To ask charity shop workers what you DO and DON'T want donated

[DimityandDeNimes]

Obviously you don't want anything dirty or broken.

I'm having a massive clear out and am struggling to decide what to donate or recycle or bin.

Are you overwhelmed by stuff at the moment? My friend dropped a few bags at a huge charity shop and said their faces dropped at the sight of more stuff!

I've seen a couple of places that have public book swaps - at a couple of small train stations/waiting rooms, and when I've been on holiday to smaller places I've even seen them set up in old phone boxes. If there isn't one in your area, consider setting one up yourself! All you need is some shelves and a suitable place with a roof.

I've also seen quite a number of boxes of stuff saying "free - help yourself" outside people's houses recently - mainly books and CDs.

Please contact whichever shop you want to donate to and ask them what they want and whether you need an appointment. We can onLy take donations outside of shop hours ( shop opening hours have been reduced to reflect this). We need to quarantine everything and there’s not enough staff To take the donations & serve customers, or enough space in a fairly small shop to have people coming and going all day with donations.

Look at these: www.kettlemag.co.uk/6-reasons-why-a-telephone-box-book-swap-is-a-brilliant-idea/

www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/53312407

nothingintherulebook.com/2018/11/03/british-phone-box-libraries/

It's really not rocket science - find the number(s) for your local shop(s), find out what they will take and bag up your stuff accordingly, checking before you take it that they have space that day.

And stop buying so much stuff.

When everywhere was closed over lockdown, many of my neighbours were putting boxes at the end of their drives - free, help yourself.

It worked really well, I did it too.

People questioning those who buy bargains at charity shops and then sell them on - well how did you think antique/collectables dealers obtain their stock? I briefly did a bit of secondhand childrens book selling. I spent hours going from charity shop to charity shop looking for particular types of books. When I sold them at sales I had an inventory of what I had, displayed them in A-Z/vintage/series (like Goosebumps etc). I only did a few sales events (having no car kind of made it impossible) but I sold the books in a way that I knew what I had, if someone asked for a specific book I could say if I had it or suggest a similar book or if I had ones by the same writers.
Buying books are charity shops is usually random buys. Children's books are usually the worst displayed (dumped in a box messed up, no order, pictures books and young adult dumped on the same shelf.
Yes I made a profit but I put in a lot of effort.
If I had a car and storage space I would love to do my secondhand book 'business' again.

I don't mind people buying for resale. If I price something at £20, and someone pays that for it, happy days.

If that person then takes it home, lists it on Ebay, spends time photographing it, writing descriptions, researching it, answering queries, dealing with buyers, packaging it, taking ti the post office and so on to sell it for £30 , they're up a tenner.

But if I were to do all that, then that would not perhaps be worth my time to earn an extra tenner for the charity, if I could have spent that same time pricing 20 pairs of earrings which we then sell for £2 each.

Our charity shops isn’t taking donations at the moment as they have to much!

I just put all my stuff free on the Facebook selling pages now.

@StillCoughingandLaughing

I always feel twitchy about this - at our local rubbish tip there's a local hospice shop. I was there once when a man in a van turned up and bought nearly their entire stock. I can guarantee it was down the nearest boot sale the next weekend, to be made a profit from. Part of me thinks, at least the charity is getting their money, but it does feel wrong for someone to be profiting from charity items...

The charity wouldn’t get any more money if someone else buys them. They haven’t got the time to value anything, so they set a price they’re prepared to accept. He makes his profit by putting in the time they can’t.

That is true, and they're getting their money quicker than they otherwise might. Hopefully the man I saw buying everything bought it at the prices listed and at least had the courtesy not to try and haggle!

I contacted the charity

www.icollectclothes.co.uk/our-partner-charities

which someone mentioned further up the thread and they are collecting tomorrow. Very efficient and I chose to donate to the Colostomy charity which is close to my heart as my dad needed one due to cancer.

Thank you to the poster.

