For Aubrey Gavello and Alex Wood, a trip to HomeGoods is like a treasure hunt.
The San Francisco-based couple recently partook in a TikTok trend that features shoppers showing off the quirky items found at their local HomeGoods stores. The trend highlights home decorations and furniture that are at times bizarre, but seemingly unique to the store.
“You feel the need to walk away with it because it’s gone the next day,” Gavello, 27, said about the appeal of HomeGoods products.
Gavello and Wood found a lanky horse statue, a bust of a woman with bubbles on her head, a Christmas mannequin with a pine needle skirt and more. Their TikTok is one of several videos about the home decor chain that have amassed millions of views.
“You don’t really go in there needing something,” Wood, 31, said. “You have a general idea, maybe of some Christmas decor or maybe a piece of furniture or something. But HomeGoods really does dictate for you, it tells you what to buy.”
Wood said that he used to go to HomeGoods with his mom and pull out the weirdest items in the store to inspect. He said that browsing and admiring the wacky inventory at HomeGoods feels like a universal experience.
The official HomeGoods TikTok account commented on the couple’s video saying, “sometimes you don’t know what you need until you go to HomeGoods.”
A HomeGoods spokesperson said that "there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing our Finders excited by the discoveries they make at our HomeGoods stores."
"With our stores getting new merchandise several times a week, our rapidly changing assortment of brand name and designer merchandise gives our customers the 'treasure hunt' shopping experience that they know and love," said the spokesperson in an email.
The chain, owned by TJX Companies, is a sister company to T.J. Maxx, Sierra Trading Post and Marshalls. The company "has nearly doubled its annual sales over the past decade, reaching $54.2 billion in fiscal 2024, "according to CNBC. "Part of that success has come from changing the way it merchandizes its stores," CNBC reported.
The beauty of HomeGoods, according to Gavello, is that every location appears to have a “whole new set of things” for shoppers to find, even if the stores are near one another. She said that she and Wood went to a different nearby HomeGoods to record another video and the aisles were stocked differently.
Across the country, Tatyiana Gordon, 26, recorded her own HomeGoods experience in Syracuse, New York. Gordon similarly said she believes the fun of a HomeGoods trip lies in the fact that no store is the same.
At one of the HomeGoods near her, Gordon and her partner found a bust of a boxer with golden gloves, a squirrel lamp and a disco ball with a pink Santa hat. She said that some of the products were difficult to describe, which made for a challenge in her video.
Gordon said the TikTok trend is fun because it shows the wide range of decorations that exist across HomeGoods stores.
Shopping at the chain can often feel like a once-in-a-lifetime experience because shoppers are likely “not going to be able to find it again," she said. Although some of the products can be absurd, she described them as “conversation starters.”
“I’m sure there are so many wacky things in our stores that we didn’t even find just because there are so many things being sold there,” she said. “It’s just that store that you get everything that you never really knew you even wanted."
