When I was visiting Las Vegas recently, I went to the Nellis Auctions store at Meadows Mall. This is an Amazon returns store, where hundreds of pallets of returned items are released every week into huge “sorting tables” that people can rummage through to find “hidden treasure”.

Many of the items are brand new in boxes or packaging. Some of the items have defects or missing parts – for example I bought a coffee machine without the carafe, as I just needed something to boil water for my hotel room (and it cost me just $1). Pricing seems fluid here. On the first week I visited, prices were on a sliding scale: the store closes Wednesday and Thursday to restock, then Friday every item was $7, Saturday they were $5, Sunday they were $3, Monday they were $1, and Tuesday they were 50c. I went on the Monday and got a whole range of stuff for $1 per item. The next week every item was $3 every day of the week. So I assume there are multiple price promotions being trialed here.

It’s really a mystery as to what you can find each week, as pallets of returns will change in line with what consumers bought and then decided they didn’t need. I bought items like sheet sets, the coffee machine with no carafe, orthotic shoe insoles, posh wrapping paper, and some items to give to friends locally in Las Vegas (dog diapers, dog clothing etc) – all $1 each (except during the following $3 week where I also bought a pack of 12 new sock pairs, and a few other things).

It was a fun adventure unlike any shopping I’ve ever done before. I feel I got excellent value for what I purchased. Because I was travelling internationally, and flights have baggage limits that are expensive to exceed, I was very reserved on how much I bought. If I had lived in the US, it would have been easy to fill a trolley or two of “bargains”. I saw a lot of people doing that – probably stocking up items to sell on eBay.

I’ve placed a few photos below to give you an idea of how the experience worked. It was fun overall. If you’re travelling to Las Vegas, the Meadows Mall shopping complex is huge with large department stores like Macy’s etc – and this Nellis Auctions outlet gives another unique reason to “go shopping” in the area.