The Discount Store Bel Air draws attention; Small business attracting shoppers

The Discount Store, located in Bel Air, is a new hotspot when it comes to discounted returned items from bigger corporations like Target, Amazon, and more.

     The owners, Evanne and John McCormack, started this business right after Covid, but John started becoming interested in this sort of business in early 2018, right before their wedding.

     “It started out on watching some Youtube videos,” and learning all the information from these videos and making some extra side money by starting to sell used books on Amazon. At the time, John was working in the fire department and would have “four days off at a time,” so he would have a lot of free time, he says. 

     He then started to flip items he found at yard sales and sold them on eBay, and he would sometimes “make the same amount of money,” he was making working at the fire department. However, Covid then hit and the yard sales stopped.

     They started ordering palettes and paid “way more then [he] probably should have,” and started selling in the Safeway parking lot, as well as out of their own garage.

     This got them both thinking that they could keep doing this, but have a bigger space to do it, so they started looking for places to rent.

     Once they found the space that they are currently in, they continued to grow, and they are still growing and expanding their business. 

     The idea for this business came from the idea of Covid and the “outrageous prices,” of retail items. They, “started figuring out where all this came from,” and they saw the opportunity to sell essentials and other items and wanted items for 50-80 percent off their original prices.

     As for inventory, they have tried so many different things with different kinds of trucks that came from different companies, which took them, “a lot of time and a lot of mistakes to find the right place,” and the more “direct” places to buy from.

     They have access to a “portal” that allows them to bid on palettes from big retailers such as Amazon, Kohls, Target, and more. Because of this, they don’t get a truck of items from just one retailer; they get a truck with items from many different retailers at the same time.

     “Most of the time we go in blind,” and this is what makes it the most fun, according to Evanne. Going in blind keeps them wondering, and it surprises them at what is inside the palettes.

     The way these palettes work is if you order something on Amazon or the Target website and you do not pick it up or you return it, it does not go back on the shelf. It goes through the return process, and this is how they get to the palettes. Also, items such as discontinued items are in the same bubble. Everything that is returned is brand new; it just “wasn’t right,” for whatever customer purchased it online. “Sometimes we get items that are not even in the store yet,” because of over ordering from companies, she says.

     They do carefully check every item that comes into their store, they do not just throw things on the shelf. They pick and choose and make sure all their items are in good shape.

     “We love supporting the community,” Evanne says. The couple are very passionate about helping animals, so they work with Saving Grace Animal Rescue. They partnered with the rescue to do an adoption event back in May of 2021.

     “We said we weren’t going to get another dog because we already had two, and then they brought in Dolly,” who became Dolly the Discount Dog. You can see Dolly if you visit the store.

     You can visit The Discount Store at 728 Belair Rd Unit C Building 10, Bel Air, MD 21014, and you can also visit their website, thediscountstoreonline.com, to order items online. You can also check out their FaceBook page, where they stream live videos and post their new items.