I manage a charity shop AMA

[DaanSaaf]

Some of these were getting a bit high brow so I thought I'd lower the bar

Ladies clothes are top seller, followed by accessories then bricabrac.

Considering the items had been donated I would have taken the £50

user they are highly valuable collectables that we're selling for half the price they're going for on eBay.

Sorry, apologies

No worries

At what stage should people throw things away? I have loads of bric and brac that I see as clutter I am bagging up to take in but a bit unsure who would want so many odds and ends! Can I even add a spare colander for example as I never use two!

If it's not broken/damaged/dirty we can sell it

(Other choice items to go are a very Easter-y rabbit biscuit tin, scuffed school shoes, decorative but useless pots... it verges on hardly being worth keeping so I get a bit embarrassed whether to donate it at all)

I know that logoed uniforms are different to recycle. Ours have gone through 2DC and are no longer in a wearable state. We have loads of it. It feels wrong to put them into landfill, so would it be acceptable to parcel them up as rags for a charity shop?

Biscuit tin and shoes can be recycled, as can the pots if they're not saleable. Just picture it on a charity shop shelf and ask yourself if you would buy it!

Yep, we would recycle old uniforms.

Can i recycle old bras op. If so where?

Thanks as this is really helpful. I certainly wouldn’t buy the worn school shoes so might throw them away but i wish they could go to Africa or somewhere! I know a beauticians i used to walk past in London used to ask for used bras to send to Africa and I do think some things could go on being useful but I wouldn’t buy them!

Do you or any of the staff get paid or is it all voluntary?

I used to give to pdsa. They did gift aid. Now I give to a local charity for children with cancer. No faff with gift aid just a quick gas with people I know in the shop. I think if comments were passed on my donations I might bite back!

Hellywelly I think Bravissimo recycle bras, I called them and posted a load to their head office last year

Thanks for your reply @DaanSaaf, I realised when reading back that I hadn't actually asked you a question!

PP, I donate my old hopefulky not too manky bras here - www.smallsforall.org.

Do you get many shoplifters? I'm not aware of it happening in my local shops but was once chatting to a charity shop volunteer in Devon and she said it was a big problem..

The eBay price of something is neither here nor there. eBay is a national market whereas your market is whoever happens to pass by your high street, ie dramatically more limited. For the sake of example, yes the rare highly collectible playing cards might well be worth a fortune to a playing card collector in Barnsley or Aberdeen, but we are in Southwold and nobody here gives a toss about playing cards, so here they are not worth 400 quid! If they are worth X on eBay then sell them on eBay, but don't try to justify their price in your shop based on that.

The 'eBay effect' gets properly ludicrous in some charity shops. The other week our local bhf shop was trying to sell a moth-eaten piece of 100-year-old Austrian lace in a hideous old frame for 120 quid I'm guessing the pricing person found something similar on eBay and thought oh yes that's collectible, but honestly the chances of someone passing by being prepared to part with more than 50p for it were approximately zero.

Spring scuffed shoes are recyclable so we'd still take them.

Bras go in the normal rag but as charity mentioned there are specific charities for old bras.

picachoo I'm sorry you've had that experience, obviously we ask for gift aid because it increases the donation value by 25% but we certainly don't look down on anyone who can't/doesn't want to sign up. I dont even gift aid myself!

We have a paid manager and assistant manager, all other staff are volunteers.

We get a lot of shoplifters they see us as easy targets because we have no security like other stores.

Sorry if I've missed any, I'll check back later.

Do you mind me asking your salary, and how much income the shop generates? Or do you manage more than one branch?

I wonder about this because I'd be surprised if any of the shops near me generate enough to pay any legal salary.

I'm a charity shop volunteer and from what Daan says it sounds very much like the same chain.

Not hijacking your thread Daan but thought I'd back up what you were saying.

We do get to buy things we spot, but never make that pricing decision ourselves. We always ask the manager, or if she's not in, the most experienced volunteer to price anything we want to buy. My absolutely best things were a BNWT Hobbs woollen coat and a new pair of Doc Marten boots. Love them both and wear them to death every winter.

Shoplifting in our store is a real issue. We have a glass counter/cabinet thing where we keep all the valuable stuff, or it's sold through the online shop. First job in the morning is always to tidy the rails, and every shift I find swaps - someone's come in wearing a manky old coat/top/whatever, taken one of ours off the rails to try on, walked out wearing it and put their manky old item on the hangar. We also have label switchers who take a label for £10 off an expensive vase and replace it with a 99p label from something else - a lot of this happens when the volunteer with special needs is on the till which is absolutely despicable.

Our store doesn't sell electricals - but one along the road does. Anything we get which we think we can sell we'll take to them rather than binning it. All unsellable textiles and books get recycled too. A lot of the junk we do have to bin though, it never ceases to amaze me what people hand in - things like chipped or broken crockery, DVD boxes without any DVDs in them - how are we meant to sell that??

On the pricing thing - yes we do have a pricing guide but that relies on a volunteer recognising that "Atmosphere" is actually Primark and that it's therefore cheaper than Reiss or Hobbs. Mistakes happen. Our chain gets weekly performance figures which the manager can compare with other branches and last year. Our aim is to make money - it's in nobody's interest to have stock sitting around for weeks as it's overpriced. So the mantra is always "price to sell" and if we find something overpriced we'll whip the ticket off and put something more realistic on.