Gorham Buy the Pound Store & Donation Center

It’s an adventure, so prepare yourself. But if you accept that someone might elbow you for a hairdryer, you can find the best deals ever. Vintage dresses for 40 cents, a chair for 75 cents, books and shows for near-​nothing.
So of course it takes a little effort, but so long as you’re not looking for a traditional store experience, you can walk away happy with a lot of great stuff.

This place is not a regular Goodwill outlet. It’s a warehouse with bins and everything is priced by the pound, obviously. And if you are claustrophobic then don’t come here. The place is perpetually filled with people. And they don’t seem to care where others are — they just shove and grab over each other. Not to mention the smell. PEW! Three buckets of nothing but dirty smelly shoes. But if you like cheap things come here.

I stopped in yesterday thinking I would love it because their by the pound location in pa is awesome and I was horrified by the stuff I saw. All outdated oversized clothing and random bric a brac and people had while carts of it; literally piling their carts with average, boring colorless fabrics.
I get that one mans trash is anothers treasure, but all I saw here was a mess. Definite skip.

Fantastic finds! Not for the faint of heart– you will see and smell a lot here! However, the prices on the fantastic treasures are so worth it! The people here can be pushy as well, so be prepared to strong arm your way through!

I’m ambivalent over how to rate this place. I’m not a fan of shopping at thrift stores. I never have been. I always donate to them, but it’s not a type of store I enjoy frequenting for my own needs. That’s just the truth.
That said, my family adores them. This includes my husband…
I’ve known about this place for quite some time, because my parents simply love this place. (My mom is easily one of their biggest cheerleaders.) This past visit, my dad had an unplanned day free. (Long story.) One of the places we found our way to was here. It sits in Gorham, but we went thru Westbrook to get there. Be advised, it sits in a MASSIVE warehouse inside a large business complex. Finding it is a bit of a «thing».
Having found it, we parked and entered. My husband lit up like a 5 year old surprised on his birthday with a pack of puppies. It was an effort to keep him moving from one large bin to another. I’m told by my folks that the changing (or rotation) of the bins is akin to tossing fresh bread crumbs to the birds in OOB. Pandemonium! We didn’t happen to experience it this visit, but now that my honey had a taste of the place, I’m aware he will want to return.

If you have been to Goodwill thrift stores… well, this is a completely different experience. It’s at their warehouse, so I gather that the stuff in the Buy the Pound store is the stuff they’ve sorted out of salable merchandise in the warehouse, but somebody might buy it so they’ll give it a chance to sell anyway. Some of the items in the bins are, truthfully, trash.
There are several large blue bins in the store — clothes, books, and… miscellaneous, that’s about as good as I’m going to get at describing this. They rotate the bins about every 45 minutes or so, and while we were not present for a rotation, I’m told it’s something of a sight when they do.
The store is a little bit difficult to find. It’s in an Industrial Park. these directions look pretty good:
The epitome of «you never know what you’ll find,» though I wouldn’t exactly count on finding anything really good. On the other hand, if there was ever a place to have fewer than one dollar signs in «price range,» this would be it.

good will goods, by the pound! if you’re willing to spend some time here, there’s really good stuff to be had on the *super* cheap. basically, everything is in these shallow bins that are raised up off the floor. and you root around in the bins to see what treasures you can find! the goods are roughly categorized (most shoes in one place, etc). the website shows the pricing breakdown… clothes are around $ 1.50/lb, some stuff is individually priced (cooking pans, 25 cents!). as the bins get emptied out, employees will come along, tell everyone to move back, remove some bins, replace them, and then everyone really goes to it! good fun. and a good deal. just plan to spend some time searching for what’s good, rather than looking for a specific item. it’s not that kinda good will. sometimes there’s certain stuff, like furniture (recently, each piece was a Dollar. that’s right, $ 1), then sometimes there’s not.
fyi, they actually *weigh* your entire cart, then deduct the weight of the cart. i was impressed, i hope you will be, too.