Charity shops full!

[YoureAllABunchOfBastards]

Tried three different local charity shops today and none of them are accepting donations as they have too much stuff. I wouldn't care if I was donating rubbish, but it is all good quality stuff. Clearly everyone else had their clear outs earlier than me...

can the people that work in these shops tell us why many items are priced so high

thanks

It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Because some of the volunteers won’t know the different brands and their relative value? Probably because, based on all the other replies on here from charity shop workers, because they are overwhelmed by donations and under pressure to get the stuff out.

Remember the majority are volunteers!

Depends where you are geographically. Plus some shops have standard pricing. Where I work we are able to set our own prices. So primark tops are never over 2:99 but the maximum we would charge for a top would probably be 4:99. Generally nothing in our shop is priced above 7:99 which would be a decent brand dress.

Our local hospice shop was very bare on the run up to Christmas. Took some old toys and games in today and it was cheerfully full again.

Think about offering toys, children’s books and games to local schools, hospitals and playgroups.
It’s also a good time to consider why you have so much good quality stuff to dump or donate. First rule of declutter and eco lifestyle is reducing what you actually buy in the first place.

I'd love it if charity shops sorted all their clothes by size, and put all clothes of one size in one area. I'm a size 8. I don't want to have to wade through all the size 12/14 stuff because I'm never going to buy it even if it is beautiful and 10p. The only charity shop I've come across that does this is Crisis. That said, I've largely given up going into charity shops because I can't be arsed to wade through all the wrong sizes and then find nothing I want to buy anyway.

I usually shop for second hand clothes on ebay instead - it's so much easier to find stuff you want to buy and the prices are often comparable.

I do understand the shite that they must be filtering out, however - I recently took some stuff to a charity shop for an elderly relative and had to bin a book that had had something spilled on it and a book with no cover. She couldn't see the issue!

can the people that work in these shops tell us why many items are priced so high

In our shop, the mantra is price to sell. We have so much stock donated that we have to keep it flowing out of the shop and the money into the till. We have a 50% sale on all clothing, DVDs and books at the moment as we just need to get rid of it all.

At other times of year though it's our job to get as much as we can for an item. So yes, that means pricing a dress from a top end high street brand like Hobbs at around a tenner. Because we know through experience that we can sell at that price. You can't know every brand though, and mistakes get made like a volunteer not recognising that Papaya isn't a designer brand, it's Matalan.

Donations always peak in January. Not just unwanted Christmas gifts, but the traditional new year clear out. I'm sure there's a lot of great stuff among the bags but you have to go through an awful lot of other stuff to get to it.

I went round some of the charity shops in the rich village near me today. Lots of tat and the only thing I wanted was a pair of shoes from M&S - admittedly they looked nearly new but they were £35! Madness.

I'm glad the shops don't accept everything but it would be nice if they got rid of some of the rubbish on the shop floor to make room for nicer stuff, and priced things to sell. The way they're doing things now they're almost certainly turning away nice new things that people got for Christmas and leaving stale stock no one's buying out on the shop floor. That can't possibly make good business sense.

As far as getting rid of unwanted Christmas presents, a lot of smaller animal charities run auctions via facebook. You post the item to the winner (and can choose whether you want them to pay for postage or whether you're willing to donate that). You just have to ask them not to tag you in the auction if you're donating presents from anyone you're facebook friends with! Right now I'm auctioning off some perfume to help pay for a kidney operation for a rescue greyhound.

If people think they could do a better job than the charity shops, maybe they could consider selling their items on ebay themselves and donating the proceeds to charity.

The charity shops aren't the council; they have no obligation to provide a waste disposal service. I find it quite mind boggling that they get complaints from people when they can't accept any more donations, surely people must realise they only have limited space.

I'd love it if charity shops sorted all their clothes by size, and put all clothes of one size in one area. I'm a size 8. I don't want to have to wade through all the size 12/14 stuff because I'm never going to buy it even if it is beautiful and 10p.

