Spirals Consignment & Benefit

"Good selection of almost everything. The price tags are informative-- as the item ages, the price goes down. Most useful."

"Lovingly curated clothing and household items. Kind and knowledgeable volunteer staff. Wonderful non-profit."

"This is the Alliance on Aging thrift store. It has clothing, furniture, jewelry, and an assortment of other items. It really has some very nice items & antiques. You can donate you gently used clothing & other items. Alluancevon Aging is totally supported by donations & provides many services. Their office is located in Salinas."

"This is a treasure of a consignment shop. We never fail to find something we love. Great clothes, jewelry and art! Worth checking out. My husband and I try to get in as often as possible, everything changes and the prices go down as time goes by....you can find bargains galore."

"I called Spirals a few years ago. I have been changing sizes, which is hard on the pocket book but it also means I have things that are in mint condition. When I contacted them, I was told that there was a waiting list of around a month for an appointment and that I couldn't get in. I was disheartened by this and the nice lady on the phone said she would check for me. There was a cancellation and I could get in the following day. Fabulous! However, the feeling quickly wore off. For my first time, I chose ten items of clothing with the tags still attached. My clothes were more organized than required since I placed items in plastic store garment bags and those went into travel garment bags. They were straight out of my closet and without wrinkles. The lady that inspects the articles of clothing was cold and rude! Maybe someday Alexa can do it instead, without the nasty remarks. She was really off putting! She refused my formal and a couple of other items, NBD, and 6/10 of my articles were accepted. They would now go to someone else for a price evaluation. I have heard of how loose consignment stores are run and how things can get lost or stolen so I went to great pains to keep track. I hung up each item of clothing on the closet door before taking them to Spirals and I took several pictures of each. Good thing I did, since Spirals didn't bother with anything such as a receipt, just a mental account of the items grouped together as mine. Guess what? I also made an Excel spreadsheet with item details and brought in a printout. I crossed off the items not accepted and noted which were taken. Then I asked her to sign off on it. This made her absolutely red in the face furious. She refused to sign her name or put her initials on the paperwork. I explained that they were asking me to just hand over my goods, which is very unprofessional--I guess this unprofessionalism is standard with consignment stores. I told her that this was my packing slip. She ran off in search of someone of more authority than she. In the end, I got my way, but not before the bad taste of consignment watered my mouth. The way this works is that each item is itemized for price and is put out on the floor. When I did it there was a 50/50 split. Now it's 60/40 with you getting 40%. You aren't there when they do this. And, as I found out, they don't tell you anything by phone. One lady was nice and did it for me, since I only had six items, however that's not the rule. You need to go into the store and continuously search for your items, check on pricing, and see what sold in order to keep tabs. If it doesn't sell in a certain time then it's marked down, and marked down again, until they tell you to either donate it or take it back. Each time it's marked down it gets a new tag. So unless it's been severely undervalued, as one of mine was, or you really, really have to have it, you'll wait. Most of the items I brought in were fairly marked, a few were not. I brought in a black cape that was extremely undervalued and it went in the first week. Which actually made me question if they do each other and their friends favors. Just before my time to either donate or take my stuff came, my husband suffered a health set back. I decided I didn't want to play anymore. I picked my stuff up, thinking I would decide what to do later. My mind was somewhere else. But, from what I hear, these are the typical behaviors of consignment. One theme that sticks out is that they are rude. All of the stores have reviews that say rude! Maybe these people need to take some courses in business professionalism? But, I doubt they will since consignment is a bit shady to begin with. Spirals supports a good cause. And if you really need that $2.50 then maybe it's worth the trouble. Or maybe you feel compelled to donate outright and skip the bitchy hassle."