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!

I don't really care if the volunteers have first dibs. The staff at my favourite charity shop donate their stuff. Nice things, some new with tags. They're friendly and I like them.

Over the years I have bought so many good things and am now decluttering (or I would be if I wasn't on here).
It's good stuff that I've not worn, some still with the tags on. Most of it is branded.

I have far too many books but I've finished with them. I don't have space for them and I'd rather let someone else buy them for 10p or something than them gather dust.

There is no point to mre faffing around waiting on vinted or ebay for someone to buy a pair of trainers I've only worn twice because they're too small. I'll get £5 for them. I'd rather the hospice shop get £15.

** I appreciate the £5 would come in useful but it would be a future £5 and I might not get it.

It wouldn’t be MN without volunteers or the working class getting a good trashing, would it?

Yeah they do, my dd used to do this very thing

They don't have enough people doing this. A friend manages a charity shop and they are overwhelmed by donations. The directive from above is that they cannot refuse anything, but they literally have no room to store it

I work for a charity that has a shop. Unfortunately books don’t sell. We used to be able to sell them on to a company who would buy in bulk, but they’ve stopped doing it too now as there’s no money in it.

Menonut · Today 23:06
Morepositivemum
*none in our town take books anymore, it’s so sad

I work for a charity that has a shop. Unfortunately books don’t sell. We used to be able to sell them on to a company who would buy in bulk, but they’ve stopped doing it too now as there’s no money in it.*

Thats terrible:(

I'm working class and proud. My late batty aunt - who married into the family - was from a middle class military family. They were fairly well off but she'd nick stuff anyway. I've now asked and after she moved, she continued to volunteer until 2008. So no need to trash the workers as those higher up the social scale are often the biggest crooks!
Look at that corrupt bastard Farage the garage 🤬

They’re volunteers not paid staff, generally the only paid staff are the manager/assistant manager, so it’s irrelevant how many volunteers there are! I’ve a friend who volunteers in a charity shop and she’s says the amount of rubbish that’s donated is ludicrous, dirty clothes, broken china odd shoes. She says they have piles of stuff out the back that takes hours to sort through much of which the volunteers take home and wash, and bring back! If you can do a better job go and volunteer rather than bash charity shops!

Ah, that explains it but what a shame. One of the reasons I like charity shops is that I like making random finds among the books, I'm quite surprised to hear they don't sell well.

We have vg book sales where I volunteer but we have stopped taking non fiction as it really doesn’t sell. Fortunately we have an oxfam music and book store in the town.

My local supermarket and old telephone boxes have help yourself bookshelves. I’ve had some fun finds. The recommended donation is 50p in supermarket/ free for phone box.

I do think as prices have increased in charity shops people have found more inventive ways to pass on stuff.

My favourite charity shop is closing next month and I am gutted. The manager is a darling, and everything is priced competitively but equally good stuff is priced accordingly so the charity benefits. You can tell when one of the other staff/volunteers has been on pricing duty because you see way more of the ‘vintage’ Primark for £15 (yes, really!) but if you talk to the staff they are always happy to haggle.

The internet/eBay is probably to blame for some of it. Some I go in, someone has clearly googled the thing and priced it at exactly the price of the most expensive listing on eBay which isn’t always realistic.

Stafford used to have an ‘everything £1’ charity shop which I adored! So many bargains. I got a record from there that I resold on eBay (I was broke and in college, don’t judge me) and ended up donating half of the £500 back to the charity (and also showed them how to search on Discogs so they could check for valuable stuff).

Manager of my favourite local one says they get donated so much crap that they’re just grateful when they receive stuff they can actually sell. Hate the way some people act like charity shops should be grateful for a bag of literal shite they’ll have to pay to dispose of. Just take it to the tip!!

I like that idea. I was at the Hay festival once and there were all these books laid out on tables (in a church yard, which felt very random 😄) together with an honesty box. I came away with quite a few books tbh 😄but gave them a decent donation, I wouldn't take the piss with something like that.

From what I saw where I volunteered the sales of paperbacks and popular fiction were OK. In the last shop we sold paperbacks for £1 and people would come in and get a couple before a holiday. Non-fiction harder sell, people just don't want recipe books, gardening books, how to knit/paint/sew books when there is so much online.

We also used to get a lot of books which would have been really expensive new but there is just no market for - encyclopaedias, computer manual books which are 5+ years out of date, science textbooks published in the 80s. We have an Oxfam bookshop in the city I live and they take the more unusual/niche stuff and academic texts.

Poor management

They don’t sell because they’re all priced at £3 each around me. For a whim book purchase from a limited selection they need to be £1 or less. One nearby used to have a rack for 20p each and I’d buy loads from there.

Yep books are literally not worth the shelf space

The no electricals means they have no PAT testing facility and no one would touch furniture without appropriate fire labels.
Its absolute fundamental Health and Safety guidance designed to protect the consumer
Also to prevent the business from being sued if the food mixer was to cause a house fire etc

The charity shops near me are expensive.
They very rarely sell decent quality goods for £1 or £2.
I donate quite a lot if things, all if which are good quality. I do try and sell things on vinted when I can be bothered but last week u took several of dhs clothes to the charity shop. All excellent taking all from Next. He can no longer fit into them so they haven’t been worn to death.
Vinted is getting a lot more expensive. Once you add on the buyer protection and postage it really can be expensive. A dress I bought for £2 ended up costing over £5 and that was with the cheapest postage option.

We have loads of those little book donation boxes - some in old telephone boxes - around now so that’s where I put my books rather than charity shops and I get loads of books there free too.

I’ve found charity shops sell books often for more than you’d buy online for used eBay books or world of books etc, so it’s not really worth looking now.

A lot of the free books / book donation boxes are just nicely painted wooden boxes in peoples’ front gardens.

I asked about the price of dress I saw as if wasn’t marked up. It was a sleeveless shift dress. Nice enough. The assistant got out her notebook looked through it then told me £10.
The dress was second hand and from a bog standard shop, say George or Sainsbury’s along those lines I can’t remember exactly. I put it back.
I know they have to make a profit but seriously?

We also have people doing the free book thing from their gardens. I try and donate my books there.

I haven’t. You go to crap charity shops. I regularly to the charity shops in a local shopping area. I haven’t bought any new clothes, including coats, in about six years, as I get everything from charity shops. And I have bought some lovely clothes, and lovely labels ( fat face, Hobbs, Boden, Monsoon etc) well priced. I’ve saved literally thousands of pounds.
Instead of continuing to go to shops you hate and moaning about it, go to better shops. Charity shops in more affluent areas have better stock.

It wouldn't be worth their while to sell stuff at that price. They still have running costs* and need to make money for the charity.

*Yes I know they get reduced business rates and some of the staff are volunteers.

But because they are volunteers you can’t make them do anything. If they volunteer to work on the shop floor and if they don’t want to sort through stock then you can’t make them. My mother-in-law really likes doing it (because she then calls first dibs on anything she likes to farm out as Christmas presents). Whereas there isn’t enough money in the world to make me put my hand in some of those bags.