Why do charity shops do this?

[LuLuLemonadeDrinker]

A couple of local charity shops near me both constantly have signs up outside on an A-Board, saying that they are not taking donations. However, both of these have very little stock inside, and are both very overpriced. For example, a worn, very bobbly Primark jumper for £7, and a Boohoo polyester dress for £12.

One in particular is just depressing to go into; I went in the other day for the first time in two months and some of the overpriced clothes that were there then were still hanging there, still for sale. The rails were also pretty empty. The board was outside as usual requesting no donations. There were 5 members of staff in the shop.

I really don't get it; surely it would be far better, and raise far more money, if they had more stock out, and priced it at lower prices for a quicker turnover. I really can't see the shop I went in yesterday raising much money at all, as there's never anything in there really to buy.

I'm sure some posters will reply saying it's a 'charity shop bashing thread', and yes, it is! I want to support charities and want to buy pre owned items but shops like this aren't exactly going to raise any money!

The problem is not that potential customers don’t understand the problems the charity sector faces. The problem is, do they care? Why should they, as customers, be worried that the manager is overworked, or that volunteers are unreliable? Does the lack of decent stock mean they should settle for the tat - or will they go to Vinted or eBay instead?

It’s like independent shops who think people should use them because independence is in itself a virtue; who complain that they have higher overheads and poor buying power compared to chains. I’m sorry, but that’s their problem, not mine. If they can’t offer me a specialist product or service, there’s no point in me paying extra.

I really wish I could say what animal charity I volunteer for because they are amazing. Us volunteers carefully sort out the donations and make sure nothing marked/stained/bobbled/smelly/holed etc gets through. Also, everything is carefully steam cleaned before it goes on the rails. Prices are low (imo), far lower than what you'd pay on Ebay/Vinted. Unless it's proper designer, then everything gets a standard price. You can pick up some amazing bargains. I'm really surprised at the decent stuff that gets donated. Yes, there's always a bit of rubbish, which the rag man collects and the charity gets paid on the weight.

That shouldn’t really make a difference to the prices a charity shop charges. A Vinted or eBay seller has a huge potential market and a convenient platform. Charity shops tend to have mostly local customers, apart from those in very smart or “hip” areas, where people will travel.

Let’s say a charity shop receives a BNWT Zara top, size 12. It may be one of the better items they have in stock, but it still needs a size 12 customer who likes that top to walk in and buy it. Whereas someone who likes Zara can go onto Vinted, select a size, brand, colour, condition etc. and browse through hundreds of items.

My local BHF shop was like that for a year and then it finally shut down. I thought perhaps they were just running out the lease and didn’t want to the task of getting rid of lots of stock.

I don’t really understand it either because I know and visit some charity shops which are great, really reasonable and sensible pricing and therefore good movement of stock and happy to take donations. Then some others are the complete opposite so I just avoid them full stop.

Yes it's annoying. There stock is free for them so they should charge a pittance and actually sell things. If they need more volunteers then they can do some community engagement to get some. They are a charity shop so this is why they are there.

I went into a charity shop once when away for a weekend and it seemed amazing. There was loads of Boden, joules, Burberry, Barbour etc. Like someone posh had turned out her wardrobe. Or died. But when I looked at the price labels they all said “fake”. Put off, I left without purchasing. It was only when I got home I realised the shop was in Holt, Norfolk and “Fake” referred to their Fakenham store. I would have bought loads…

Remember a lot of the staff are volunteers, and certainly in my local charity shop it’s mostly people with huge difficulties who are being helped into a route to try to become able to do some kind of work, rather than volunteers who can actually do much useful work. When I was a child lots of energetic, midlife women seemed to do voluntary work (My mother included), but these days are the midlife women are working full time, often with young children at home, and are knackered and have no time or energy to be volunteers! So our lovely charity manager spends much of her time trying to help the staff to manage to do, well, anything much at all to be honest.

They dont have volunteers to pick through the stock, this takes ages because alot of donations are unfit for resale

Yeah. I think a lot of people would be shocked to see what filthy and worn out stuff that gets brought in. Some nice stuff too but you never know what until you open it. With protective gloves.

Well there were 5 volunteers/staff members in the shop I went into the other day. One was walking around tidying up the rails and the others were all standing behind the till chatting

For various reasons not all volunteers do the sorting. Many just don't want to and prefer the till and helping on the shop floor. I personally hate the sorting, it can be quite strenuous work, the bags are often heavy and have to be lugged about. Worst of all, occasionally, you can come across some real shitty stuff. It's more often the managers who get stuck with that.

You have to put a lot of money into managing a charity shop well, managers who can be on site, trained staff to price things well, good window dressings: Some charities do this well and some don’t have the budget to put into it.

(and the occasional bargain that I sell on eBay- which might get me told off!)

Not at all. The shop gets what they've asked so everybody's happy. We have a few ebayers come in our shop and their money is as good as anyone's. They put the work in.

I get the impression you think this is a bad thing?

If I'm right, can you tell me why?

There's nothing to stop charity shops doing the same

They've got loads of stock in the back but don't have people to go through it in a short space of time.

I don't get the expensive prices either. If they sold items cheaply, they'd get through their stock quicker and make more money. Most of what is donated gets shipped of to Africa, it doesn't actually get sold. That's why I prefer to sell on eBay.

their insurance policy probably doesn’t cover them to sell electricals. And the law prohibits them from selling furniture without the fire safety label. So, sadly, they were right to refuse the kitchen aid and to bin the chair

This is correct. You need someone qualified to do PAT testing and most shops don't have that, although some of the bigger ones do have qualified volunteers who pop in once a week to do it.

