To be annoyed the charity shop would not accept my donation

[Bearbehind]

I've had a bit of a clear out and had some stuff to take the the charity shop.

I checked on line it was open today then took the stuff into town.

You can't park right outside so I carried the stuff, in the snow, to the shop only to see a sign which said they no longer open on Sundays.

Oh well, I thought but, all the lights were on and I could see at least 3 people inside so I knocked the door and someone opened it.

He said they were shut and I explained I didn't want to come in, just drop these donations off.

He outright refused to accept them, because they were shut, and I'd have to go to another branch of theirs that was open today or come back tomorrow.

AIBU to think that if someone has made the effort to bring a donation to a charity shop and if there's are people there, they should accept them.

I'll be buggered if I'm taking stuff to them again.

Rosie, I think charities should be grateful, to be honest. People have many demands on their lives and it does take time and thought to donate. Yes, there are some surprising donations - but I sometimes think people have just picked up the wrong bag after a sort out. We have had people's dirty washing, or bags of tatty and destroyed trainers. I don't think that's people offloading on us, just they have got their sorting out mixed up :) .Shops and their staff should be forgiving.

A few weeks ago, a lady brought us two car loads of stuff, culled from her mother's house (mother had just died). To be honest, it presented us with a major practical problem because we just did not have the staff on that day to even put it into our (very limited) store, and no room for it anyway. But that is our problem, and we were very grateful. We could see, anyway, taking a wee peek, that the items were extremely sellable - Jaeger coats, beautiful leather handbags, that sort of thing. Not sure what we'd have done if it was all clearly non-sellable :)

So the manager placed a call to the regional office and someone came from the warehouse on a special trip. This lady was a gift aid donor, and we put the gift aid sticker on each one of the 50 or so bags (her sticker links her bags to her unique gift aid ID and when the goods are processed a sticker with that number will be generated and put on the item's price tag - note all of this aspect of the processing does not take place by magic but by humans!).

We reckoned that the value to the charity would be several thousands of pounds. A well-run charity shop will train its volunteers in how the system works, and in customer relations. A poorly-run shop might have turned that lady away, I suppose, but how many of them would have been that daft?

Butterfly, that's my experience too. I can't remember which poster said or implied that stuff is put 'in the bin'.....I have never seen that happen as everything is checked first. It may not end up for direct retail sale in that particular shop, that's all.

I volunteer for a charity - both in their warehouse and one of their shops. I would have accepted a donation in these circumstances - it is churlish and short sighted not to. As it happens we are quite short of donations at the moment (for the first time in aeons - usually we have tonnes) and our shops are having to sell summer stock because we have run out of winter clothing

Please disregard the comments of some of the posters on here who have put you off donating to charities in future (well done, folks - nice one). Whilst it is the case that around 50-60% of what is donated is not saleable because it might be stained / bobbled etc - we still happily receive it because we are paid money for our 'salvage' from a specialist company who collects from our warehouse weekly.

Please continue to donate (perhaps not to that particular charity shop) and remember that mumsnet is often very polarised and extreme, and is not a good litmus of prevailing opinions

therealposieparker, please tell us which charity you speak on behalf of, and we can all avoid bothering that one with our stuff, and take it to one with a more practical approach!

Or, if you're not a spokesperson for any charity, please stop telling people their stuff isn't wanted, you could do real damage to their income :-(. If your view was that of charities, they would put it on their websites and TV ads.

It may not end up for direct retail sale in that particular shop, that's all.

It was me who said that currently, about 25% of stuff which comes through the door is sellable. That means sellable now, in the shop. No point putting out strappy tops and shorts in January so they're stored. Clothes, bed linen and other textiles which aren't fit for selling are recycled, sold by the kilo and we get money that way. Books are sent off for recycling or pulping.

So you're left with the stuff which isn't fit for selling and which can't be recycled - the chipped mugs, manky frying pans, CD cases without the CDs inside, broken plastic toys. THAT'S what gets binned.

I really do think a lot of posters would benefit from doing a couple of shifts and seeing how it all works. Charity shops have been doing this for 75 years and have honed what they're doing. A charity shop which isn't making money isn't going to last long.

I saw Goodwill in the USA and it's an amazing operation in terms of scale, but can't really be compared with charity shops here in the UK.

This was years ago but shouldn't have happened. After the tragic loss of a daughter her grieving parent took her clothes to a respected charity's shop in a naice area. She left when the person at the counter opened the bag and began to go through the clothes to pick out those they were willing to accept.

K2tog, sounds about right....25 per cent sellable now in that shop. Other posters, this doesn't mean 75 per cent gets binned.

Beez... that's an awful story. I think it's a one off, and it's notable you say it was years ago. Charity shops have processors these days and and process :) - all goods that come in go through it, away from the shop floor and the eyes of the donor or other customers.

People bringing in clothing etc belonging to someone who has died is very common. Sometimes our donors tell us when they hand it over. We thank them, and we are sympathetic - would think that is normal. We're also aware that mostly people don't tell us, and for whatever reason the items may have meaning for them.

Honestly, Miaow.....one or two idiots who clearly don't work in charity shops and who don't understand the systems and who then decide to denigrate the whole sector with information, and in response you chuck out perfectly good items because you think some people are 'sneery'?

Really?

Get a grip.

information = misinformation

Agree with tiktok

You are 'punishing' charities because of a few people on here

You have no idea whether they actually work in a charity shop...although im not sure why anyone would lie about that, having said that people lie about the weirdest things

K2 That makes sense. We've had quite a few bags of summer stuff recently. That goes into the big plastic boxed marked 'Summer' and I think someone takes it out to a central storage shed when it is full!

