Okay, so the the business model is

returns. Every store, every place that

you can purchase something, they have

returns and they

most time do not put those returns back

out on the floor. They throw them in a

big big box

that used to go to a dump or, you know,

garbage refuse. Now they sell those to

people like myself that um

turn them into low-cost options for

people.

>> And why did you why did you think Sharon

this was an opportunity

for your community specifically?

>> Well, my husband and I looked for a

place to open our store and we kept

being drawn back to Trenton. Um

Something was just drawing us there.

Once we got into Trenton, into the

community, we understood why we were we

were called there.

There was a need,

a place to shop. They needed a place to

buy clothes, affordable clothing, just

affordable items period.

It's a a quaint small town

um

with a big and they did at that time

have a big need.

>> How did economic conditions affect

demand Sharon? Like I'm just curious,

did you for example see more see more

demand when when inflation for instance

was a lot higher?

>> Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Several people from different

backgrounds, different

financial genres um

shopped with us during Christmas, during

holidays, for birthdays. Um

everybody that you see that you think

might be, you know,

well-to-do may just be living paycheck

to paycheck and our store gives

everybody or gave everybody an outlet to

to shop.

>> Who was um your typical customer Sharon?

Was there a typical customer? You know,

was it was it more likely to be men,

women, young, old, singles, couples,

families?

>> There was no typical. Uh everybody,

young, old, male, female,

uh kids, adults,

um

it was just everybody. We served

everybody. And if you um

if you see the movie, you'll see the

people coming in and out of the store,

they're all walks of life.

>> What were Sharon, I'm curious, some of

the biggest challenges to running the

bin store?

>> One of the biggest challenges that we

ran into is we opened in February of

2020.

Uh actually, we opened on Valentine's

Day in 2020 and COVID reared its ugly

head. Since we were not a necessity

store, we had to close.

Uh close a fledgling business.

Um I think for 60 days we we had to

close. That was a challenge. But our

customers, when we did open back up,

were waiting. We would literally have

lines outside our store because of our

business model.

Uh we had tables full, I think 12 tables

full of items uh for $5. And it could be

anything from a crop top to a kids toy.

Everything was $5.

>> How do you think um that store Sharon

addressed issues uh I'm thinking waste

issues or environmental issues that

surround returned goods?

>> I think that the bin store model um

saves billions

of tons of garbage a year.

Um

things that

they're they're perfectly fine. A lot of

them are brand new. Get returned for,

you know, somebody didn't want it,

somebody got it as a wedding gift and

it's not what they liked or or you know,

could use and that stuff gets returned

and it was going to a landfill and this

way those items are put back

back out into the market not into the

landfill and it also gives people that

maybe couldn't afford that before an

opportunity to have something nice.

>> It sounds like Sharon you were much more

sort of broadly focused on helping your

community

rather than making money yourself. Is

that fair?

>> That's pretty fair. The community

as a whole

was very important to us and still is.

We no longer have mom and pops. We sold

the store

to a friend of ours in in the same

community. Everything was kept you know,

in the community

with the same kind of servants heart

that we had, you know, community first.

We supported the schools and we

supported you know, churches and local

other local businesses.

My philosophy was

well, I have a saying you can't outgive

God but everybody doesn't get on the

religious

aspect of it but

if you take care of your neighbors then

your neighbors take care of you.

>> Sharon as you mentioned there you've

moved on. You started a new business

now. Tell us about that.

>> Okay, so we left there and we we started

a food truck.

I I don't know where we came up with

that idea exactly but we left the store.

The bin store was our heart. Like we we

loved our community. We loved the people

but

we have children at our advanced age. We

still had children in high school and

they were getting to the point where

they had sporting events and school

functions that were important for us to

get to because you know, it was high

school. they were you know, on their way

out. And we didn't want to miss all of

those events, so that was our reasoning

for selling the store. The food truck

seemed more like we could work it around

uh

our schedule and our goals for our

children.

>> And what food are you selling at food

truck, Sharon?

>> Um

my husband makes the best Philly

cheesesteak ever.

Uh we've even had people from Philly

tell us that, so

uh we do um short order type stuff,

hamburgers, uh Philly cheesesteaks. We

also offer

homemade breakfast bis- we make homemade

biscuits and, you know, cooked to order

eggs and things like that. Um

which is kind of uncommon for a food

truck to have homemade biscuits, but

that's just something, you know, we

if we do something, we try to do the

best

uh

at what we're going to offer.