There's nothing to stop charity shops doing the same

You'd need paid staff or a hell of a lot of volunteers to do that. Volunteers don't work a 35 hour week for free. Often just one morning or afternoon a week.

I know in my school we pick up old shoes & dresses etc for school plays, it's not very often but you'd be surprised how many "old granny" dresses, aprons, hats & that kind of thing, even teapots & the like we've gone through over the years 😂

Exactly. We don’t take electrical items for this reason.

Exactly. We sell online where I volunteer.

Things I have seen in the last month:

Boden dress £25
Seasalt dress £28
White Stuff dress £22

Which would be bargain prices if I was comparing to new, but if I was buying new I could have exactly the shape and print I wanted.
I love charity shops and do volunteer in one (which is competitively priced and things sell fast), but the prices need to be attractive enough for people to buy, and so support the cause.

Also: a PP mentioned that charity shops don't pay business rates but often they do have to pay some rate, unless the council waives it.

Many do with higher end items. But they won’t have the time to do it with everything.

In any case, the point I was responding to was the suggestion that resellers drive prices up, as charity shops want to discourage them, or think they can get the same price in a shop that they might get on Vinted.

Last year I bought a Reiss dress for £7 from a charity shop, this year it’s £7 for a dress from George or H and M in the same one so there has definitely been a massive price change in the last 12 months.

I’ve donated a lot of high quality stuff to this charity and do gift aid and I get an email every so often telling me the £100s of donations I have given them have raised £20 or whatever. Which is fairly dispiriting when it’s high end high street clothes, sets of books, games with all the pieces, brand new stuff we have been gifted but will never use etc. So I’ve no idea what is going on tbh. They were trying to sell £300 brand new armchairs when I last went in but I can’t see who that particular initiative is aimed at.

Everyone's always an expert on these threads.

Just get more volunteers - don't you think most are trying? There are though volunteers and volunteers. What shops want are regular, reliable volunteers. People who will stick around for at least a year, who will turn their hand to all the tasks in the shop, show initiative and just get stuck in. In every charity shop I have volunteered in there have been people who won't do the till, won't do the sorting, will only do the books, will only do the steaming. Or who have other commitments (fair enough) and will regularly not be able to do their shift. And because they are volunteers, there is nothing you can do about it. Finding two adults required to open the shop every day was a huge challenge - under 18s and adults with some additional support needs did not count in that ratio. So those complaining, if you have time and can be reliable, please do.

"Most stuff goes to Africa" - well no. As per usual on MN everyone talks about clothes on these threads. The last place I volunteered took as much money on bric a brac and toys/games as we did on ladies clothes. We did not want to send things to rag because as I said upthread, we got 80p - £1 per black bag and very little space to store them until the rag merchant came round. Anything which was worth selling in store we sold. It would be put out in the stop for 3 weeks at a reasonable price, if it hadn't sold after that time it'd be reduced by 50%, if it still hadn't sold we'd put it in bags and send it to another store 5 miles away and they would do the same with their stock. Only if it hadn't sold after all that it'd go to waste.

I do also think that most people are thinking about donations in terms of what they would prefer to buy. People talking about stock and prices are obviously going into charity shops, buying and looking. Many people don't do that - they don't think charity shops are for them, for whatever reason. My inlaws are like this so they really don't have a handle on what will sell and what won't. We used to get bags and bags of stuff donated where the donor would breeze in the door, dump the bags and walk out again without even glancing at the rails. Donations from people who came in, dropped their stuff off, looked around and then left were better.

Vinted has made selling ordinary good condition secondhand clothes easy (in a way eBay never managed.) That means less quality stuff being donated to charity shops. Even when quality items are donated I have seen how hardcore Vinted sellers get volunteer jobs at small charity shops in affluent areas, and reserve and price all the best items for themselves to then sell on- the good stuff never gets on the rails. The bigger charity shops with central distribution centres are reliant on whatever they are given, which is often less and less. Perhaps they have their own magpies at the distribution centre creaming off the best stuff for themselves.

Aside from lack of quality, charity shops have been unpleasant for a while. We donated some very good quality toys to a charity shop. A few weeks later we went into that charity shop and the toys were out for sale, DC saw their old toys in a basket and started looking through -curious what they’d been priced at. A mad old woman on the till came over and literally shouted at us to ‘get out’ because they were not a nursery and they had cameras so we couldn’t steal anything. DC started crying, we’d been so startled by the loud outburst. We got in touch with the area manager of that charity who gave us way too much info about the woman on the till’s medical history by way of excuse. It sounded like she was not fit to be left alone running a tap let alone a shop.

And we’ve all probably experienced the gaggle of volunteers at the till chatting away saying very inappropriate things to a level that feels uncomfortable. The most ironic was a Red Cross charity shop where the news on the radio had prompted much discussion about asylum seekers- I won’t repeat the nastiness they were saying but they tried to get me and another customer ‘onside’ by bringing us into the conversation. I was caught unaware being brought into such a nasty conversation and stupidly just said ‘but don’t the Red Cross help asylum seekers?’ To which the alpha member of staff snorted “to stay in their own country” I don’t think this was any reflection on the Red Cross who can’t vet every volunteer’s personal views and are a very worthy charity, but it was me done with charity shops.