Salvation Army

Salvation Army is a well-known store that offers a wide variety of merchandise.  I chose to visit the Salvation Army in Oxford.  This was a moderate sized (not big but not small) store compared to other Salvation Army stores in the Metro Detroit area.  As with all Salvation Army stores, it offers lower priced merchandise as a charity business, in an effort to make sure that all people can afford the essentials in life. 

One of the things that make Salvation Army unique is that on any given day there may be a different array of merchandise than the day before or the day after.  In other words, you hardly ever find the same thing twice at one Salvation Army, nor do you find the same thing at different locations of Salvation Army.  Therefore, it can really be a hit or miss shopping experience.  You can go in looking for something specific and you might find it but depending on the luck of the draw and the luck of the day that you chose to go there, you may or may not find the specific item you are looking for. 

The majority of Salvation Army merchandise is clothes.  They have racks signifying all different type of clothes (dresses, coats, pants, shirts, skirts, under garments).  There are men’s, women’s, boys’ and girls’ sections, just as with any typical store.  Yet, all the clothes here are previously owned.  You can find some of the clothes that still have the original tags on them, so they were never actually used, but most of the clothes sold were lightly worn by previous owners who donated them to be resold at Salvation Army. 

The advantage of buying clothes at Salvation Army is that all of the clothes are really inexpensive.  However, the disadvantage of buying clothes here is that you must have patience to find the golden needle in the haystack, so to speak.  Personally, I would not shop here on a regular basis for clothes because I do not really like the idea of wearing something that strangers previously wore, when I shop at outlet stores with almost equally inexpensively priced clothes.  Similarly, I do not have the patience to rummage through an entire store to find something cute that is luckily also in my size.  Nonetheless, my seventeen year old sister refuses to shop anywhere else because she loves the Salvation Army in Oxford so much.  So this store is not for everyone but it is some people’s saving grace.

Salvation Army also has a lot of furniture.  I was impressed and shocked by the pristine quality of the couches, mattresses, tables, chairs, desks, and other furniture.  Particularly, I really wanted one of the couches there but unfortunately it was already sold.  It was kind of disappointing seeing it and falling in love with it, only to find out that this one of a kind couch was already sold. 

Salvation Army has a little bit of everything.  There were skis, snowboards, ice skates, sports balls, stuffed animals, VCR movies, DVDs, TVs, hair straighteners, blow dryers, cleaning supplies, jewelry, shoes, grills, dish wear, art, and decorations of all sorts.  Basically, any household necessity you could think of, Salvation Army sells.

Five Below

Five Below is a fairly new store in Auburn Hills, across the street from Great Lakes Crossing.  As the name implies, all of the merchandise here is five dollars or less.  Similar to a dollar store it aims at selling things incredibly cheap.  However, unlike many dollar store items, the products sold at Five Below are good quality items.  Furthermore they sell brand name items, not just knock off brands, and still manage to keep the prices extremely low.

Five Below seems to target teenagers and young adults.  While anyone might find this store appealing, it would be especially so for late teens and young adults.  The store is divided into sections: sports, media, crafts, party, candy, media, and style.  The primary reason I feel this store is for late teen and young adult (other than conveniently being inexpensive) is because it has sections like “dorm room”.  This is all pretty neat stuff, whether calendars or dart boards.  You can tell it targets girls more specifically with the colorful flowers and other girly designs on plungers, laundry baskets, dish rags, and other items needed for daily chores, with a funky twist on them because of the designs. 

Five Below is the perfect place to shop for gifts.  Particularly, during Christmas time I bought presents for people close to me and Secret Santa type gifts.  This was made possible because during Christmas time there were all sorts of gift bundles.  Whether they were coffee mug theme bundles, (like Star Wars or monopoly hot chocolate) or stereotypical girl gifts like pampering kits that included body wash, lotion, perfume, and a loofa, they were all five dollars or less.  Moreover, they weren’t necessarily the all typical gift bundles. They had bundle gifts for pets too!  I bought my cat a kitty stocking that was stuffed full of several toy mice, balls, cat nip, and bouncing string toys for only three dollars.  In addition to gift bundles, there were huge sets of wrapping paper, gift boxes, bows, and bags, where buying one set could wrap all of your Christmas presents so you could kill two birds with one stone Christmas shopping and getting the Christmas themed wrapping here too. 

As with many other stores, Five Below changes regularly according to season and holidays.  Right now they are selling all sorts of St. Patrick’s Day merchandise.  There are Irish t-shirts saying typical things like “Kiss Me I’m Irish” that are only five bucks.  There are also goofy leprechaun hats and ties.  For girls, there are light up shamrock earrings and shamrock head bands. 

Five below has a variety of fitness equipment.  They have weights, yoga mats, fitness balls, stretch rope, and water bottles.  They also have sports gear like basketballs, baseballs, footballs, baseball mitts, and more.  They even have “As Seen On TV” stuff like a shake weight and an ab roller.  Whats important to remember though is that all of this stuff is five dollars or less, so this would be an awesome place to get started inexpensively if you were looking to get in shape. 

Trying to convey the wide variety of merchandise that Five Below has would be nearly impossible.  So I will summarize by saying they have board games, stuffed animals, toys, shot glasses, snack food and beverages,  videogames, DVDs, clothes, perfume, and much more.  On a whole, Five Below has a lot to offer and would be a great place to shop for inexpensive gifts along with items for you too. 