We had a big bag of thongs too... totally confused our sorter, made her blush when she realised why we were giggling and what we were trying to explain. It was a relay big bag and had nothing but thongs in it, all went straight into the bin. What else could we have done with 100+ pairs of thongs?

No, we couldn't sell thongs, either, not in the shop - but they would have been sold for rags. Surprised you binned them!

The rag man turned them down, I think. Though I am not sure. He may have taken them, once the piss taking finished

That and I am not sure if anyone wanted to ascertain if they were clean or not...

We have boxes for Halloween, Christmas, Mother's Day and "misc" for things like St Patrick's or Children In Need.

Christmas stock is boxes and boxes full - I think in the end of November we brought about 50 crates of stuff from storage. Summer stock is stored in sacks, we have around 250 sacks ready to go out when the weateher improves. Storing all of this stuff is a real problem, shipping things to and from storage is costly and we pay for a storage room too. Obviously it's preferable to store things in the shop but when we're deluged with stuff that's not always possible.

@MiaowTheCat

You don't like some sneery comments from anonymous posters online so now you will send your donations to landfill. Wow, how environmentally irresponsible and petty, you seriously need to get a grip love.

YANBU. Iv had this problem. Tried to donate but got refused by EVERY charity shop in my village and one lady was so so rude to me i was so shocked i was speechless. Apparently the reason was that they couldnt shift the stuff they already had......anyone else noticed the price of some stuff in these charity shops!? If they were to keep the ££ to a reasonable price then they maybe able to sell more??

Not sure ours could get any cheaper, to be honest.

£4 for a 100 wool man's jumper
£5 for unworn Dune shoes
£2 - 5 for clean, complete kids toys

Even then people will sometimes ask for discount!

There are other shops that do charge more, but they are in prime locations and we send all our poshest stuff to them, if we can!

That's how small, local charities work.

Then again, I get my bargain buys from larger concerns, in a posh location. So maybe it is just your area?

I agree Littlebitshort - Charity shop stuff can be expensive, low end high street stuff (e.g. new look, H&M), can actually have a highr price tag than the full price BNWT version from store was - no wonder they can't shift it!

It's often said that charity shops charge too much money. It's a really fine balance - the main job of the manager is to maximise income for the charity and that means selling items for as much as you possibly can. A charity would be failing in its aims if they were letting customers walk out with designer handbags or cashmere jumpers for £1.

But on the other hand, stuff needs to keep moving through the shop. The manager of the charity shop where I volunteer gets lots of sales information about what's selling, what's not, average selling price, average spend per customer and so on. She can very quickly see if sales are stalling - and has the freedom to reduce prices to shift stock. We're currently doing all scarves/gloves/hats at 50p as we have so many and the window for selling them is quickly coming to an end.

Skilled managers and experienced volunteers will know what they can price things at. We will often ask each other about what we think something should go out at, the general feeling is usually to go for a slightly higher price which can then be reduced, but if you price low to start with it leaves you no room to reduce.

We do much the same K2 But some of the volunteers don't always recognise the brand labels. That's when bargains can be had.

My favourite source of bargains comes from a well to do area on a well to do town. All the items are from good brands and the stick turn over is very fast, so they make their money on that, rather than on individual items.

There are so many ways a charity shop can price its goods. But all must meet the needs of the local area, or nothing would sell. It's a balancing act and I don't begrudge the manager of ours her job!

Pricing is carefully done where I work, too.

They don't always get it right - both ways (ie sometimes it's a bit high, and sometimes a bit low).

Data sharing across the whole network (my shop belongs to a national charity and they have 100s of shops) means you can get a good idea of i) whether you are not selling enough in terms of volume/number of items for your type of area ii) whether you are not collecting sufficient money for your type of area.

If you think a charity shop near you is too expensive, it may be poor management, or it may be that actually, this is what they can get in their area. We could not get £20 for a coat in the shop I'm in (although it is a prosperous area) but the equivalent shop in a city centre can....and all prices there are a little higher. The really good quality stuff that can fetch the highest prices is fished out by the processors and sent elsewhere.

The days when processors did not recognise a designer name or a great vintage piece have gone....tough for bargain hunters, good news for the charity.

As a customer, I (and my fashion-conscious dds) often get stuff at a charity boutique where prices are very high compared to the normal charity shops. They don't take donations at all - probably pissing off a load of people, but I expect people will get to know the score.

It all comes from selected items donated elsewhere in the network.

A work dress from, say, Hobbs or Whistles will have a £30 or £40 price tag on it. Designer handbags - Osprey or Mulberry - might be £80. At Christmas, they have lovely party dresses, probably only worn once or twice, for about £100. All of it is in very good condition.

If you want cheap charity shop stuff, and there is nothing wrong with wanting cheap charity shop stuff (I buy it myself!), you have to be a savvy shopper and go where it's likely to be cheap!

Ooh! There's one of those round the corner from my favourite shop. I have drooled, but never had a reason to buy anything... though I think my best purchases may be items that didn't sell in there and were passed on.

I travel around local towns a lot, with work, so I get to shop in a number of towns. I love getting to know the local charity shops.

Xmas.

The charity I speak of is one that I bought 10 seater solid oak dining table and an 8 seater, looks like new, corner sofa.
It also makes absolutely heaps for the hospice, so whilst you judge it's policies people are being funded for hospice places.

Also I can't imagine the staff are ever rude or would refuse a donation, BUT I'm giving a broad view as to why volunteers may well refuse on a Sunday.