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.

You're still not getting it math.... it's a totally different retail environment. I can think of one charity which has a warehouse near me which it uses as a hub for the city. Massive space but only a tiny section at the front is used as retail, the rest is storage or sorting.

It really doesn't matter what Americans would or wouldn't do as it's just not the same. British charity shops are on the High Street. Or online. They are small. They are most definitely not supermarket sized. Whether you think it's feasible or not it doesn't matter - that's the way things are. The shop I volunteer in made a nett contribution of £125,000 to the charity last year after all expenses, that's about $180,000. For a tiny, inefficient shop I think that's pretty good.

To be fair, Goodwill is a US non-profit organisation, not a UK charity. What rules and regulations it has to comply with and what rules various UK charities have to comply with will be different; also, what Goodwill will get tax exemptions and rebates on, and what charity shops do, will differ somewhat, so it no doubt can get complicated to compare the two to understand why they do what they do. Also, when Goodwill was founded, its whole point was to collect used items for poor people to repair and make money out of and then redistribute, and it grew from that. UK charities which run charity shops, on the other hand, have a completely different purpose and use charity shops to help them raise money for that wholly different purpose. Organisations like Oxfam probably can make better use of some items donated that cannot be sold in their UK shops than other charities, because that might actually suit their purpose, anyway, being involved in international aid and development. And surprise, surprise (not), they do seem to have a pretty slick operation on that front compared to most of the other charities.

If charities running charity shops started spending huge sums of money employing more people to look into how to expand their charity shop "business" wing and building 12,000ft shops, I think they might find themselves in a bit of trouble with some of their donors - even if in the long run, all this enterprise raised them a bit more money! After all,mtheir money is meant to be going on their charitable purpose, not into a recycling business.

Yes, I think there is a gap in the market for an organisation set up specifically to recycle used goods in the most efficient possible way, but whilst many people use charity shops to help them do that, it is not the charity shop's actual purpose to do that.

And really, I don't think a charity shop should move into a 12,000sq ft store just somit can sell items for £1 in that store instead of selling them to the rag man for 50p. Let the poor rag man get a little bit of profit, fgs!

Amazed at the concept of having a trolley in a charity shop.

Agree - we don't even have baskets!

Agree - we don't even have baskets!

No, neither do we. The shop doesn't really warrant it as people generally only buy 2 or 3 items at a time. It could have saved me some embarrassment yesterday though - when I tried to sell a woman her own handbag.

Goodwill in America sounds like a cross between a homeless refuge and a used item hypermarket.

That is nothing like what we call a charity shop in the UK. Here they are small, a store front often not much bigger than the size of someones living room. And yes we only sell items that look 'new' because no one buys stuff that looks 'well used'. Clothes get returned if someone finds a thread hanging out or if a set of something has a piece missing.

Most charities shops here do have their act together, if they dont they quickly go bust. That's why we have to be discriminating about what we put on our shelves.

I dont think you could find a single charity shop in the UK that would sell video cassettes, they really are landfill. Traffic and volume are key, not here they aren't, here profit is key. We are provide funding for a charity not a public service.

though it really is a scandal that a hospice is not adequately funded by the NHS Don't want to bring politics into it but don't you seem the irony of an American suggesting the UK state should increase funding to hospices?

I know quite a few charity workers who really want to help their chosen charity but if they were told part of their role was to clean a public lavatory then I think you would have few volunteers left. The last thing we want is random people coming in, having access to the back room, just to use a toilet. It wouldn't work, a charity shop is not a public amenity.

As for trolleys in the shop, we dont even have baskets and you have to buy the bags if you want one. Going to a charity shop is most definitely not a 'family' event, unless you count a parent with young children.

Public access computers in a charity shop, I mean who pays for that? What a waste of space and money for the charity. Not a single shop in the UK has that and for good reason. We raise money for charities that provide shelter for homeless people, the shops do not provide the shelter.

The gulf between the UK and USA seems huge.

