Goodwill Southern California Black Friday giveaway

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Customers at Goodwill stores in Southern California tomorrow morning might notice a difference in the already inexpensive merchandise.

Across Goodwill’s 55 retail locations in San Bernardino County, Riverside County and most of Los Angeles County, around 10,000 items will be free.

Store managers will be giving away about 200 specially marked products hidden in each store from the time doors open at 8 a.m. until they close at 9 p.m.

It’s part of Goodwill’s ‘Thanks for Giving’ sale, ‘our way of giving back a little bit, but also giving customers a reason to stop by and to make things interesting,’ said Peter Duda, vice president of retail operations for Goodwill Southern California.

In most stores, 50% of the freebies will be in apparel sections, with the rest scattered through other departments, like collectibles and small electronics. However, Duda said, customers shouldn’t hold out hope that big ticket items like a $200 sofa will suddenly be gratis.

‘It’s primarily a mix, a variety,’ he said. ‘Employees weren’t instructed to do anything like mark only the worst items, but just blindly go through and mix it up.’

Goodwill Southern California occasionally runs a similar event at store openings, but this will be only the second year they’ve tried the gimmick on Black Friday. The organization tries to limit major sales and giveaways in order to emphasize that Goodwill stores have bargains every day, Duda said.

But last year, lines 30 to 50 people long stretched outside stores before the Black Friday event began, said Director of Stores Donna Snell.

‘We’ll see what happens -- but it’s worked for us and customers seem happy with it,’ Duda said of the Black Friday giveaway. ‘We’d always acquiesced to our competitors in the past, but when we tried it, it was a good day.’

-- Tiffany Hsu