I put all clothes And shoes into the recycling for the fire department - it is either sold on at their charity events, given to the families of firefighters who are struggling or cut and sold as rags, so it’s all going to be properly used.
Toys and games etc I’ve stopped giving to my local charity shops because of snarky comments and sarcasm. Instead I donate them to the local children’s homes or take them to foster families or pop them into the food bank.
I donate any books to our local hospital - especially teenage fiction and schmaltzy adult books (usually set during the war) because I know there is a dearth of books for parents to read whilst they’re in there with their babies and I know teenage fiction isn’t something that gets passed on so when they have teenagers in hospital they’re usually stuck with Harry Potter or Jacqueline Wilson.
Toiletries and gift sets/wine and champagne (I don’t drink) are donated to the school for raffles and tombola.

If that person then takes it home, lists it on Ebay, spends time photographing it, writing descriptions, researching it, answering queries, dealing with buyers, packaging it, taking ti the post office and so on to sell it for £30 , they're up a tenner.

As long as they pay the requested price without quibble and then do what they want to wrt reselling. Absolutely not on when they've been battering down the assistants for discounts and given sob stories about being an impoverished single parent whose child is on dialysis and would be overjoyed to have the items.

I remember an older thread about charity shop CFs and somebody mentioned a bloke who bought an item and asked them to throw in a guitar (priced at more than his selected item) for free - when they declined, he started wailing about not being able to make an overall profit if they didn't.

Essentially, if their pricing as presented will leave you room for a profit as well, there's nothing wrong with doing that (although there's nothing stopping you offering an additional donation equivalent to the extra uncharged value); but don't try and make extra profit by browbeating them to give up some/all of their profit which is destined for the charity.

The local hospice charity I support has. web page where everything it will and will not take is listed.

As well as their shops they have a furniture store and a warehouse. They have had to open a second warehouse due to all donations being held for a while before sorting.

You need an appointment to drop donations off (warehouse only) and at the moment bookings are late November.

We definitely want your good quality donations.
We don't want,
Dirty, wet clothes.
Missing piece puzzles, games, toys.
Your dirty nicker drawer.
Kitchen gadgets with the most important piece missing.
Damp with pages stuck together books.
Supermarket plastic hangers(wooden/plastic/velvet shop bought sets sell).
Odd shoes.
Half used toiletries
Odd plates.
Hundreds of teacher gifts(mugs/magnets).
Sharp knives in the middle of a bag of cds....
There is a lot more that you wouldn't believe people would donate, but they do!
It sounds ungrateful and we truly aren't but its really hard work at the moment in the charity sector. 50% or more of most donations post lockdown are going straight in the bin and I know this is the case for most charities!
I love my job and my charity but we are all exhausted 😔

Odd plates

What's wrong with odd plates? I love mix-and-match dishes.

There's a scheme that I can't remember the name for that asks for work clothes/bags/shoe donations for women who are having interviews

Got it
smartworks.org.uk/get-involved/donate-clothes/

Supermarket plastic hangers(wooden/plastic/velvet shop bought sets sell).

Maybe I’m being thick, but I imagine people donating plastic hangers are expecting the shop to hang clothes on them, rather than price them up for sale.

What's wrong with odd plates? I love mix-and-match dishes

So do I. A few years ago the chintzy, vintage plates and saucers were flying out the door, and still do. We have a local crafter who buys up any odd china tea cups to make candles in. We generally have a "3 items for 99p" box with odds and ends of vintage, patterned china.

But cheap, mass produced modern stuff, unpatterned and plain white just does not sell.

but I imagine people donating plastic hangers are expecting the shop to hang clothes on them,

Lots of stores have their own hangers. We don't want any more. They go straight in the bin.

I've started using Facebook more. Many areas have local parent pages where you can pass on children's clothes and toys to a good home.

Yes we are completely and utterly overwhelmed with stuff, definitely no coat hangers. Please recycle all the real crap, no single shoes (yes we get lots) just bring decent stuff.

In the shop where I volunteer, we don't accept used duvets, VHS tapes and coathangers, to name a few.
We take all clothing, curtains, duvet covers etc, it doesn't matter what state any of it is in because we get money for the weight of material that's not good enough to sell.
The same with books, we take them in any condition because we get money for recycling them.

When I told the manager of a charity shop that sometimes I thought something was perhaps too shabby to sell she said please send it anyway as they sell them for money ! Perhaps that is what some people have seen bin bags sold for rags?

We give adult clothes and blankets too , to our local Homeless in Action organisation.