200 charity shops closing (cancer research)

Have you checked whether your kerbside recycling takes textiles? Ours does, I just put them out in a white plastic bin liner.

That makes sense, thanks.

And I do think there should be perks for volunteers.

@nomas

Thanks for explaining, that makes it make a bit more sense and sounds more understandable.

I would imagine the pricing process may vary in charity shops, and also depends on the experience of the volunteer - where I volunteer, we're told to use Ebay prices (the lower end) as a guideline for pricing items that need to be looked up. If an item is thought to be valuable we're always encouraged to look it up on Ebay, as well as Addall and Amazon, sites like that.

We do sell stock online if we believe we won’t achieve the ‘best’ price for that item on the shop floor.

There are lots of charity shops in the town I live in. Cancer Research charges way, way more for their items than any of the other shops. I’m talking £50 for a bobbly Primark coat, or £9 for a pair of Peacocks jeans. Erm no thanks!

Other charity shops seem to manage without being so greedy, so it’s no surprise that Cancer Research shops are not selling stock and therefore closing!

I think it's a worry that the item won't get its full value. That might be my ignorance of the pricing process in charity shops.

E.g. I sold a pair of used Spanx leggings for £60 on eBay. I don't think it would fetch that in a charity shop.

Then I can decide where to donate my money, i.e. directly where most needed.

@ERthree

It depends on what you mean by "very little to the cause" but Oxfam states on their website that 80% (80p for every 1 pound) goes to the cause. That sounds like a more than reasonable amount to me.

Unless you think that charities are being dishonest about how much of the money goes to the cause...

I don't disagree that, especially in this economic climate, some charities could consider lowering prices a bit. But not to the point where things are being priced exceptionally low - over time, that would prove detrimental as well.

this Information is readily available eg
https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/where-your-money-goes
over 70p per pound for BHF.

I volunteer and receive 25% staff discount and I buy very little- books which I read and donate again, the odd item of clothing for Dd.
Volunteering in a charity shop actually deters me from buying things: I don’t need that much ‘stuff’.

@ShanghaiDiva

Exactly. If I want to buy a book from the bookshop I volunteer in, it's not because I perceive them to be high quality, it's because the book itself is of a genre, or on a subject, that interests me.

There are books I've bought that have arguably been in a little poorer condition than some other books, but I've bought them because I want those ones in particular, NOT the 'better quality' books.

I put out a number of science books of high quality (many were basically like new) on the shelves at Oxfam last week. I didn't buy a single one, because reading them would bore me to tears.

I love a charity shop but recently prefer Vinted. I have about 5/6 charity shops near me and I used to love spending a couple of hours in them but when it started to be half used candles and £10-£15 for clothes that were overwhelmingly M&S I just stopped going so much tbh.

Edit - my exception is the one that deals mainly in furniture and books. They're known as the one to give your books to and they do 3 for £1 on fiction regardless of how old or new the book is. The only exceptions are classics and big series.

But what are the best donations?
for some it’s a knitting book, for others a pair of size 4 trousers, for others it’s silk tie…

@MaturingCheeseball

I don't think it's accurate to say that staff are "skimming off the best donations".

Staff don't buy items because they're the best/highest quality, we buy the items that we actually want to own for ourselves.

The items that we wish to purchase are sometimes (in fact, quite often) NOT the highest quality items.

Because (for me, at least) it's not about the quality of the donation, but whether that item (in this case, mostly books) is something I desire to own.

There are numerous donations of good quality that the staff don't buy, simply because we have no interest in those items.

I do agree that there’s something not quite cricket about staff skimming off the best donations.

For any Miss Read aficionados, the term used is “buying in” when jumble sale organisers get first dibs. Also there is a bit in one book where Miss Read is helping on the cake stall at the village fete and stubs her toe under the tablecloth, only to find the best cakes stowed there that the volunteers have bought before the fete has opened.

I'm not sure that rags are bought any more (though I don't know for certain - the shop I volunteer in doesn't have rags.)

My presumption is that rags have to be thrown away or sent for recycling. If the latter, then they'd have to pay a company to come and collect them.

I would be glad of a bin somewhere for clothes which are too shabby for charity shops or Vinted, but usable for rags. It seems wasteful to put stuff in non-recyling - and I don't do that much dusting!

@nomas

Yes, I appreciate that you haven't blanketly accused staff of stealing. I just think that the term 'claiming rights' could be misread as implying that they're being taken without being paid for.

I am still confused as to why it would put you off donating more valuable items. Why is that the case? Are you opposed to volunteers buying the more valuable items? If so, why?

@CrostaDiPizza

And even if all the staff did act like vultures (which many do not) it surely doesn't matter when they are buying the items at full price.

I presume that most people donate to charity shops so that they can (hopefully) sell and bring in money for the shop. So WHO buys them is irrelevant; it doesn't matter if that person is a regular customer or a volunteer. (And when a volunteer purchases something, I would argue that they are then in the role of a customer themselves.) The item sells and the charity gets the money, so purpose served.

If you read my posts, I've always said the staff buy them, I've never said they take them. By claiming rights, I mean first dibs i.e. the stuff never goes up on the shelf.

It doesn't put me off donating, it just puts me of donating the more valuable stuff.

But yes, you're right, staff should be able to have the joy of buying a bargain too, especially if they're volunteers.

Yes, probably lots of reasons.

I won't give the prices for second hand children's/youth books around here and that's of course my choice.
I give our discarded books to the local recycling station after the local second shops no longer take books regardless of condition. The recycling station has shelves of free books as good as the second hand shops.

@nomas

But we don't just claim then, we BUY them. For the same price that any other customer would.

If you like the idea of a customer coming into the shop and seeing your donation with happiness, why don't you like the idea of a volunteer seeing your donation with happiness and then buying it? Why does it matter WHO buys it? What's wrong with a volunteer 'winning' (by purchasing an item they enjoy) as well the shop?

Most people are downright fed up with donating to charities that spend so much on head office staff and donate very little to the cause. Their stock is free, their shop staff are free( other than the manager) and many of the stores are on reduced rates yet they charge more than the original price for some items. Folk are fed up with charities.

Not surprised. They have got very expensive. Don’t even bother going into my local one anymore. I can get far better deals on vinted.

@Livelovebehappy

That's why I try to correct it when I see it (our literature pricer now MASSIVELY overprices 'his' books after being pulled up by the managers for under-pricing.) The managers are aware that he now ridiculously overprices and they say they've spoken to him about it, but it hasn't had any effect.

So I'll sometimes check literature and change the prices on the the books that I know to be overpriced. But I can't do it all the time - I have other jobs to attend to in the shop. So a £14.99 book in the literature category will get placed on the shelf with a £10.99 price on it...you get the idea.

@nomas , it's not a rational view, and your idea of the staff pouncing on anything half-decent is not rational.
If your cast-offs are so wonderful, stick them on Vinted.