wwhhhhhhhyyyy have charity shops taken to sorting clothing by colour?

[60andsomething]

I am a size 14. I want to look through what they have in my size. I want my size to be all together. I don't want to spend an hour wandering round 10 different areas looking for size 14 in every separate area.

Normal shops sort by colour because they have every size in every style, so you can choose the style you want, then go and find your size.

Charity shops only have one item in every style, so finding a style you like does not help. You need to find something by looking through what is available in your size

I just turn around and walk straight out, if I go into a charity shop nowadays and find this silly useless colour rail sorting. So all my money is going to the charity shops that DON'T do it

I prefer it because I don’t waste my time looking through bright colours!
I have ones near me that group by colour but sort into types and sizes, it’s easier to browse.
I also have a Sue Ryder near me that has the rows of double racks along the walls, one above the other, only organisation is garment type and size, I need strong painkillers for my back and arms if I want to have a good mooch in there!

And why do they separate men's suits...jackets with jackets, trousers with trousers...after all who buys what is clearly a suit jacket on its own?

One of our local shops had a brand new m&s suit, tags on...surely someone would pay more for a wedding/funeral/court appearance suit than just a jacket and/or trousers...or am I missing something

love it

there was a song on Arthur which went

having fun
isn't hard
when you've got
a library card!

which also contained the immortal line

and don't forget the Dewi Decimal system is your friend

I don't mind the colour thing. If they sort by size, you still need to look at adjacent sizes to your usual size, since they have a mix of brands of different ages, and size X in one brand from 10 years ago won't be the same as size X in a different brand from last year.

Though it's a big help if they are ordered by size on each rail.

Its because visually it looks more appealing. When it's all mixed it looks like a colossal jumble sale. They want people coming through the doors and having a mindset that the items are worth a higher price.

However to a degree they are short sighted by trying to pursue higher margins. Second hand clothing sales will only ever be a volume trade. Your stock cost nothing & does not really have much value as inventory, so you need to calculate the profit taking into account how fast something sells.

Eg. In a 6 month window:

• If you sell 500 teeshirts for 50p, you make £250.
• If you sell the teeshirts for £10 each but only sell 10 at that price, you make £100 and are probably left with stock taking up store space that you aren't shifting.

Its better to price low value goods at a price that shifts a high volume fast. The chinese understand this with all the shite you can buy from them on amazon.

As someone who volunteers at a charity shop I can assure you lots of people return things, even things bought from the £1 sale rail.
We always deal with them politely and sympathise that the item didn’t fit and then hopefully they will come back another time and buy something.

Its better to price low value goods at a price that shifts a high volume fast. The chinese understand this with all the shite you can buy from them on amazon.

The Chinese also have a billion workers at their disposal, plus the Uyghurs in concentration camps who are forced labour for the likes of Shein. Charity shops run on goodwill of volunteers, who don't have to come in if they've had a better offer that afternoon, can pick and choose what they want to do, and are seriously lacking in number. Yes with a never ending supply of people you could try the pile it high, flog it cheap approach which so many advocate but this idea that charity shops are overrun with volunteers is just not true.

I've seen this debated in groups on fb and the overwhelming consensus is that most people don't like it. I avoid the one shop near me that does it, I can't get my head around it.
I want to browse by garment type not colour. I don't want to search for my size in every colour option. Being user friendly is more important than looking pretty.

@Misthios as a fairly long term volunteer in a CS I agree. Our staff train volunteers, taking up time when they’d otherwise be sorting and pricing. It’s a good investment when volunteers continue to turn up, and are capable of doing essential tasks. However many just drift off, or turn up but do little. The most reliable are older volunteers, those between jobs, and the really young ones who are at college or doing DoE.

Yes this.

I go into our local charity shop if I have a few minutes to spare in town (it's opposite a good coffee shop and I'm often early to meet a friend). I'm not on a mission, just have a look. They are very good at sorting by size within the colour blocks with accurate hangers/size cubes on hangers so it takes seconds to find the size I want and flick through my options. Not a problem to me at all that they sort by colour.

They still sort books alphabetically by author which is better than colour!

I'd love it if we could sort by style. However, we don't have the budget or the floor space to have many rails - the configuration of the shop means we have a "bank" of clothes running along one side only.
However, you have inspired me to try to sort our clothes out better. We do colour and then size. But it might be possible to put all the tops, then skirts, then trousers, etc. within that criteria.
Unfortunately we don't have enough staff to keep tabs on that all the time, or to stop customers putting things wherever they think they should go. Or stealing things.

Just to add, as a charity shop volunteer - much of what we stock, and how we display that stock (particularly clothing) is as per Head Office stipulations.
If you feel that things could or should be displayed differently, then HO may be a good starting point for feedback. That can then feed down to the shops themselves.

It's the same with prices. I'd love it if we could round up to the nearest 50p (so all items that were £1.49 are £1.50, and the £1.99 becomes £2.00) but we are not allowed. It isn't company policy. The reality is that we run out of 1p and 2p coins by around 11am. There is nowhere close to the shop to get change so we either have to ask customers to have exact money, pay by card, or forego their 1p and 2p change.
You wouldn't believe the fuss some of them kick up when I tell them (BEFORE they have paid) that we don't have any coppers in the till).

That policy is to prevent theft by staff - it is a very widespread policy

@TeabySea yes that used to grind my gears at the last place I volunteered. The "99" thing is so 1970s, it's old fashioned. Few the big stores do that any more - M&S, Primark, John Lewis, Hobbs etc. We did used to have a donations jar on the counter though and if something was £9.99, most of the time the penny change went in the pot. So when we were low on change we'd just raid it.

Time consuming and pointless though. Where I am volunteering now it's either a whole pound price, or something like 6.50.

I sometimes go to a swap shop with no organisational system. I really wish they could do size sorting but it's too time intensive. Charity shops I think it makes more sense to do size!

how does pricing stuff at .99 stop staff theft?

because the customer waits while you ring it through the till and get out change. If no change is required, the customer hands over the money and leaves without waiting to see if the money goes into the till.

This is normal, across the whole world, when paying by cash, to make sure money is rung in through the till

Ah right, I see. I I would imagine though that most customers are expecting a receipt, no? I suppose the chains have to weigh the risk of volunteers pocketing a tenner against the hassle of schlepping to the bank for change twice a day. Also doesn't explain why this sort of theft is a problem for Zara/Oxfam and not for Primark/Save the Children.

Exactly.
Whether it is £1.99 or 49p or £10 it is all rung through the till. Our books are not required to be an amount ending in 9p.
Often customers will put the 1p or 2p in the donation pot anyway.
It's just the outrage at us not having change that gets me. Sometimes we don't.
If we could sell items at a round figure it'd be much easier.

I guess it's aesthetic primarily. Also some items might not have the sizes on the label?
Maybe they hope you'll buy more stuff that way?
I fully agree with you it's daft though. It puts me off quite severely. They could do it by size and then graduate the colour within that size?

Ours sorts paperback novels by spine colour😂

Sorting by size makes it look like a jumble sale. I've actually complained when favourite charity shops have done this; they soon change back. Arranging by colour looks much smarter and you can avoid colours that don't interest you. The best ones arrange by size within colour.