Traffic and volume are key

It's not possible, in our mostly town centre shops, to store or display any more than we already do. It's not possible to increase footfall either. We can't increase the number of people who decide to come into town that day.

UK charity shops, as many pps have said, are roughly the size of a residential home. There are none that I know of the size of an Aldi. Out of town is not an option. Nobody would drive 25 miles to an Oxfam shop. Or not enough people to make it viable. There are not as many people with cars in the UK as in the US. It's just so completely different.

I meant charity shop, not specifically Oxfam.

Agree with butterfly and round, and anyone else who knows what they're talking about from their own experience on both sides of the counter :)

There are six charity shops on the high street in the upmarket suburb where the shop I work in is situated. They bring customers to the high street - many people come especially to do the whole trawl and at the same time keep our several independent shops open, the small supermarket ticking over, they use the banks. We are small - same square footage as a two-bed semi. We love our customers and there is always a nice welcome (unless young D. is on duty, who's just learning his customer relations). People like coming here. We enhance the community, I reckon. We make a lot of money - not sure of the figures but I know we hit our targets.

I think there is room for forward thinking if charities tried to look a bit different and created more brand identities. Oxfam is distinctive. Everyone else, more or less, looks the same. You should know, when you go in the door, what the charity is. This would create interest and I think more customers and donors across the whole sector.

Oh, and baskets!?!? Trolleys!?!?? No freakin' room!

a high street location comes with a hefty price and lack of parking is a huge problem.

Charity shops don't have to pay business rates so they get the property a lot cheaper than a commercial enterprise would.
Usually the caveat is they have to move on if a commercial enterprise wants to rent the property.
High street shopping areas normally have associated car parks, or people walk to them.

They bring customers to the high street - many people come especially to do the whole trawl and at the same time keep our several independent shops open, the small supermarket ticking over, they use the banks. We are small - same square footage as a two-bed semi. We love our customers and there is always a nice welcome (unless young D. is on duty, who's just learning his customer relations). People like coming here. We enhance the community, I reckon.

Absolutely. The city I live in is one that suffers from the doughnut effect due to decades of bad boundary management that has led to numerous popular shopping centres in the suburbs with the city centre itself floundering. One of the big exceptions is charity shops. I make a couple of trips a week into the city centre to trawl the charity shops. My dad does the same at least twice a week. I know a lot of retired people who do it.

I was an NGO worker so I used to think I was an outlier in this in my peer group but since becoming a parent I've learned that it's really, really common. So many parents I know do make an outing of it with their kids, going from shop to shop (there are 15 in the city). Kids love it as they get to know and chat with the staff and volunteers who have a more freedom to chat with them and make them feel important in their searches and purchases in a way that regular retail staff rarely have the time to. And you get to buy great clothes for very little and teach your kids that the £3 they could have spent on a tiny figure in a blindbag has now yielded an entire train set. While also teaching them about where their money is going and who they have helped.

For the city it means that I might go to a city centre cafe and make any necessary purchases from a city baker/butcher/grocer that I wouldn't have patronised if it wasn't for the draw of the charity shops. They are a massively looked down on retailer but they provide many amazing services above and beyond their remit of earning money for their charity.

I think Chazzas are having a bit of an identity crisis at the moment.

Oxfam are more or less just normal shops now, with clothes selling for much more than primark etc.

I think they have a problem with professional ' vintage' shoppers who look for cool or designer labels and items to sell in their own vintage shops, for ten times what they have paid the charity shop.

though it really is a scandal that a hospice is not adequately funded by the NHS It's a charity, it provides all sorts of services free of charge.

Lots of medical provision is backed by charity... Great Ormond Street for example. Hopefully, if Disney is kept at bay, it won't lose its most famous funding stream, especially given recent less fulsome events!

