The Indianapolis area has three fantastic outlets, including one on the east side, one on the southwest side and one in Greenwood (just south of Indianapolis). I’ve been shopping them all for about a decade now…and always love to try out new outlets when I travel as well. You can check out other posts here (on thethriftysisters.net) and on my YouTube site at https://www.youtube.com/@unearthedrelics to see the kinds of things I’ve found at these outlets (and on other thrifting adventures).

Washington Street: 6650 W Washington St, Indianapolis

Located near the Indianapolis airport on the southwest side of Indianapolis this is a large outlet with ample amounts of clothing and shoes as well as home goods and other items. They rotate bins mannually every hour. There is a huge parking lot so you can always find a place to park. I love hopping in here when I have a few minutes to spare before or after a flight since it is so close to the airport.

Franklin Road: 4105 N Franklin Rd, Indianapolis

Located on the east side of Indianapolis, this outlet is crammed full of treasures in bins. There’s a rotation every hour, and in addition to clothing, shoes and homegoods, there’s also a furniture section. This is also the site of the pick up for items purchased via Goodwills auction system (by appointment). About half the bins are clothing and half are for other homegoods – and they frequently include vintage finds. There’s a good sized furniture area and some artwork is kept up by the registers. The parking lot can sometimes get a little full, but if you are patient you’ll usually find a spot to park.

When I visit the Franklin Road Outlet I often enjoy going to the nearby Heidleburg Haus (https://www.heidelberghaus.com/) at 7625 Pendleton Pike. They serve light meals and have an amazing German gift store and bakery as well. I think the gnomes give me good luck for the bins!

Greenwood: 927 N Emerson Ave, Greenwood

This is the smallest of the three Indianapolis-area outlets. A little while ago they switched to conveyor belts for all but a handful of bins. I was initially excited about this switch, thinking it would speed up the time it took for them to rotate items…but the last few times I’ve been there I’ve found that it actually takes quite a bit longer because they have staff members come and pick through everything on the belts before they let people in to pick. They seem to be picking out glass and broken objects (which is good) but some folks have pointed out that they also seem to be picking out things to sell online. I obviously have no problem with that since the goal is for them to make money, but it feels like the time to do that isn’t when you have dozens of people ready to pick through items on their last stop before the trash bin – there should be plenty of time to do so before this stage and that’s my biggest gripe. In any case, the wait to pick through new items seems to be longer than it is at the other sites and they only do one row at a time, so it doesn’t feel like they are actually switching up as much stuff as the other sites are. I also thought the conveyor belts might spare more breakable items, but the items tend to get jumbled up and spread out quite a bit and are often broken or hard to re-assemble. I still go here, but I’ve not had as much luck finding treasures here as I have in the past.

RIP:

Indy’s Northwest Outlet: There used to be 4th Indy-area outlet in the NW corner of 465 but sadly, it has been closed for quite a while and there doesn’t seem to be any movement on opening a new one in that location.

Shadeland Road Outlet (Replaced by Franklin Road Outlet): I miss the old Shadeland Road Outlet. The parking situation at this one was often a challenge and the bathrooms were atrocious, but they always seemed to have THE BEST stuff. The move over to Franklin Road made sense, but I still have fond memories for this old site.

Other Outlets that I’ve visited:

Clarksville Indiana

Gary Indiana

Cincinnati Ohio

Nashville, TN

Las Vegas Nevada

San Antonio Texas