To think people are quite petty to object to charity shop staff getting "first dibs" when they are BUYING the items?

[SorcererGaheris]

For context, I am a volunteer in a charity shop myself, and if I see something that I want, I will purchase it. The shop doesn't give staff discounts, either; staff pay full price - the last item I bought, a book, cost me £40.

Anyway, I COMPLETELY understand people objecting if volunteers were to just take donated items for themselves, but I've seen some online discussions in which people complain about the staff getting first pick of donations when they are paying for them. I really don't see the problem in this case, and think people who object are rather out of line. Other retail workers surely sometime purchase items from the shops they work in, so I don't see why volunteers should be begrudged that. A volunteer is a customer as much as any other.

I volunteer and anything we want to buy has to be priced by a manager. We are also not allowed to look at donations on the shop floor apart from a rough guess at number of items for gift aid stickers.

I work on the shop floor so the majority of what I buy is already on the rails, in fact I have only bought one item I saw already priced in the stockroom. All purchases by staff/volunteers are recorded and work out at probably 30 purchases over a week which also includes new stock. As far as volunteers buying all the good stuff goes we are all different sizes and have different tastes, I am often only aware of items I would’ve been interested in when a customer is buying it.

Our shop does get nice donations but we also get a lot of unsalable items and because of the number of volunteers and the fact they only work one or two shifts a week it’s unlikely that anyone is creaming off a substantial amount of quality items.

YaNBU as I also volunteered and did this. It's still not much of a perk really. Volunteer for an entire day and get to buy a £2 that's worth £2. I'd rather have my day free, my petrol money and to buy that item off Vinted. I'm amazed what some people are jealous of and in the main that's why volunteering makes me feel like a mug rather than warm and fuzzy. I still volunteer but overall I do think I'm the minority and the vast majority of people think I'm a mug.

As you say, it depends. I live in an affluent area and it’s not unheard of to find designer brands in charity shops, along with frequent good quality high street brands (Boden / Joules etc.). You also often find nice quality home wares, I got an excellent vintage Spode dinner service a few months ago.

To me, the phrase "picked over" makes it sound as though staff are excitedly rifling through donations with the gleeful anticipation of finding lots of things to buy.

That's not how it happens with me. If I'm sorting and I happen to see something I'd like to buy, I usually just go to the till and pay for it then and there (after getting someone to price it.)

And even so - why should volunteer-customers deny themselves a purchase just because other customers are going to come in and maybe miss the chance (at least on that occasion) to buy what I have bought for myself? When I buy things - from anywhere - I do not give any consideration to other people who won't be able to buy the item that I've purchased. When I engage in shopping, the only person I consider is myself. I would imagine that's routine for many shoppers generally.

I am happy for volunteers to have first dibs (I get a 10% discount from the gift shop at the exhibition where I volunteer). However, I have a sour memory of my son, then about 3, asking me to buy a very nice fire engine in an Oxfam shop. While I dithered (£3 when £3 was quite a lot) a volunteer came up and took it off him saying that she had decided to buy it for her grandson. I was struck dumb and then felt guilty for not challenging her. (She was m/c of the blue rinse brigade whilst I was a fairly poor housewife and mother.)
Now, if I am thinking of purchasing an item I pick it up and take it with me while I look round the shop for anything else I might like.

@DrZaraCarmichael I did volunteer in a local charity shop for a bit. I was put on sorting toys. My expertise was fashion. I was at least 20 years younger than everyone else at the time and they definitely didn’t value my expertise.

Most of the toys should have been binned immediately. Broken, grubby, useless tat. Ditto a lot of the clothes. The shop was “donated” disgusting plastic sacks overnight on the doorstep and dogs weed on them. Usually these were full of very worn grubby baby clothes. It all needed a good wash and wasn’t saleable even if you did. Why would you even open these bags?

It certainly wasn’t my idea of volunteering to be put in a room full (and I mean full to overflowing) of plastic sacks largely full of tat and not see anyone for hours. The existing volunteers barely sorted anything. Giving anything classy was a waste of time. It went in a queue behind all the other unsorted items,

I know fashion (and antiques/mid century modern) and no one cared at that charity. I volunteered elsewhere doing something completely different. Mary Portas might be from 2007 but nothing has changed very much. Their ways of doing things remain antiquated! If I could have been bothered to have sorted out two huge overflowing rooms of bags upon bags, I might have found a decent first dibs. Life’s too short and my stuff now gets sold on line and doesn’t get near a local charity shop to sit around for years. In some areas there might be decent donations but here it was woeful.

@TizerorFizz how disappointing they didn’t use your expertise. What a waste!

But some volunteers and I’m not say all before anyone starts take stuff to sell online to make money for themselves. This is what I don’t like. I believe the volunteers should get a discount as a perk of volunteering . It’s a grey area.

I’d of been irate if someone done that to me. Especially when your boys standing there . How dare she .

I dabble in all sorts of things, such as Tarot, Feng Shui, a bit of paganism etc. That book certainly sounds fascinating!

I think it depends on who is pricing the items and whether those prices are fair e.g. if someone prices a first edition book worth £20k for £5 and another member of staff spots it and nabs the book for a fiver as an amazing bargain that would be a problem, as really they should be highlighting the value to the store so the item is priced correctly and the charity doesn't lose out. Same with designer clothes/ furniture/ paintings etc. But if the price is fair I don't see a problem.

@Ophy83 Yes. That’s key, The charities need to understand what makes money, I think some do but not all staff price accurately and are not able to recognise something worth more.