This with bells on!!! They all used to be by size, then some fucking idiot thought... oh it will look nice by colour?!?!?! I don't know anyone who likes it that way

What Macarena said ^^
Also whilst there are a large volume of donations around this time of year they aren’t always good quality and we have to spend a fair bit of time wading through bin bags of used pants (true story)

charity shops always have a complete oversupply after xmas. Where I live is quite rough and people dump things on their doorsteps at night, in spite of signs saying "we are full, we cannot take donations".

You might have to stash stuff till March.

Of course it isn't rude. If they've no room they've no room. There's nothing to be done.

Homeless charities and food banks are grateful for warm winter clothing

The way charity shop prices have gone up around here, I'm not surprised they're full as they can't be shifting much in sales.

Unless I'm after vintage I can go online, bargain hunt and buy a new top or whatever for myself for not much more than they charge.

I cant remember which charity it is but there is one that has plain white (maybe black? ) size cubes with a discrete number on it and then all of the clothes are in colour order. Nightmare. I never go looking for a 'blue'. I go looking for size 14 jeans or whatever.
I dont go in there anymore as it annoys me so much.
Other charity shop moans are poor quality stuff packing the rails so that you cant see what there is and also prices not reflecting original price .
Having said that I love nothing better than a good hunt through my local charity shops. I buy bits and pieces - usually books and bric a brac as the clothes arent up to much across the board.

Same here! Tried donating some of DSD's old clothes (mostly aged 5-6 with her consent of course). One charity shop I tried said they could accept but wouldn't sort through it and the worst bit was more than half the rail of children's clothes was empty!

Homeless charities and food banks are grateful for warm winter clothing

@Dowser do you know if they accept children's clothes?

I think I have said on here before that our local shop has quite a range of brand new specially bought stuff to sell at Christmas so some of their fixtures are still full with that rather than donations. I doubt the staff get a choice about that, though.

Yes, the clothes are arranged by colour there too

PoesyCherish you can sometimes leave suitable donations at your local Women's Centre and they'll see it gets to a refuge.

If you're having trouble finding a charity shop for your stuff, stick it on Freecycle. It's remarkable what people will come and collect. I've shifted everything from the bottom half of a hamster cage (suggested uses: cat litter tray, seedling tray) to cardboard boxes (for moving house).

Do you not have the bags through the letterbox, where they will collect? We sometimes get 3 in a week, then a huge gap .

I have a bag for collection this week but they don't take any household items , just clothes/shoes .

I am aware there are scammers who pick up the bags to re-sell , but I would rather this happens than it just gets put in the bin by me

They have stopped accepting donations in most of the shops here. The last time we took a couple of bags round they searched through what they wanted and rejected the rest. The stuff they rejected was good quality, but they had too much of it in stock. Tried Freecycle/Freegle but no luck.

I pass what I can onto my sisters kids to wear, good condition toys go to the school for use in class rooms or jumble sales. DVDs/CDs are now sold onto Music Magpie (or similar) where possible. Charity shops can't shift them and no-one wants them any more.

I've had a couple of bags in my car ready to go for 4 weeks now.

If you can store it for a few more weeks and donate then it will be better appreciated

I do a big pre Christmas de clutter usually, and last year when I went to leave stuff to my usual charity shop a lady said we have too much stuff can’t take it. Fair enough. I found some where else that took it (eventually). I usually have very good quality toys/books and good quality clothes for adults and kids.
Anyway in spring I was back after another tidy out and the usual guy was there. I told him I was glad they could take it as had been turned away at Xmas. He said I know, I was really cross when I found out they had turned stuff away. He said 90% of what they get is rubbish, only 10% goes in the shop. Certain people always have good stuff so would never turn away. He said they ended up with hardly any good stock as people had been turned away. Ever since then I only give if he is working, which he usually is.
However if it’s full it’s full, ‘elf an safety and all that.