To think charity shops ....

[Hando]

Should actually sell what is donated to them, if it is is good condition?

I did some volunteering work in a charity shop. It's a great cause and I had a couple of weeks spare time, so worked my arse off and enjoyed it.

However, I had to leave. I was disgusted by the way they treated the items kindly donated to the shop. Firstly, this charity shop have FAR more donations than they could ever sell. They go through and pick out nicest bits. If it has a tiny mark, missing button etc, then it gets binned.

One day we were told to sort through all that days donations and only keep kids stuff or designer labels- as the shop was getting full. We were throwing away bags and bags of lovely mens and ladies clothes lots of whoch were hardly worn and some really stunning bits. There ar elots of smaller, less well known charity shops in the same street so I offered to take some of the surplus black bags (perhaps over 20 in one day) to them for them to sell. I was met with astonished gasps. We couldn't do that. The "rag man" collects them and they get about £2 for a huge black bag full of clothes ~(sometimes lovely ones) which could have been sold for much much more.

The shop manageress doesn't like certain styles or materials so anything like that has to be binned. Hmmmm.... so she decides the taste of the whole town?

AIBU to be totally dissapointed at the way they treat donations from very kind people?

oh and we ebay stuff too. if it really bothers you then sell the clothes yourself and make a cash donation. it has made me feel very sad reading this

I've been stewing on this over night. Yesterday I posted to say that I was pleased you has posted as it would stop my stuff going to waste in future.

We send a lot of good quality stuff to charity shops and have spent a lot of time thinking about whether we should Ebay it. We decided that we were fortunate enough not to be desperate for every last penny (though it would have been useful) and sent it to the local charity shops. Now I am kicking myself - some of this was my treasured baby stuff that I really didn't want to get rid of.

I have noticed when dropping stuff off that they are not cheap at all. Why don't they mark down the price and put more stuff out?

I shall now investigate somewhere else for my stuff to go, or Ebay it and use their charity contribution option.

We have a lot of charity shops and the Fara charity shop for Romaian orphans is always grateful for stuff. I've taken brand new men's trousers to Oxfam and they were tut tutted over!

We also have an amazing Scouts jumble sale twice a year.

The stuff donated is unbelievable, once they had a sofa that someone bought then decided they didn't want...and 2 beds!

People queue round the block for it to open.
I give children's toys and clothes to them...it flies off the hangers. Lovely local recycling scheme.

Another idea - sell things on eBay yourself and use MissionFish to donate all/a percentage of the sale to the charity of your choice. I've done this in the past when I've picked up a bargain in shops purely to sell for profit, giving a bit to charity eases the guilt. I think I'm right in saying that the fees are cheaper for selling if you use the charity auction format too.

link to selling for charity on ebay

I am truly shocked by all this.
I have never sold outgrown toys or clothes however good their condition. Instead I pass it all to charity shops in the hope that someone less well off can buy them and the charity can benefit. BHF have always got begging notices in the window and I walk past Oxfam etc to give to BHF.
What shall I do now? I have several bags of stuff ready to go? The only local charity shop I know to be "picky" as my mum used to volunteer there. Are there any nationals that are ok? I don't do ebay.

My local BHF (a books/music one, and a general one) are great - polite staff and wonderful choice of stock. BHF is the only bookshop in town so I'm very glad it exists. I live in a pretty deprived area which may explain why anything seems to sell - the local Oxfam, despite signs from head office saying nothing should be priced below 99p and random junk shouldn't be accepted, has a row of shelves for said random junk at 49 or 69p, and there's great turnover - I've given stuff, seen it on the shelves next day and gone on the third.

THe manager seems to spend lots of time on the phone arguing with head office - they want her to sell those Asian boxes and bits of tat, and she keeps pointing out they don;t sell as people can get them half the price next door.

Maybe it's the recession - two years ago shops were refusing donations as they were full and had to pay for excess stuff (whether saleable or not) to be taken away as their back rooms were chocka. Now they're desperate for stock.

Depending where you live, you may have a homless day centre or night shelter in your town. Have a google!

i find the BHF pricing to be terrible - tops which were about to fall about for £4, skirts with holes in them for a tenner - i am not talking designer labels either. infact the shops from which the clothes were bought originally had similar items on sale (brand-new) for less than the price of its threadbare equivalent down the road

i'll be sticking to the local Nearly New Sale from now on

I hate our BHF shop, it's overpriced and chucks out loads...

What a crock. BUT I worked for a while in our really, really excellent local one which is run by a regional/local hospice.

It's brilliant...bit of a 'magic' shop, in that you will go out one day thinking you need something, and not expecting to find it, or even knowing you are thinking that iyswim...walk into this shop and it is sitting there.

Weird

Anyway, I was sorting clothes upstairs with all the lovely old ladies, and very very little gets binned - only really bobbly stuff and rubbish. They sell everything else, very cheaply, so there is a high turnover of course and more is made I think than by the shitey shops that charge a packet for awful things that cost less new.

So not all shopps are bad. Try and suss out your local decent or independent one and donate to that...that's where our stuff goes.

I also hate those collection bags that are just essentially a rag man thing - not a charity at all they fool loads of people.

I volunteered for my local BHF and was shocked at how much tat is donated: clothes with stains/holes/rips; used face creams; ripped and marked books; damaged/broken toys; half-used perfume bottles. (The latter comes in handy for freshening the shop).

The BHF near me does not have the facilities to wash/mend items (they do steam-clean the clothes tho). I didn't see anything go out that I would have kept.

They also continually rotate stock so each category is moved to a new shop each week, so I'm not surprised that you don't see what you donate.

