A Bin Store Primer By Ken DeLaat The last time I saw Nicole Crutchfield was when she said goodbye to me after a Summertime Saturday Night ride-along in her Newaygo County Sheriff's Office patrol car. We had just finished an evening of challenging situations that she handled deftly as one could possibly imagine. I was impressed with her people skills and ability to take charge of situations whether diffusing a fight, reuniting a wandering soul with his friends, or arresting a B & E suspect attempting to hide in the shrubbery. Then a few weeks ago, Lifetime Spousal Companion Lil and I were having lunch at the Moondance Cafe (because they create the best veggie panini to be found) and a young woman in a nearby booth waved hello. It took a bit to figure out it was her. A few things had changed. For instance she was no longer blonde, had a new name and a husband to go with it and was Mom to a very cute young man named Jasper who was nestled in a car seat beside her. A short conversation led to the awareness that she and her husband Conner had started a business a few months ago. We agreed to get in touch and maybe do a story on it. “It’s a bin store,” she said. "Ok great,”I replied while thinking to myself, ‘what’s a bin store?’. Fast forward a few weeks and I arrived at JRC Bargain Bins to interview the co-owner of one of Fremont’s newest entrepreneurial arrivals. The location is in the Warner Avenue building that also houses a few other businesses including Terry’s Furniture, just one driveway from Brew Works, an occasional dining stop for LSC Lil and I- particularly when they have Alaska Amber on tap. But I digress. My image wasn’t all wrong. There were certainly bins of goods from cases of Bubly, a cache of shoes and slippers, an aisle of snack size chips of all types, kids games and toys, clothing and various other gatherings piled about. But here’s the interesting part. I discovered it’s shopping with a bit of gamesmanship to it. You see, when they open on Thursday, everything is 10 bucks. Come Friday the same items? 8 bucks. Saturday sinks it to $5 (Yep. Same stuff) then Monday ($3) and by Tuesday ($1) I can imagine it’s likely to look like a mini version of a shopping scene at a Walmart Black Friday event with folks snaring up the specials. It seemed like a situation ripe for questions. Why a bin store? “Once I left my career job and became a stay at home Mom, Conner and I wanted something to supplement our income. We were kind of dabbling into retail a bit and I decided that a bin store would be the best. “Mostly because I don’t want to price everything,” she added with a bit of a grin. “So now we just toss items into the bin and it's all the same price and the price goes down each day. Wednesdays we close to the public and we fill the bins up. Then Thursday everything starts at 10 dollars.” I pointed out cases of the popular beverage Propel. How much is a case of that? “That case right now retails for 25 dollars. Here it’s ten today. Those chips over there (lunch size) are Frito Lay. There are 40 in a bag and they sell for 22 dollars on Amazon. We are selling them for 10.” How do you get this stuff? “What we do is deal with brokers who handle sending out overstock items from big box stores. It could be a product they have way too much of or maybe items that may be going out of season and they sell them by the truckload. That’s where we come in. We buy a truckload at a time.There are also places that do pallet sales of goods and we pick up a few of those now and then.” Occasionally during our meetup she excused herself to attend to customers. One woman I noticed had walked the length of the store checking out the bins. While not purchasing anything she told Nicole she’d see her later. “She means later this week," she said with a smile. ”Thursday is a big day when we release all the new items and people come in and get a good idea of what they might want to come back for. She and many others come in to see what’s on hand but they wait until Saturday to buy.” Isn’t that a bit of a gamble? “It is, but it’s part of the fun” Near the counter was a large bin filled with a wide variety of smaller products from beauty products to things one might find in a pharmaceutical department. And while each product was indeed 10 bucks Nikki mentioned the time a shopper had dug through and found a $100+ Apple stylus pencil. That day it was $3.
You’ve been open a little over 4 months. Was it a good move? Do you still like it? “It's fun. It's like Christmas when we open the boxes and see what we have. You never know what you’re going to get.” Wait! What? You never know what's coming in? “No. We chose Target for their overstock but when the trucks come in we don’t know what we’re getting until we get it unloaded.” What a concept. The description of this store reminds me of the title of the recent Academy Award winner because there seems to be everything everywhere all at once. Nicole pointed out a children's game in a nearby bin. Earlier I saw a little girl beaming as she walked out with a similar box, her arms barely able to hold the sizable item. “That’s 90 dollars retail. Today it’s ten. Tomorrow it's 8. "When we decided to open the store Conner and I thought this was a way to bless the community by bringing in an option to buy certain items at a much lower price." Pay a visit to JRC Bargain Bins. It’s well worth the effort whether one is a novice to the whole Bin Store concept or a seasoned veteran of such venues. Hours for JRC Bargain Bins: Sunday: Closed Monday: 10am-6pm Tuesday: 10am-2pm Wednesday-: Closed for restocking Thursday: 10am-6pm Friday: 10am-6pm Saturday: 10am-2pm. And when you stop by if you see a tall, older guy with thinning hair and questionable clothing taste checking out the bins it will likely be a Thursday. If he’s buying stuff it’s Saturday. I so love a bargain.
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February 2025
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