by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)
This last weekend my wife and I headed to Ikea in Frisco and wanted to first stop at the Bins located in Dallas. I didn’t know this one existed and I was super excited.
What a bust…
It is about half the size of the Fort Worth Bins, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but there were other factors that make this bins a hard pass. This Bins is NOT a direct donation site. They do have a donation station out in the front parking lot, but they load that stuff up and take it somewhere else. This is a big benefit at the Fort Worth bins cause stuff is basically unsorted and sent straight into the bins for your treasure hunting pleasure. I am not sure where it goes but it is loaded in a trailer. Maybe they do infact haul it back to the building to unload… who knows.
The other (and bigger issue) is that there is a Goodwill store in the same building. So what happens is that the donation boxes are unloaded into the store first, then what is left is sent to the bins. This is what partially happens at Fort Worth (unsold stuff is sent from other stores) but the amount is very small. This makes the bins the truly picked over – left overs. With Fort Worth, there is always neat stuff cause it hasn’t been picked out nearly as much when it gets put out.
In the end we bought a couple of shirts and I found a kids book and two tiny toys. What a bummer.
Fort Worth Bins Rules!
Nathan Stout is a blogger and a member of Bins Anonymous, Pack Rats of America, and Consumers Anonymous.