They do have price lists so they know what level to price items at. Seems reasonable to me. Gift aid is a huge help to charities too.

I have great admiration for the shop manager (the only paid staff member) who gets paid a pittance yet has a huge responsibility.

Please don't stop donating to BHF just because there's a problem with one shop.

Then there was the time we moved and I had a solid wood double four poster bed with lace hangings etc. We wasted our time carefully taking it apart and saving all the screws. There was a BHF furniture store near us so I rang them and explained that we had this four poster bed frame and someone would want it -(had seen beds and even mattresses in the store before) only to be told by the shop manager that if somebody brought it 'it would need to be assembled for them by their guys and it was too much trouble for them' We couldn't keep it in the house so we had to phone the councils bulk removal team to come pick it up and scrap it

Shiney, if it helps - they may have sold it at the council depot - there are places like that that will sell on reuseable stuff, keeping it out of landfill and maybe someone got it and is still using it and very happy

Even at our tip where they aren't allowed to sell stuff, they leave out the best bits for people to pick up.

Thanks Victorhugo! I hope that's what happened. It was such a lovely bed and if I'd had the room I would have kept it. It cost me nearly £600 brand new!

Isn't charity-shopping fun! I almost joined in this rant thread yesterday as I have been looking everywhere for a dress for a Do tonight. Couldn't find what I wanted anywhere - although I didn't look in BHF as they are a waste of time since they have taken out their fitting rooms. - and came to the conclusion that they must be e-baying the nice, party stuff.
And then, just when I had given up hope, I found a dress - nay The Dress, exactly what I wanted - this morning for one quid. Hooray!

Great news, senua. It's nice to hear a good story.
There's a big charity shop near me which has a cafe in it. I went there today because I was having a poo day and I had a lovely slice of homemade carrot cake

I volunteer in a charity shop. We make £20,000 a year profit from the shop we work in; please don't stop donating those who are recoiling from this thread in horror!

The problem is that the volume of donations is sometimes so intense (depending on the location of the shop) that the time and space to store/sort them renders it impossible. A shop within a chain should be putting out anything they need, but then sending the rest to the central depot. Shops in locations that aren't easy to park near get considerably lower donations, and they usually get stocked with overspill from other shops. Plus things should be rotated between shops if they don't sell. We get 3 times as many saleable items as we can sell, but a sister shop gets less than 20% of their donations directly into their shop.

We've discovered its not worth putting things such as Cherokee tshirts up for sale. Our shelf/rail space is valuable (expensive rent; small shop) so putting anything up for less than 50p totals a net loss for the charity. People just don't buy a 2nd hand Cherokee tshirt for 50p when they can buy a 2nd hand Gap tshirt for £1 or a brand new Cherokee tshirt at Tesco along the road for £2.

It also really isn't worth the shelf space of putting an item with a small rip, stain or missing button up for sale. It doesn't get bought. But what gets sold on to our rag man is as follows...

• good quality clothing is bought in bulk by NGO's for developing countries
• poor quality clothing is bought to be shredded up and remade in to new garments

We also sell on our unwanted bric a brac, books, etc... We get a better deal on all ours than the OP, as its done by weight. They should shop around for best deal from rag men (some of which are non profit making companies). We make £400 a week from our ragman, which is all things that it is not worth sending to the depot.

Sometimes health and safety legislation comes into play. We occasionally have so many donations clogging up our small store room, no spare volunteer to sort them, they are blocking our loo, sink and fire escape, and its another 3 hours before our driver turns up to get things for the depot. Sometimes then we send the excess with the ragman when he arrives even though some of its good (we get out any high value items first), as its lesser of two evils. But we avoid that when humanly possible.

Just by coincidence there was a BHF bag left at my house yesterday. They are the only charity that collects from our village and I usually leave out loads because it saves a trip to town and carrying heavy bags through shopping precinct..
Lymond you have made me feel a little better about this. What do you know about the door to door collections? Should I?

This is real same and quite shocking.

What I did recently was put out some old kids stuff we had that we no longer needed when were moving house. It was in good condition but I put it out in the street for the bin man special collection.

A few people came by and asked if they could have things. One lady was looking for a pushchair and were simple childrens books too she took as well as a troller.

It all went to good home.

I kind of think that it's very prudent of the shop to sift donations for what actually is sellable.And there is nothing wrong with pricing designer items higher than others.

In the town I used to live in there was a slightly potty independent charity shop that used to be a BHF shop. The lady who ran it had been the manageress when it was the BHF shop.

She had had run-ins with their head office; she told me that she had written to them to ask if they could charge less for their clothes, what with there being so many poor people in that town.

She got a letter back telling her that it "was not the BHF's remit to provide cheap clothing for those on a low income". Charming.

Donate to smaller organisations, I should.

Oh BTW, Oxfam does have some actual cheap stores,in deprived areas, where most of the clothes are a flat couple of quid. I knew a couple when I lived in East London.

But to my mind, a charity shop is not a proper charity shop unless it smells of wee...!

I can't not contribute to this thread, as I buy lots of stuff in charity shops, but get annoyed at their completely random approach to pricing, etc. In fact, I think it's getting worse. One of my local charity shops used to price things fairly sensibly - for example, you could pick up vest tops for £1.50 or something like that - but now all prices have gone up and to be honest I think they have no idea about the price of things.
I saw some Tesco wine glasses there today - they were selling 9 glasses for £10 - at Tesco they are sold in sets of 4 for £4. You often see elderly people, or people who obviously have learning disabilities, being completely ripped off, because they don't realise that the prices being charged are more than in normal shopts.

I'm wondering how shredded garments can be used to make new clothes.