Nothing wrong with the volunteers having first dibs if they are also paying the proper price. Money still goes to the charity.

Although, if you Gift Aid donations, you often get a letter saying how much was raised. I donated a bundle of good condition (some with tags) high end high street clothing (think Karen Millen and All Saints - I was too lazy to eBay), and it raised fuck all. Part of me wonders if any of it made it to the shop floor, and if money was given for it.

Well when you are volunteering in a charity shop you are free to wait a week to buy something if it makes you feel better.

Swapping out unpopular items that we like or those very close to BB date (at s profit to the bank) is common: we aren't allowed to hand out things that are out of date or within 2 weeks even if we'd eat them ourselves. The whisky infused marmalade, fancy tinned soup and flavoured teas from hampers given to elderly relatives are frequently donated after several months or even years, very often close to sell by or best before date. You might think that donating lobster bisque at close to its best before date is a treat, but experience with our food bank shows that for the same price a tin of 'big soup' ( the one that's like a thin stew) is very much more popular.
Our' hand it back' table has bisque and game soup until about April.
So call me awful. I volunteer and swap out unwanted stuff that I do like for more portions of popular stuff, but hey, any excuse to pull up some outrage and a reason to not donate or volunteer yourself. I get it.
The rest of you morning about charity shop volunteers.: it's up to the charity to set their own rules. If your shop has no good stuff then don't go back. Don't use one person's throw away comment as an excuse
To not donate if you would have done otherwise.

When volunteers are trained in pricing where I work, it includes information on how to look items up that we suspect might possibly be more expensive. We're told the kind of things to look out for; first editions or other very old books, academic books, art books, etc.

If I think a book might potentially be expensive, I'll always look it up online to check. Sometimes I'm wrong and it's only £2.99, other times, it might be going for more than £100.

@XenoBitch Where I volunteered it would still be in the room with 100 other bags! I would be surprised if they would recognise All Saints for example. They certainly would not recognise much higher end. I think it’s something the older volunteers are poor at.

I think what some people also don't consider, is that charity shops (which normally don't have dozens and dozens of the exact same product) essentially operate on a first-come, first-served basis generally.

Let's say there is only one copy of a specific novel in the shop. And let's say that two customers come in during the day who are either looking for that title or would be inclined to buy it because they think they might enjoy it. And let's say that Customer A comes in earlier than Customer B.

Customer A obviously buys the book, which means that it's no longer there for Customer B to see and get a bargain.

No one would expect Customer A to refrain from purchasing the book because somebody else might want it just as much. It's not reasonable to expect paying customers to put the (possible) desires of other people above their own desires.

And volunteers who buy things are just that, paying customers. As free adults, we are entitled to buy whatever we want, whenever we want, just as anyone else is. If you wouldn't expect other customers to either avoid buying something at all - or postpone buying it - in case other people might want it, then I find it hard to understand why you would expect volunteer customers to do so.

When I buy something for myself, I don't care and am not concerned with the possible desires of other people to purchase the item. I would like to buy the item myself, and the only thing that I care about when making purchases are my personal desires.

I do think YABU.
A few years ago I was in a local charity shop and asked the assistant about a vintage piece of china on display. She didn't know the answer, but helpfully told me to come back later when another assistant would be in, who should be able to answer my query. She explained to me that 'We're all dealers here but we specialise in different makes". I was genuinely horrified.
I was also horrified to learn that the manageress of another charity shop also ran her own bric-a-brac shop.
Not so long ago, I decided to get rid of a teapot worth £20 - £40 but decided not to donate it to a charity shop as I had no confidence it would benefit the charity. I felt certain that a member of staff would 'buy " it for a pound or two.
In my experience many but certainly not all volunteers do this explicitly to buy good stuff for next to nothing, but perhaps I'm behind the times.

The only true paying customers are A and B. They arrive during the official opening hours and their only role in the shop is to buy.

You only get there first because you're a volunteer. You possibly get there even before the shop opens to the public.

It's taking advantage imo. What chance do A or B have if you arrive at 8am and the shop opens to the public at 10?

I am under no obligation to give other customers a chance to buy the item.

A customer is anyone who buys something from a shop (or other place of business.) Buy buying the item, that makes me a customer.

My own desire to own something for myself is all I am concerned about; therefore I will buy whatever I wish to, when I wish to.

I had no idea so many people were so obsessed about getting the good stuff from the charity shop. Maybe the could consider volunteering if they are so concerned about missing out.

@SorcererGaheris It’s beginning to sound as if volunteering is all about you! You are only concerned about owning for yourself so you will buy what you want, when you want! That’s selfish. I think well run charities do try and sell items on the shop floor first and put decent stuff in the window in order to attract people in. You cannot possibly know if other people would come into the shop if your first dibs books were in the window. In a Halloween display for example.

My reasons for doing voluntary work pretty much are all about me. I'm not volunteering out of a desire to help people or make a difference in society. I'm doing voluntary work solely so that I can have fun. I find the work itself enjoyable, so have fun doing it.

The shop still benefits from my cash when I buy something, and benefits from the work I put in, so I really don't think that my sometimes buying books that I want is harming the shop in any way.

@SorcererGaheris How one sided. So you volunteer to benefit just you? I've never seen volunteering in this way. So you don’t think customers or the charity matter at all? It’s just about fun (in a bookshop?) and buying books instead of the charity using them creatively? Or even getting more for the charity by enticing customers to spend more? Odd.