So what would you tell a charity shop manager?

[Supersimpkin]

I volunteer in a charity shop and want to hear it from the horse's mouth - ie the customers. Colour blocking - yay or nay? Prices? Boutique or rag-and-bone decor?

Am feeling smug as anything as have just won an award for volunteering, so let rip, I can't be offended by anything right now.

Clean
Uncluttered
BY SIZE!!! not the God awful colour blocking

Thanks

Books in alphabetical order, currently l am collecting Agatha Christie books which are surprisingly rare in charity shops, so I like to know at a glance if there are any not stand looking for 10 minutes.

Hang clothes by either size or type - I don't think colour blocking is at all helpful.

If you are selling ladies clothes and shoes then Try and keep it uncluttered by putting the bric-a-bracky stuff in its own section. One of the shops here puts cups and books all around the clothes which makes it really hard to get something out to look at.

Keep it clean and smelling as fresh as you can - open the windows and bin any donations which smell strongly of BO or smoke - it really does infect the entire shop.

Train the volunteers to smile, say thanks for donations and be generally pleasant. I don't expect copious praise for bringing in donations but I also don't like being tutted at for not knowing my Gift Aid number.

Clothes by size. Divided by type (tops, dresses, etc) within sizes if you have a lot. Other items not crammed on shelves that it’s hard to get items out or see what is actually there.

By size.

Have a reed diffuser on the sales desk to avoid that musty charity shop smell.

Put the shoes together and not randomly scattered around the shop on top of other displays etc.

Throw some stuff away - for example in kid’s books there are usually three decent books and a load of utter garbage nobody is ever going to pay for. I’d rather see one shelf of quality books than a load of battered world book day free books, stuff that came with cereal boxes 30 years ago and ten year old annuals with all the puzzles filled in.

It’s fair enough to price a higher end brand like Boden or Jigsaw at a higher price than say Next or M and S, but the condition of the garment matters too. £15 for a Boden dress is good condition is worth paying, if it’s faded and bobbled you’d be lucky to get £5 for it.

Don’t sell empty Bon Maman jam jars for £1.50, for £1 more I can get one with actual jam in it (this might be specific to a particular shop near me though).

Also if you can make sure children’s clothes are labled by size. Too often they’re all thrown on a rack together and it’s a pain to have to sort through them all.

If I go into a charity shop and the clothes are colour blocked I don't even look. By size and type is essential! And agree with all comments about keeping the shop smelling fresh. Don't clutter it too much. And don't sell shit lol. If it's bobbly or faded, get rid

Provide your volunteer staff with customer service training.

Another one, try to make sure whoever sorts the books knows the difference between children’s, young adult and actual adult books. My DD reads older children’s and YA books, fairly often she finds a book in the children’s section which is clearly for adults and has to be told she can’t have it. Conversely I often find YA novels in the adult section which I know she’d like.

Colour blocking - NO

Keep prices reasonable. I won't pay £19.99 for a second hand coat.

50p rail for anything you want rid of is always popular.

Not boutique style. It's pretentious. People go in for a bargain not a boutique shopping experience.

Volunteers to be professional to an extent. The amount of bitching and backstabbing I hear in these shops is unreal and it puts me off going in.

Definitely not organised by colour. No one walks in thinking they want a pink top, you want to see whats there in your size quickly.

Agree with PP re labelled items. I saw a very faded joules jacket for £20, you could get it cheaper on ebay so not worth it

Train the volunteers really well on the tills, increasingly I have noticed that they have all gone computerised and the staff are struggling with them. I feel sorry for them and its frustrating waiting in line for ages when all I want to do is hand over a pound for a book.

Oh.

I like looking round shops organised by colour. Clearly it's just me!

I'm often in there looking for, say, any red top for a school charity day, or a black cardigan for a concert, or whatever, plus I quite often buy something a bit big but a decent colour.

Agree no colour blocking. I want a pair of trousers size 14, not “something blue”. Also agree books arranged alphabetically by author, and bric-a-brac corralled in its own area.

The boutique look is awful. It’s a charity shop!

Our local one does a plus size section which is always good.

Realistically price things. I’m not going to pay £6 for a £3 primark top that’s all bobbly.

Keep prices realistic. I'm not going to pay £8 for a F&F or George top that was probably only a tenner or so new. And even branded stuff isn't worth £20 an item when is been worn half to death.

Basic wine glasses - cost about 50p each in the supermarkets, so pricing them at £1.99 each means you'll never sell them. Unless there's something very special about them, no-one is going to pay more than a few pence for them, especially if you only have 3 or 5 rather than a full set.

Definitely sort by size not by colour.

Colour blocking is just bizarre, no-one goes clothes shopping by colour... I mean, nope don’t care which bit of my body it covers but it must be purple!!! Why is that even a thing?

Prices - they’re usually too high tbh, I don’t mean pricing certain brands higher, that’s fair enough - just in general... especially things that were at the bottom end of the market when new.

Oh and if you do have different prices by brand... they need to be priced by someone who actually knows brands.

Pricing - I think someone decided at my previously favourite charity shop that they could increase prices to about 4 times what they were previously, meaning they now sell very little. Not the best business model!

Colour blocking is ridiculous and if a shop is set out like this I simply wont look at clothing. I don't have the patience to sift through 30 blue tops, then 20 red ones and finally 30 green tops just to see if there is one in my size.

Competitive pricing is much better for the charity. There is a shop near me that has everything under £3 no matter what they are selling. It is always heaving and people fall into the mentality of buying more because it is so reasonably priced. I have no doubt that they make more money than the shops who price according to brand etc. So what if one person buys a dress for £20, the shop down the road makes 10x that with smaller prices because people buy more and go in knowing they are likely to find a bargain.

After a while people stop even looking in the expensive shops because 99% of the time they don't find anything that warrants the price and the stock turn over is SLOW. No one ever passes by the £3 or less shop because they know the stock changes so frequently and therefore they are more likely to find something new.

The boutique look is awful. It’s a charity shop!

Don't agree! I like it when the charity makes the shop attractive and welcoming.

I can't be arsed to struggle to look through crammed racks. I don't like it looking like a jumble sale.

Organise by garment/size/then possibly colour.

But definitely colour arrange the displays and the windows.

Absolutely agree with other posters, no to colour blocking. And yes to reasonable prices. I still firmly believe that part of the role of charity shops should be to help people to clothe themselves well who would otherwise struggle to. I know there's an argument to say that supermarket clothing and Primark etc have changed things, but nobody should be trying to charge £6 for a stretched out old t-shirt and people should be able to get a warm coat for less than £25. It was donated. And usually not especially for the good of that particular charity, but because people wanted it out of their house and a charity shop is a convenient and ethical means of disposal.

Oh, and Next isn't a designer label. And neither is Jane Norman.

I like colour blocking, it looks so much more inviting than the jumble sale approach. I don't even like TK Maxx, I just can't be arsed with the mess.

Colour blocking in size order.
That and don't charge £5 for a t-shirt that I can buy in Peacocks for £2 - at least not when you are opposite Peacocks.