I live along the morridor and there are several DI stores close to me. I shop there occasionally to buy used cd's although I have purchased a few clothing items over the years as well.

I went to the Centerville UT. DI last week and was rather shocked to see men's dress shirts priced as high as $8. Seems like men's dress shirts used to be in the $3-5 range. Didn't see many $3 shirts on the racks. At $8 they are getting in the range of closeout prices @ Kohl's, etc. and that merchandise is new.

I took a look around the store and saw that common kitchen items are priced on the low end @ $1 whereas the low end for these types of items used to be $.50 cents. CD's are holding @ $1 but I see some marked up to $2-3 for no understandable reason.

Have you noticed the same? Inflation and general cost of doing business aside - I wonder if DI is morphing into a cash cow to make up for other failing revenue streams? Given that DI is a 'charity' I wonder what the tax liability is? If the church doesn't have to pay taxes on their DI revenue, buildings, etc. seems like this would be an ideal revenue stream to exploit.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2017 03:42PM by tamboruco.

but I shop at Kohl's. I bought my son dress shirts for $3 a piece the other night at Kohl's.

When they started building DI stores rather than being in an older building, I did notice that prices were going up then.

I'd venture to say that the exodus of tithe payers out of the Morg is beginning to really hurt LD$, Inc -- but with all of their business ventures, I would think that if that was their ONLY financial woe, that they wouldn't be stooping as low as to bilk money out of the DI clientele.


How's revenue over at the Gawd's Only True Billion Dollar Mall? Are they loosing money over there?

What about their vast land holdings? Have real estate taxes gone really high? Rent revenues down?


Maybe we should get somebody in here from Ensign Peak Advisors to give us the lowdown on what is going on...

Inflation

No, inflation can't explain the kind of rapid increase in prices described in the opening post.

If inflation was the culprit, you would see similar escalation of prices in Goodwill stores (the equivalent of Deseret Industries in most non-Mormon parts of the country).

I shop the local Goodwill here in the Southeast part of the United states (it's a great place to buy cheap jackets that I can wear in the hour before I begin a cold, winter marathon race, then drop when I warm up about a quarter of a mile into my run. I will actually stop in the middle of the race, quickly remove the jacket, and throw it onto the side of the road, and then resume running. Race officials come along later, collect all the discarded jackets, and donate them right back to charity places like Salvation Army and Goodwill).

Anyway, I was in the local Goodwill store just about a month ago, and they were selling stuff at the same price they've sold it for several years.

Mens shirts were in the $3 range (t shirts were cheaper), if I recall correctly. Full jackets were about $6 to $12, depending on the type of jacket, quality, and condition. Cheap hoodies were between $1 (on their Wednesday special sale day) to $5.


Those prices are nothing like what the OP was posting, and they are the same as they have been for some time.

If inflation was the culprit, the local Goodwill would have to raise their prices too.

Their prices seemed a little on the high end when I checked them out in St George in January. Likewise, up in Idaho the spring before. I bought some dishes in Idaho that I left with a niece nephew for their families.

During visit to St George I found some culinary utensils for a gathering I went to while there. They were only a dime apiece. I thought that was a bargain.

On the high end, the St George DI has a collectibles section where some of their donations go for very high sums. I was surprised at the amounts. But then, if they are really worth what they are asking then okay. Most of it looked like someone else's junk to me.. :)

I live in a high cost of living area. Last time I checked, the Goodwill stores near me still charge $5 for a shirt. They might charge a little more for a brand new item with the tags still attached. Some people donate new items that they've never worn, or Goodwill gets closeout items directly from stores. Goodwill gets a decent selection of very nice items due to all the rich folk around. :)

CDs and DVDs have a uniform price that hasn't changed in the past few years. The store charges more for DVD sets.

They do have a collectibles section where the items command more money. But overall I find the prices fair.

The prices that the consignment stores charge a bit harder to bear. Those prices are similar to what you might pay at T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, or a department store sale. I've bought some items from consignment stores, but not a lot.

I don't live in the Mo'dor but when we hit the thrift we go non-secular like good will and others that are non-profit. We also donate a tone of stuff to them. But let me tell you, when you are the sole bred winner with three kids in school, the DI is a necessity. And we qualify for "upper-Middle class" status LOL. Life is expensive, and the one thing I kept from mo'ism is my thriftyness... I'm not cheep per say, but I love not spending money buying new stuff.

It seems to me that DI is kind of an old-school church thing. DI is one of the things I really like about the church. I think its done a lot of good for a lot of people. If the church put more emphasis on helping others with no strings attached I'd feel much better about staying in it. The church has continually drifted from a charity emphasis to an emphasis on control. Maybe the leadership is losing interest in DI as they lose interest in helping non lds people who are struggling.

If TSSC were to evaporate tomorrow, stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army would step in to do exactly the same thing; and apparently they are doing it in a way that costs less to the buyer if these reports are any indication.

Hmm...

Maybe it's some kind of accounting scheme. For some reason they need to have a higher value on their inventory?

I'm reminded of the Phar-Mor scandal.

I was there the other day and I noticed that too with the men's dress shirts. In fact, I went home and told my husband about the prices and he thought it was way too high as well. That's funny you noticed that too. So much for getting a good deal.

I have been giving to goodwill and the Idaho youth Ranch exclusively after I learned that DI was prosecuting shop lifters and sending levi's over to European countries for resale. My rationale is that if somebody needs something that bad that they need to shoplift DI, Good hell, give it to them!

I've noticed the price increase, too. I don't shop there for women's clothing or shoes anymore -- not when I can spend a dollar or two more and get new items on clearance at dept. stores or online.

Why wouldn't they raise prices if they know they have a captive audience who will shop there no matter what?

deemed one of the most affluent communities in America (I think it's only #2). Let's just say it's on the eastern half of Long Island. Men's dress shirts are around 5 bucks.

Nuff said.

The ceo's of Deseret industries want to give themselves a raise. They want to be like this husband-wife team in N Carolina who made $800,000 a year from managing the regional Goodwill:

Dennis and Linda Mclain. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/josh-shaffer/article10226267.html

Unfortunately nonprofits are rarely nonprofit.

The head CEO of Goodwill makes around $2,000,000 a year for his labor. While the lay people in his employ make something like minimum wage.

When I learned that I stopped donating there and donate instead to Salvation Army, where the top CEO makes $13,000 a year, while helping to raise the standard of living for the poorest among us. It's almost as though he has taken a vow of poverty himself to do that. Nuns live similarly.

I personally believe it's the loss of tithing. So many well off people have left and are still leaving. They are looking for ways to make up for the dollars that follow these people out the door. Who knows what scheme they will come up with next? If they were smart, they would stop building those dumb temples. If the members still in were smart, they would boycott the custodial work and find ways to "cut" the tithing--perhaps pay according to surplus. I wish they could wake up and refuse to be tools. Demand respect. I become enraged when I think back on the things my kids wanted while growing up, such as better quality clothes, that I couldn't get them because I thought I had to pay tithing. I really thought the house would fall down and the car would die if I didn't pay up. Human beings are only tools that the "brethren" manipulate, so their own elite families can have an even better life.