Blue Hanger Redux

For the last four weeks, the junior class in the design program at the University of Texas has been researching Goodwill Industries of Central Texas to identify areas of improvement in its function and develop solutions to those deficiencies. Based on this research, my group proposes using Goodwill's Blue Hanger Outlets to host events.

During the research phase, our class divided into three teams. One team interviewed customers and employees to understand public and internal perception of Goodwill. Another documented the visual makeup of each store, including signage. My research team studied the Goodwill system — how a donation moves from the point of donation, to the sales floor, to Blue Hanger Outlets and to its final destination.

We talked to Joel King and Kevin McCown, the transportation manager and director, respectively, to get a bird's eye view of how the system functions.

Goodwill's system of processing donated items to maximize their profit is non-linear, but simple. When an item is donated, a manager identifies it as either fit for sale or trash. Some donations are obviously trash and are set aside for transportation to pick up, but most donations, the ones identified as fit for sale, are immediately priced by the manager and put on the sales floor. If an item doesn't sell within three weeks it is taken to transportation headquarters.

Transportation consists of a variety of vehicles, ranging from 12' box trucks to 24' trailers, to accommodate the various loading dock configurations at each Goodwill store. The transportation department picks up trash and unsold donations and brings them to the transportation warehouse where they enter the final phase in the system.


At the transportation warehouse, items are sorted into two rough categories: soft line items, like textiles, and hard line items, like appliances — basically everything made of metal, plastic, or wood. Tables are stacked high with discarded toasters, jeans and training toilets. Offered at a slash-and-burn discount and piled deep, Goodwill's rejects get their last chance for an average consumer's purchase. Unsold hard lines are boxed into four-foot gaylords — cardboard boxes resting on pallets — and sold at auction in bulk. The leftovers are recycled or trashed. Unsold soft lines are bound into 1,000-pound bales and sold by the pound (currently 12 cents per pound). Buyers of these bales send them to border towns to be resorted for sale in other countries. According to King and McCown the clothes from these bales may end up anywhere from Malaysia to Mexico.

After the official interviews and tours, we revisited both Blue Hanger Outlets, this time as customers, to observe the culture and function from the ground level.


Blue Hanger Outlets themselves are large warehouse spaces with bare walls and concrete floors. 4' x 8' wooden tables hold the unsorted masses of soft and hard line items. Nothing is individually priced, and large blue placards with mismatched white vinyl type display prices for broad categories of items. For example, at the time of this writing, any clothing item is $1.25. However, cashiers may use discretion and are allowed to price items higher or lower than their stated value, creating a garage sale atmosphere.

From the time we spent there and from our interview with King, we identified three main types of customers. The first and most prevalent are the families, primarily Latino, who buy clothes and other necessities. The second type is the bulk reseller, who buys and sells specific types of items, like stuffed animals or appliances. The third type are people who buy goods cheaply and then hold garage sales to resell the items at a marginal profit.

At the conflux of over-zealous thrift and Darwinistic capitalism a phenomenon occurs at Blue Hanger Outlets. Every hour or so, a row of picked-over tables are cordoned off, cleared of goods, and refilled with fresh goods. Meanwhile, a crowd gathers a respectable distance away from the workers to scope out new items. After the workers are finished refilling the tables, a manager gives the go-ahead and shoppers hurl themselves at the new array with abandon, which can result in the occasional scuffle. King and McCown said Blue Hanger Outlets average one or two altercations per month.

Overall, we found the Goodwill system highly efficient and progressive, willing to adapt changes in operating structure and implement them quickly. However, our foray into the Blue Hanger Outlet culture and function showed us there was still room for improvement.

Upon completion of the research and observation phase, the three teams were then segregated into four mini-groups, each incorporating at least one team member from the visual team, interview team, and systems team.

Though Blue Hanger Outlets could potentially be a thrifty student fashionista's secret haven, most shoppers are either very young or middle-aged and older. To find out why, we interviewed students at McNeil High School, a mile away from the main Blue Hanger Outlet (McNeil), and college-aged students at UT — a demographic largely absent from Blue Hanger Outlets. Their responses indicated a lack of knowledge of the outlet's existence. This isn't surprising given "the retail stores mission to drive Blue Hanger Outlets out of business," according to King, but we felt they were missing out on an opportunity to bring in new, young customers and use the space in other ways.

We identified three main problems with Blue Hanger Outlets. First, Blue Hanger Outlets lack any cohesive identity, and their connection to Goodwill is unclear or unknown to shoppers. Secondly, they are used solely as bargain-hunting retail spaces and for bulk selling, targeting a narrow demographic and under-utilizing the uniquely mobile and exceptionally large space not available at normal Goodwill retail stores. Finally, 20% of the goods that pass through Blue Hanger Outlets end up in the trash. It is all the more troubling that King expressed regret at this figure, stating that many trashed goods are still useable, but holding onto them any longer than they already do is too costly.

