is must have been posted by mistake and didn’t want to honor the price. I argued enough that the posted price was eventually honored, but don’t enjoy feeling like I have try to convince a store to honor posted prices.
Final verdict: A nice shop, with plenty of good deals to be found. Just be prepared to argue your case if the cashier doesn’t want to honor the store’s posted sale pricing!
chewietellsall 