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.

Heaven to the ears, thank you everyone, this is all so useful.

I completely agree with everything as a keen customer myself. Gift Aid is hassle for customers and more involved than we all think, altho it is - literally - free money for a charity. I do think the serving staff ought to be a bit more polite about it to people like me who say no.

By size.

Also, I agree with the pricing mentioned by a few people. I am not going to a charity shop to buy something that I can get new for the same price. That's a ridiculous thing to do.
So many times I've seen clothes from Primark in Charity shops that cost nearly the same as new

Be more realistic with your pricing. Of course, you’re raising vital funds but more and more people are shopping with you not just to help but because they can’t afford to shop anywhere else. I see you as helping people twice in that way, the second more directly. £4 for a Primark t-shirt with some of the hem undone in BHF last week. Maybe some training for possibly older pricers who don’t keep up with “younger” shops and price everything based on M&S levels (wild stereotyping, sorry!)

Please, stop eating your lunchtime pasties in the back room (you know who you are )

Pisces: cross post. Great minds .....

ATailofTwoKitties I like it too. But the shop by us is huge, so thry colour block all the tops and clearly label the cost hanger and hang in size. So if I want a green top size 20 I look at the green rack at the top. If I wanted a red top size 6 I look at the red rack at the bottom.

So def well labelled hangers. I don't want to have to rummage inside for a label.

Don't over stock. I want to be able to get round.

Books in alphabetical order.

Check DVDs aren't scratched. Thry might be 3 for £1 but if they don't work I just have a grumpy child.

piscis even 🙄

We know our customers are happy to pay £2.49 for a paperback. It was £1.99, the prices went up at the start of the year, the figures show there has been no impact on sales

They might still buy paperbacks from you because they like to support the charity which is why the figures show no impact but no one is happy to pay £2.49 for a second hand paperback book, trust me they really aren't!

Do something about the smell. I often drop off donations and would love to stay and have a look but find the smell unbearable, reminds me of hospitals and care homes. Other people I know say the same thing. Sorry!

My experience with Gift Aid is that a lot of shop vols do not seem to know that it is an 'are you a taxpayer' question. That is the problem I'm highlighting.

They ask if you'd like to gift aid your donation, then look shocked and huffy if you say 'sorry I can't', which is I've taken to usig the longer, explanatory answer.

I suspect that many, many ineligable people are 'tricked' into signing gift aid forms in shops and, more seriously, into paying the higher entry fee, with extra 'donation' (that legal sleight of hand then allows the NT to claim the whole entry fee as a donation), at National Trust properties.

Our local one is massive and they colour block but also arrange by size which is great.

No colour blocking! I had a trawl around the charity shops recently and the colour-blocked ones drive me mad.

I would like clothes to be sorted by type rather than size (not least because a size 10 from 1980 is very definitely smaller than a size 10 now, for instance!)

Children's clothes sorted by size, though.

Prices: unless something is an absolute gem, as cheap as possible. My most favourite charity shop is incredibly cheap. They also have the fastest possible turnover. I spend a fortune there, because I buy so many things - and every time I go (roughly every 3 weeks), the stock is completely different. I buy most of our clothes there - plus towels, sheets, homewares etc. It's fab. It is decidedly not a boutique type place, though - very rough and ready...

Well done on your award, OP.

As a previous poster said, don't put rubbish on the shelves such as free cds from papers, McDonalds toys, mugs that easter eggs have been in.

I don't think you need to get rid of the rubbish stuff. BUt maybe put that all in a box that you have to the side or that you put outside. Just a sign that says donations accepted or 20p. You don't have to bin it. Some people enjoy the rummage.

As a previous poster said, don't put rubbish on the shelves such as free cds from papers, McDonalds toys, mugs that easter eggs have been in.

I disagree! DS is the proud owner of a small Thomas mug (from an Easter egg), a Postman Pat dvd (free with some newspaper) and various happy meal toys, all of which he has chosen himself from the Sue Ryder shop. Price them low and shift them quick.

I don't generally buy clothes in charity shops, so for me it is all about the tat. And books, of course.

I prefer clothes arranged by size.
Colour blocking looks pretty but when it’s in somewhere like a charity shop I do find it harder to find clothes in my size.

