just been mooching around the charity shops, How annoying are some of their ordering?

[EnidBlyton]

Books in any old order are bad enough, not alphabetical, but one shop actually had the books in order of their colour
plainly ridiculous.
Tightlipped I paid
ought I to have complained?

Uurgh, I can't be arsed to even look at books in a shop unless they are properly organised alphabetically by authors name or at least by genre.

Oh yes, I like a good mooch too - there's one near us where they colour-code all the CDs as well as the books, and all the clothes and bric-a-brac too. Daft as a brush, they must be, and have too much time on their hands. Oh well.

Worse - I went into one shop once and there was a very strong smell of flea spray. Haven't been back in that one

My brother and SIL organise their books like this. I find it completely mad given that their bookshelves are spread across several rooms so unless you remember exactly what colour it is you have to wonder through the whole house to find a certain book in a series!

@ComtesseDeSpair you need to go to Bookbarn International in Somerset.

Veritable corridors of books organised by colour!

I hate it when they order clothes by colour also. Instead of looking in one place for tops you have to go looking for your size like 5 times. I don’t understand why people don’t get that it’s so efficient but guess plenty of people must like shopping that way which is why they KEEP DOING IT!!!

I hope you immediately offered to volunteer so that you could help arrange the shop to your satisfaction?

@reefedsail

No! It can’t be true! I loved Book Barn when I lived in Bath, and it used to be ordered properly by author and genre. 😭

@CalamityJune I've gone back to good old library books these days. I realised i get the same excitement I did as a child!

I'm also a regular library user. Unfortunately i'm also re-experiencing the "I've read absolutely everything here I would ever want to read" feeling.

One of our charity shops until recently had two sections, one was “books for women” (Mills & Boon etc) and the other was “books for men” (crime fiction etc) 😮

@ComtesseDeSpair most of it still is. Just the last few corridors are coloured. Fear not!

I love the antiquarian book room so much.

Those people who constantly declutter and organize on youtube do this. And "lighten" them up with ornaments, too.

Bookshelves ought to be tightly packed with books,
ordered according to country of origin and authors alphabetically (DH) or topics (me).

One near me ordered dvds by colour.

I thought this post was a joke. Turns out people take the order that books are arranged in VERY seriously.

You’d all hate my house. I have gone out of my way to make the ordering of books awkward (think volumes of the same series on different shelves, in different rooms even!). I think they look better messy.

Our books/CDs/DVDs/LPS are just in plastic tubs on different tables, you have to rummage to find anything, we barely have time to do that sometimes.

Maybe volunteer a few hours so they have time to arrange things properly?

This is allowed:

You are bang out of order. I have worked with volunteers in charity shops for over 25 years. Some can't read or write. Or manage to use a broom. Or hold a conversation. Or remember what you just asked them to do.

Neat, clean books in a row with no gaps is all I ask.

the one I work in does the books by genre and if we have a few books in by the same author will put those together but our volunteers who do the bookshelves don't have time to ponce about putting the books in alphabetical order, part of the fun of looking for a book you fancy in a charity shop is trawling through to sort what I want to read from what I definitely don't or have already read

I love the Bookbarn. Have moved a bit further away now so I don't go there as often. The DC like going there for the cakes (and getting lots of books). It is a bit randomly organised.

I don’t mind the clothes being by colour - it does make the whole effect look less like a jumble sale and therefore more visually appealing. It wouldn’t need to be it like that in an ordinary retail shop because there would be less of a huge variety of styles and types.

The books being that way, though ........

I refuse to look through clothes in charity shops where they group them by colour - I just want to see all their tops (or whatever) in my size in one place, I can't be arsed looking through six separate rails. I have no real preference for colour, I just like a bargain without too much messing.

Clothes by colour - fine if you perceive colour in the same way as the volunteer
vomit inducing if not

books by colour - hatstand

No, you shouldn't complain. If it bothers you that much, you should volunteer an hour per week to go in and sort the books to your satisfaction

As a volunteer in a charity shop, it might be down to not having enough volunteers. We often don't and so the skeleton crew focus on manning the til rather than ordering the books. We do our best, I would volunteer if it bothers you so much rather than make a complaint.

@willowmelangell, that indeed was my thought, otoh charity shops have paid managers, but perhaps this is a thing now

I've seen the books-ordered-by-colour thing. Also the books-separated-into-male-and-female-authors.

I also used to know of a secondhand bookshop which sold books by weight