We imagine Blue Hanger Outlets accommodating a variety of large and small-scale events, giving it a new identity, showing the community its tempestuous but necessary relationship with Goodwill retail stores, expanding its consumer base, and ultimately reducing the number of items that end up as trash. The warehouse space can accommodate everything from do-it-yourself workshops and clothing swaps, to a battle of the bands, to dance parties or fashion shows. These events can be held alone or be part of a larger all-day event in the spirit of Swap-O-Rama-Rama (SORR), a clothing swap and do it yourself workshop Goodwill recently partnered with at Maker Faire, an all-day counter culture geek and craft festival. When we told the high school students we interviewed earlier about reusing the Blue Hanger Outlet space to host those types of events, the responses were positive (by teenage standards), ranging from "yeah, definitely" to "yeah."

Events can take place either after normal hours or when the outlet is shut down from its usual retail functions for an all-day event. An all-day event might charge an larger admission fee of anywhere from $5 to $20 to help offset lost revenue. In any case, running two or more of these events concurrently fosters a dynamic, festive interplay between separate events.

Blue Hanger Outlets have completely modifiable floor plans thanks to wheeled tables (at McNeil) and a lack of dividers. Blue Hanger Outlet's tables become band or DJ stages, runways, and DIY workstations. For a SORR-style event, D.I.Y. and sewing stations are set up on tables set back a few feet from the perimeter. They are also the workstations and demonstration areas for volunteer designers and crafters to work on. These designers and crafters can also assist participants with the sewing machines and clothing modifications. Participants are encouraged to modify all the clothing they want using provided sewing machines and tools. Janome, the "world's leading sewing machine manufacturer" currently has an agreement with SORR to provide sewing machines free of charge.

Tables holding clothes to be swapped are arranged with the entrance to the warehouse close by. The clothing to be swapped comes from a combination of Blue Hanger Outlet stock and donations. Additional volunteers help by sorting donations, keeping things tidy and bringing out more clothes from the back as needed. The fashion runway and music stage are tables pushed together with plywood boards on top to make a flat surface. Participants model their own work on the runway. If the fashion show is a contest, it can be judged by audience reaction — whoever gets the loudest cheer is the winner. Prizes could be particularly high-quality donated clothing or Goodwill gift certificates.

Volunteer DJs or bands play either a secondary role as background music for an event like the fashion show or are an event in themselves, like an after-hours dance party or battle of the bands.


Any event held at a Blue Hanger Outlet will require external marketing to draw in new customers, because they currently lack an advertising presence and many potential customers are simply unaware of its existence. So in addition to using traditional advertising like handbills and radio spots, we developed an advertising vehicle consisting of blue hangers to promote Blue Hanger Outlet-specific events. The hangers are printed with a coupon-like incentive to encourage people to bring them in, keeping them out of the trash and recycling them back into the advertising system. They're distributed in a guerilla-style, fly-by-night campaign, standing out against other advertisements like posters. Most importantly, the innate need of such an unusual advertising vehicle to be placed in unorthodox locations helps Goodwill reach a younger audience desensitized to ordinary advertising.

Goodwill benefits from hosting events and advertising Blue Hanger Outlets in three ways. First, these events will make a profit, both directly from charging admission and indirectly from attendees to events returning to shop during normal business hours. Hosting an event at night, when only a handful of staff are needed to accept donations and admission to an event, ensures this. Plywood and fabric for a stage or runway is cheap and reusable and requires little set up time or construction. Advertising events with blue hangers is inexpensive. Secondly, more customers means less stuff ends up in the trash. Blue Hanger Outlets make more money from what gets sold on tables than in bales. Finally, Blue Hanger Outlets get an identity, going from grungy rummage to funky, creative and sustainable. The relationship between Blue Hanger Outlets and Goodwill retail stores become more transparent, which can only serve to strengthen Goodwill's reputation in the community.

Barton Creek Square Observations

The following observations were made on September 14, 2008 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. between the KL02 and KL01 floor spaces on the lower level of Barton Creek Square mall.

People mostly walk on the right side and lone women are the fastest walkers. Young men are often found in groups of two.

An estimated 5% of people carry bottled water and/or eat while walking, and about 60% were overweight, but none morbidly so.

Within half an hour, at least 4 people passed by the same spot headed in the same direction as they were half an hour before.

Many families have strollers but there is only one elevator, near the food court.

