To think this is the end for charity shops?

[Therollockingrogue]

I mean is it? I love charity shops, nearly everything I own is second hand, from car boot sales, charity shops etc etc . But the thought of a rummage now makes me feel a bit bleeeurghh. Anyone else?
Given that in some of our towns the high streets are just alternate vape shop/ nail bar /charity shops, what will happen?
Who would want to work in such an environment anyway after this, especially when most staff are volunteers ?

I'm a volunteer in one of the big chains. We closed our doors on 22nd March and haven't reopened since. The only salaried member of staff was furloughed for all of April and May, along with all the regional managers, and head office staff concerned with stores too.

I'd be happy to get back in - we we just about to switch the clothing range from winter to summer when we closed and I would be happy to go in with teen DD (who also volunteers) and rearrange the shop.

The main issue is volunteers. Nearly all of the weekday volunteers are retired, some are very elderly. I think our oldest is 86. Most of them have health issues. Many will be shielding. Many will be itching to get back, others not so keen.

Personally I don't think there's any risk at all from sorting through donations. Social distancing in the back shop - almost impossible, we're falling over each other at the best of times as there's so much stuff. Same in the shop, as the manager is furloughed and the head office staff are too, there's been none of the work the other retailers have done about putting perspex screens up around the till or organising flow in the shops. And we just don't have the manpower to have a person on a door limiting how many people come in.

I don't think it;s the end of charity shops and I'll be really sad if it is. I think the big chains will have people working on this behind the scenes and figuring out how to reopen and keep people safe.

MitziK the work programme where people were mandated to work for their benefits was stopped in 2015, yes charity shops can still get volunteers via the JC but these people are not mandated and would not lose their benefits if they didn't want to do it

Whoops I accidentally pressed YANBU in the vote.

YABU

The problem with rates is as follows - let's say the council needs £500,000 from rates* - they have 20 shops on a high street. This means £25,000 per shop. If the high street has 5 charity shops, now 15 shops need to supply the council with the £500k... so then you get £33,333 per shop. Now one shop goes bust as it can't afford the higher rates, it's replaced by a new charity shop. Now the rates go up to £35714.... and then another shop goes bust, and so on. The shops then become empty as noone can afford the rates and make money as a business.

The base problem is the £500k has to come from somewhere, and while I don't begrudge charity shops, I can see the effect it has on businesses. How would you like your high street to be? Yes I'd like to see a charity shop, maybe 2 on my 40 business local highstreet, but I'd also like a butcher, baker, florist, estate agent, chemist, etc etc. At the moment out of 40 businesses there are 8 (yes 8) charity shops, and 5 closed empty premises. Charity shops flourish as their rates are free, they can make next to nothing and continue, with the poor volunteers thinking they are doing good. Other business have to close.

Then there is a second problem, I have no problem with charity, donations, helping people. However many charities are actually disguised businesses. They are "non-profit" with the directors taking out many hundreds of thousands in salaries. Charities with employees, particularly employed chuggers are utterly distasteful. I think if people actually knew how much money was spent on "raising money for charity", they would be shocked.

*Made up figures for illustration.

I'm also a charity shop manager. But a slightly different sort of one - garden equipment, lawnmowers, hand and electric tools and haberdashery stuff. We've had people ringing up for weeks wanting to donate and buy items. Everyone seems to have cleared out their garage and their sheds !! I think we will be completely inundated with donations once we re open, and there's a limit to what we can process.

That's what I would ask people to be mindful of to be honest and not get stroppy if we can't currently accept it.

I don't think there will be a noticeable drop in customers, even when we have to limit numbers and distancing etc. People love charity shops and this won't put them off much.

What about the fact that charity shops are generally very small and crammed with goods
How can they enforce a 2m distancing
There’s no space in our local shops.

I will be donating but I don't think I'll be buying from them again. I'm generally so germ conscious now. I was already in a situation where most of my shopping was online before all this, now I think I will be getting everything online.

Oxfam sells online. I wondering if more could follow suit.

Cant wait to get back to my fave charity shops.

god help the hospices if charity shops don't get back up and running.

I'm a bit concerned that the charity shops that do open, will be so overwhelmed with donations that it will finish them off.

So many people will have been sorting out their houses and have bags of rubbish that they feel too guilty about binning so they will send the stuff off to charity shops who will then have to pay to have it disposed of or recycled.

I'll definitely go when they reopen, not at all worried about catching anything. I expect there'll be a lot of unemployed people to volunteer

I hope they do open soon, I was looking for an armchair before lockdown to sit in for feeding my baby (who is now 6 weeks old!) I found one that was so comfy but it had to be sold with the sofa which I didn't need.

I specifically want a second hand armchair because the fireproofing chemicals which are apparently very bad for our health will have hopefully been rubbed off by the pervious owner.

god help the hospices if charity shops don't get back up and running.

Our local hospice is really struggling, the loss of charity shops and their fundraising income has had a huge impact.

*previous 😂

I have lots to go to charity shops. I love them. Will just quarantine my finds for 72 hours before bringing them in. Business rates for all local businesses should be lower. It would help high streets recover.

It will depend on how long the virus lives on surfaces surely? Maybe donations could be quarantined for an allocated amount of time before being put out for people to rummage through? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maybe donations could be quarantined for an allocated amount of time before being put out for people to rummage through?

But where? The average charity shop has one small-medium room out the back where donations are sorted, and they're usually packed. Perhaps avid charity shop users could offer the use of spare rooms for quarantining stuff, but that would be a hassle to organize.

There's no way, for most small shops, donations could be quarantined unless they had limited times/days and caps on the volume of donations as each 'day's donations would have to be kept apart.

This is going to piss off the people who just turn up with a car full of crap to dump who will then complain.

There's a lot of talk about the end of this, that or the other. My instinct is that people just want to get back to normal as quickly as possible. We are really good at adjusting to situations and finding a way through so Charity Shops and bootfairs will still be there but it will just take time to get back to the usual flow of things.

Notice how Facebook Marketplace seems to be gearing up again at the moment with people offering no contact pick up etc. Britain is a nation of shopkeepers, bootfairers and chazza shop addicts - can't hold us back from buying and selling tat - it's in the blood!!

Exactly - where?? Our back room is packed to the roof with stuff. How would the tuesday volunteers know what's come in on monday so is "contaminated" and where the "friday" stuff is which has now been declared "safe". You'd need separate sections, some colour coding system, maybe would work in some shops but thinking about what our shop is like in the back it's just not practical.

I personally think that it's FAR more likely that they'll ask us to start wearing masks while sorting. We already have blue plastic gloves (which none of us use except for messy jobs like cleaning jewellery or polishing brass) but they will ask us to wear those too. In my shop we all have fabric aprons which we wear each shift to protect our own clothes, perhaps they'll issue us with plastic ones or something.

All far more practical than going through the rigmarole of quarantining donations. I really don't think that there's any evidence at all that people are going to catch Covid19 from donated goods. The virus surviving on surfaces is not the same as the virus surviving on surfaces in quantities able to infect you.

Oh and yes - the faces on people when we turn down donations when we just cannot squeeze any more in. They are NOT happy.

EVERYBODY will be shopping in Charity shops in a few months time when there are 4 million unemployed and millions more on short time working!!!

I can't wait to browse the charity shops - never cared about germs and not about to start now.