And yes to realistic pricing.

I can’t do gift aid now, but I’ve never had any attitude from charity shop staff about it when I’ve donated things.

Oh and I agree I don't want to see new stuff. It's rarely anything that I like and one of the reasons I use charity shops is that I'm trying to avoid buying new crap that will end up in a landfill. I want to reduce the amount of stuff I am consuming.

I would like to see a Bargain rail. If you have things that are not selling then put them on a £1 rail . Also a big basket type holder with 50pence items. Prices amaze me

I agree with PP who said moving all the more crap stuff to an 'everything 50p' rack

Near me I have a slightly more posh one that has a more fashion conscious clientele (London high st) and they can get away with higher prices for better clothes.
But another nearer is in a poorer stretch of the neighbourhood where throwing ANYTHING away would seem wasteful - there are people who really need the cheaper clothes and will have to buy the worn cheap stuff - but SEPARATING these from the better stuff would make it easier for everyone (and would make me more likely to keep trying to shop there)
I actually separate my stuff to donate and give the really good bits to the posher one, as i know they can get more money for their charity that way.

The smell, the smell...

Couldn't agree more. It's the donations we can't sell, to be honest - mustiness has supernatural lingering powers. We air and steam everything, and sometimes wash it, too. Most places grab it out of the bag and stick it on the rail, incidentally.

We know our customers are happy to pay £2.49 for a paperback. It was £1.99, the prices went up at the start of the year, the figures show there has been no impact on sales

99p is my limit. I suspect if you're charging £1.99 you Could equally raise it to £5.99 or £10, and it won't make much difference because the initial price was already unattractive.

Prioritise selling clothes made from natural fabrics - if that's possible..

I don't want to buy second hand versions of things I wouldn't buy new -and that's stretchy shiny man made shite.

Don't sell new crap - you're just contributing to landfill..

Congrats on your award!

Clothes by type, then size. Colour is the easiest thing to pick out with a quick scan.

Price reasonably. If you price by brand, make allowances for condition. If you use eBay for prices - look at sold prices, not asking prices!

Yes to shoes all together. I hate it when they're all over the shop.

Make sure the pricing volunteers know the supermarket/cheap brands if possible - Papaya, TU etc. Don't overprice them.

I really like pricing by type - eg. all dresses £3, all tops £1. Yes, the shops will miss out on the odd 'designer' sale but I'm always inclined to buy more in shops which do this - I visit them more often and definitely spend more overall. I also like to see smaller items like scarves or belts all together - and just priced at '£1 each'.

I rarely return items to charity shops (even though most allow it) because I get enough bargains to outweigh the occasional losses and 'it's for charity'. But when they start pricing and acting like a 'boutique' I'll treat them as such and will return items if I find damage or they don't fit.

IT depends on where your shop is, and the demographic of your customers. I work for an organisation that has a number of shops in very different areas, and shock horror , we channel our stuff to the shops where we know they will sell for the most amount of money because we are a charity raising money and that is our primary purpose. Just like we sell higher value goods on eBay if we know there is a market for it .

It is no good sending last season m and s tops and skirts to the shops where our customers wear designer stuff, and if we send Karen Millen and Paul Smith goods to other shops they would not find a buyer at the price we would want to achieve.

And before i hear cries of "poor people deserve nice things too" we are raising money for a charity, so it's not just the price of the item it's the gift aid that follows afterwards. We don't sell rubbish in our other shops, it is decent stuff, priced to sell , which it does, but additionally our more affluent area shops cost us slightly more to rent so have to be well marketed with a high footfall of return customers because they know we have good quality items. And if the stuff doesn't sell there it does get moved to the other shops.

By size. Clothes are no good to me in the wrong size, regardless of colour.

I'm buggered if I'm paying more than £1 for a book.

The shop knows they get barely a penny for recycling it. The author doesn't get anything. I donate it back.

No need to be greedy.

We know our customers are happy to pay £2.49 for a paperback. It was £1.99, the prices went up at the start of the year, the figures show there has been no impact on sales

But you'll be missing sales. I wouldn't even look at your books at either of these prices. £1 per book or less and you'd have my attention, and a new customer.