Benches occasionally have synthetic cushions that are easily removable by undoing the velcro straps that tie it to the bench. They are made for adults — toddlers stand or sit on the ground. Benches were used for a teenage couple to make out on, but most seemed to use it as a platform to eat, drink and sit on. On the second floor, where there are relatively few benches, people lean over the railings and watch the shoppers below.

The second floor is carpeted with a short, hardy turf. Two young girls made do without the abundant first floor benches and sat down on the turf, huddled against a railing while eating a boxed pastry with white plastic forks.

According to one mall employee, the triangular lights mounted on the second floor's edge are turned on when the sun has set, around 7-8 p.m. depending on the time of year. Every so often there is an electrical socket mounted next to them that would be invisible to anyone within arms' reach of it.

The volume of space enclosed and the lack of sound dampening surfaces creates a constant din made up of indecipherable conversations, store speakers emitting music, the crinkling of bags and the squeaking of shoes.

The predominant mall color, the color of the ceilings and tallest walls, is white. Columns, bare wall patches on the bottom floor and tiles are comprised of a variety of grays, browns and other neutral colors. As a result, no bare structural features are visible.

The tile-covered lower floors have varying patterns, colors and sizes but are uniformly free of dust or stains. Live plants are dispersed throughout the mall, but they are concentrated near sitting areas, anchoring benches in the medians or obscuring the bottoms of stairwells. The plants also house a variety of insects, including flies, cockroaches, and crickets.

Square skylights are the best indicator of the time of day. They are arranged in no discernible pattern. Even in the middle of the day, recessed lights five feet from the ceiling cast light back up at the skylights but the light is almost entirely drowned out by the sunlight streaming in.

The mall encloses a volume of space greater than is necessary for its essential functions. For example, one bathroom requires a 100 foot trek down a path through a narrow hallway to reach the male/female rooms and poor ventilation creates a foul odor that permeates the entire path. Perhaps as a respite from this journey, framed faux-antique prints of Roman vases and columns line the path and directly outside the doors that lead to the male and female restrooms is a lounge with three black leather chairs and a metal lamp on a side table.

Every store has a unique façade and lighting system — as in the mall space, no structural elements are left bare and everything is covered in plaster, stone, metal, wood or glass. Approximately 80% of the storefront walls facing the main walking areas are either glass or open. Several stores incorporated wooden or metal fixed shutters as a part of their facade. Most storefront logos are mounted at least 10 feet above ground level. Most storefront sign letters are embossed or raised off their mounts to give them the appearance of or actual three-dimensionality. Single right or left footed shoes are displayed outside of shoe stores on short racks. One store, The Gift Solution, displays its wares in glass, metal-hinged boxes stacked against its windows.

Roughly half of all stores displayed printed advertisements of attractive young individuals anywhere from 1.5 to 4 times larger than life. When the subject is a woman, the face is always showing, but not always when the subject is a man.

Anyone who wishes may watch other people pay $12 to get a 15 minute massage by an obese middle-aged man of asian descent who does most of his communicating with gestural hand movements.

Almost all the kiosks are identical, suggesting they are owned and rented out by the mall. About 8 feet off the ground and connected with metal poles to each kiosk is a cantilevered plane of glass ringed by lights embedded in wood. The lights make the usually shiny metal wares sparkle and gleam to passers-by. There are few chairs for the workers, who, one worker told me, may work a six hour shift without sitting. Often they will sit on the counters themselves. An empty kiosk with drawers made out of plywood and covered in a faux wood veneer contained: the key to the drawers and cabinets, two business cards, one for a hypnotist and another for a hair stylist, a brass disk two inches in diameter, bits of string, two metal bracket clamps and a piece of plastic. Its glass shelves are removable.

A curious white girl from a Godiva chocolate stand/kiosk approached me and sat down next to me on a bench. She said she hated having to cover the kiosk with a tarp every night and suspects the majority of patrons come to the mall to see movies, because directions to the theater is the most common question she is asked. She mentioned a co-worker's suggestion that Godiva save money by installing a more energy efficient refrigerator, but apparently they refused. Before I left she gave me a small gold bag filled with a variety of chocolates, one of them shaped like a clam with a large, soft chocolate pearl inside.

At another kiosk, a young Israeli woman held a tray of colorful translucent strips of soap from Israel and offered them to passers-by. A small screen played a short film depicting a satellite zoom in on the Red Sea area and interviews with the soap's creator. I told the woman they looked tasty and she said many people, mostly children, had tried to eat them. When a young blond girl came to sample one I suggested she eat it, but she smiled knowingly and took it without a word. I smelled each one and selected one with a cucumber scent, which she daintily wrapped in a napkin for me to take home.

Yet another kiosk was a platform for the display of approximately 100 similarly styled sunglasses that varied mainly in color. The man selling them was not wearing a pair.