Bobby we have a few regular professional vintage shoppers and we love them. The really valuable vintage stuff is fished out by the processors and not put on the floor. But decent upmarket high street brands in good condition are displayed and we are happy if the professional second hand ppl buy it. Their money is as good as anyone else’s. One lady I know as a regular has a shop where something she buys from us at (say) £10 will sell for £20 - in fact that is her business model. She assesses whether she can mark it up 100 per cent before she buys it. We often point out items we think she’d go for but to be honest she has a better eye for what her own regulars want. Why would charity shops resent these ppl?

I think they have a problem with professional ' vintage' shoppers who look for cool or designer labels and items to sell in their own vintage shops, for ten times what they have paid the charity shop. Crikey! We love them! We have a number of local 'experts' in a range of items. We put stuff by for them. If they can pay us a decent amount and make their own profit that is definitely seen as a win : win situation.

Most of our vintage stuff goes through the online shop as we can get so much more for it. Packaged up a 1980s silk pussy bow blouse on Monday, sold for £20 in the online shop and we'd have been lucky to get £7 for it in the shop.

We price things at what we want to get for them. Once things are out on the shop floor then we really don't care who the buyers are. We regularly get people who are probably traders looking round items with their magnifying glass, probably buying to resell. As we're sure we've priced it reasonably in the first palce we're still making a wee profit, they might still make a profit selling it on.

A gap seems to have opened up in demand. In the years after the war, there were no car boot sales, few charity shops, but there were jumble sales. And yes, that was jumble! Trestle tables with heaps of assorted clothes on, in all sorts of conditions. Some people would buy to wear, expecting to do minor repairs, some would buy to salvage buttons and zips, or to cut up to make soft toys.

So the question you would ask yourself when bagging stuff up for the jumble sale was "could someone else make use of this?"

Nowadays it seems very few people are looking for materials to make something else. Jumble sales have disappeared. So the question to ask today is "Would I buy this myself?"

Perhaps at least some of the people donating substandard stuff are those who haven't realised that we have moved on from " could someone make this into something usable" to "would someone pick this off the shelf and use this straight away?"

Meanwhile, those of us who hate waste find ourselves hanging on to stuff which isn't good enough for the charity shop because it isn't yet bad enough for the waste recycling centre.

I really miss jumble sales. I used to get all sorts of knackered fabric. You just can't get it any more... even when working in a charity shop The Rag Man Must Be Fed First

Maybe I could persuade someone round here to revive one!

Jumble sales still exist round here meredinto - maybe it depends on the area? Mainly churches. And yes, they sell all kinds of things that probably wouldn't sell in charity shops - admittedly at low prices!

I'm not saying I'm going to bin everything in future. Only that I'm going to choose, very carefully what I do with unwanted items because I will not be subject to the scorn of people like those who posted vile comments on here.

Why do you care what randoms think online? I actually agree that they should have just taken the bags. OK they are volunteers and volunteering is a good thing to do BUT but that is their choice and as such they don't have the right to play the martyr. Particularly as the mere customer may well do their own volunteering elsewhere.

I look after the second hand school uniform at my dds' primary school and based on what I get donated for that, I take at least 50% to the clothing recycling. People only want second hand clothes in good condition and if people applied a 'would I buy this' test when donating it would save a lot of work. I get given stuff that's heavily stained, in holes, with no buttons, socks..... you name it I'll have seen it

Totally agree that salvaging and the "make do and mend" ethos has gone. People don't mend zips or replace buttons unless the item was very expensive in teh first place. Why would you send £3 on new buttons when you can have a whole new shirt for £5? Also altering - people don;t buy clothes which are slightly the wrong fit and have them altered. It's just not part of our culture any more.

There is a thriving fabric market, any lengths of fabric donated to our shop are snapped up quickly. But not an appetite for mending/repairing it seems.It;s been years since I saw a jumble sale advertised.

It would be interesting to know how much tax is lost by HMRC because of charity status wrt rent and tax on goods sold. Enough to fund a hospice or two? HMRC estimates the loss to revenue to be about £1 bn.