Downtown Rochester

Downtown Rochester has a very interesting variety of stores to shop at.  Though there are a primary abundance of dress and jewelry stores, there are still a lot of other types of stores too.  Downtown Rochester is also known for their events like Fire and Ice Festivals, Christmas lights, heritage days, Dancing in the streets, movie nights, and other events that draw in people from all around. 

The jewelry stores include Antiques & Fine Jewelry by Pamela, Aurum Design, Beadz n Bagz, Haig’s of Rochester Fine Jewelry, Heller’s Jewelry, Lucido Fine Jewelry, Modern Art Jewelers, Rizzo Jewelers, Silber Jewelers, Smith Jewelers, Tracy Jane Jewelry, and VDP LLC/Midwest Jewelry Services.  These stores are all impressive in my opinion but I imagined that it would be hard to make any money having so many jewelry stores so close to each other.  To my surprise, the owner of Smith Jewelers said that having so many competing jewelry stores around actually increases business in his experience.  This is probably because so many people come to Downtown Rochester specifically to shop for jewelry since there are so many places to choose from, they could not go wrong. 

Arizona Saddlery is an awesome country store.  It has cowboy and horse merchandise.  There are hundreds of cowboy boots and cowboy shoes sold here.  There are even adorable baby cowboy boots!  There are also country style clothing.  The horse equipment includes saddles, reins, brushes, etc.  There are horse figurines and other cowboy collectibles. 

Legends of Time is a Native American store selling cultural based merchandise.  There were a lot of spiritual figurines sold here.  There is also Native American clothing like ponchos.  There were also skins of foxes and wolves.  Additionally, there were bags of natural tobacco.  The strange thing about this place was that there was a little back room where you could pay for some type of spiritual rituals. 

Downtown Rochester offers unique sports stores.  First, South Street Skate Shop sells skateboards, skateboard clothing, and offers lessons in skateboarding.  Rochester Bike Shop sells clothes, bikes and any biking necessity you could imagine, perfect for the Pain Creek trail nearby.   The Ski Company sells skis, poles, snowboards, hats, coats, and gloves.   US Scuba Center sells scuba gears, gives scuba lessons, and strangely enough sells hand guns too. 

Downtown Rochester has art store that both sell art and offer art classes.  For example, Firebrick Gallery and Pottery Studio has classes to teach you how to create art such as pottery or paintings.  It also sells art that was already made professionally.  Hermitage Gallery is a high end art store selling lots of impressive paintings and drawings. 

Some of the other stores include music stores, both selling and teaching music lessons at places like Connolly Guitar Studios, JC’s Drummin’ Music Center, Rochester Ballroom, Rochester Conservatory of Music, Rochester Folk Workshop, Rochester Music Instruction, and The Paul Green School of Rock Music in Rochester.  Also, there are two bookstores in Downtown Rochester: Christian Science Reading Room and Downtown Booksellers.  There are various florists in the area too. All in all, Downtown Rochester has something for everyone. 

Downtown Lake Orion

Downtown Lake Orion has an interesting array of shops.  Growing up in Lake Orion I am quite familiar with the Downtown Lake Orion area; however it recently underwent a lot of construction.  The construction has given Downtown Lake Orion into a more elegant, artsy look because they transformed the roads into cobblestone and added creative art along the roads.

The shops in Downtown Lake Orion are all over the place in terms of themes.  For people interested in sports there is a bike shop.  There is also a soccer shop.  Both of these stores have various sporting equipment, not exclusive to soccer and riding bikes. This compliments the sports merchandise offered in the card shop called Prime Time Sports Cards. 

Downtown Lake Orion is definitely a kid friendly area.  There is a park adjacent to downtown with two areas, one for older kids and the other for toddlers.  This area had a gazebo too and holds events sometimes, such as musicians playing in the park. 

For clothes, Downtown Lake Orion has a few little shops.  There is a bridal store that has gorgeous wedding gowns.  There is also a retail shop that has high end clothing.  This retail shop conveniently allows people to get credit for clothing.  In other words, they bring in lightly used clothes and are able to trade it for something of equal value.  Surprisingly, the clothes offered here are all good quality and good condition.  The clothes are a lot of popular brand names too.  In addition, there are purses, jewelry, shoes, and other accessories. 

My favorite stores in Downtown Lake Orion are Ed’s and the Prime Time Sports Cards card shop.  Ed’s is a year round Halloween type costume shop.  It sells typical Halloween costumes every day for kids and adults.  It also has costumes that are more expensive, so they are available to rent so you do not have to buy them.  These include Star Troopers from Star Wars, Scooby Doo, Elmo, and things like that.  They sell all sorts of accessories, hair dye, and other things that could accent a costume.  The also sell magic or trickery items.  The trickery items are pranks like whoopee cushions, fake throw up, fake cigarettes, etc.   The magic items are things like rabbits in hats, invisible dogs, tarot cards, magic cards, detachable rings, and magic trick kits.  The card store is similar to Time Travelers.  It has a wide variety of comic books.  It also has cards for baseball, football, basketball, Magic the Gathering, Yugioh, Pokémon, and Digimon.  There are other collectibles at this store too like autographed merchandise. 

Overall, Downtown Lake Orion has a lot of unique shops ranging from card shops to bike shops to bridal shops.  In addition there are a lot of bars, restaurants, and hair salons.  If shopping there, I would highly recommend stopping at Sagebrush Cantina, a Mexican restaurant.  This is by far the best place I have ever gone out to eat and would be a perfect end to a day of walking around and shopping in Downtown Lake Orion.