Only about 1/3 of consumer shopping takes place in high streets, so obviously some people prefer to drive, or they shop online.

I suspect the perception that charities add value to a high street is misplaced. Charities are in direct competition with businesses that are paying the full whack of taxes and who employ people, paying at least minimum wage. They may have an unfair advantage if they sell items that local independent or chain shops also sell - clothing, shoes, crockery, small electrics, books, children's toys, etc. or if they run a coffee shop or sell stationery.

In addition, the proliferation of charity shops often indicates to residents that the town has sunk considerably since X or Y glory day. It can result in a net loss of confidence in local residents.

www.trueandfairfoundation.com/content/file/press/2016/press-release-lifting-the-lid-charity-report-5-mar-16.pdf
Proliferation of small charities is not rational.

Charity Shops – Findings:
• Charity Shops in the UK typically convert 17p per £ income into profit – less than the typical operating margin of Next plc (18%) which does not benefit from tax reliefs, volunteer staff, or ‘free’ donated goods.
• The major US charity, Goodwill Industries, which runs 3,000 charity shops, converts 83¢ per $ of income into profit for charitable activities (most of its income derives from charity shops).
• The profits from UK charity shops are c. £290m but they are estimated to cost UK taxpayers between £273m and £1,558m pa in terms of business rates relief, VAT discounts and Gift Aid.

(The True and Fair Foundation was founded by Gina Miller).

Apologies if that comes out garbled. I hope the format translates..

Julie
Public access computers in a charity shop, I mean who pays for that? What a waste of space and money for the charity.

This particular charity has as its aim the provision of training and work opportunities for people with barriers to employment. Part of that mission involves actual training of individuals in the shop (in retail operations and janitorial work among other occupations) and preparation for work, which involves CV prep, interview prep, providing clothing and footwear, and mentoring. Part of it involves giving people access to computers/internet and job ads, because a lot of ads are online, and people need internet access to apply. The computers and internet access are paid for by proceeds of the shops. As you shop, you can see the computer room full of people all working away at looking for a job. It's most encouraging.

Traffic and volume are key to generating income, which is key to generating profit. They are not ends in and of themselves. Hence parking, trolleys, low prices that keep merchandise moving so people are inclined to come back frequently to see what is new - there is always new stuff - and they also know that if they fancy something they had better buy it. It most certainly is a used goods hypermarket - thanks to the parking you could donate and buy a couch, table, big old TV armoire, chest of drawers, armchair, office chair, exercise bike, etc. This draws more people than merchandise limited to stuff people can carry.

There is nothing wrong with mixing with homeless people. There is nothing wrong with providing a few chairs and a table where they can sit out a freezing day or an unbearably hot one. The drunks and junkies know they are not welcome, and anyone harassing customers is asked to leave. Most of the homeless people take a book down from the nearby book section and read, or they chat together, and there is a drink and snack machine that anyone can use too.

though it really is a scandal that a hospice is not adequately funded by the NHS
Don't want to bring politics into it but don't you seem the irony of an American suggesting the UK state should increase funding to hospices?
No, I don't. The US doesn't pretend to offer healthcare for all as a human right. The UK does, apparently.

CuriousaboutSamphire
Lots of American hospitals are also funded at least in part by charitable donations. Lots of new wings, etc., are named for the billionaire who donated the money to build them. (Same goes for universities, which while not run as businesses, solicit funds all the time from alumni and business leaders.)

They are also run as businesses, while some are not for profit, and others are run by counties and funded by county, state and federal taxes.

Hospices tend to be stand alone businesses, though some hospitals operate a hospice service alongside the diagnostic and curative departments, and are paid by Medicare, Medicaid (government) or by private insurance. Some have a fundraising auxiliary, as with hospitals.

Services provided mirror those provided by UK hospices.

This is getting rather tedious...

If Oxfam, BHF, Cancer Research and Barnardos thought that the Goodwill model would work in the UK, they'd be doing it. They're not. Draw your own conclusions.