Hoarding...not just on TV

thriftwizard

lostinrates wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance, but....would it not have been worth cleaning them? Second hand expensive curtains still cost hundreds, and often thousands at places like the curtain exchange, and vintage clothes that are nice would surely recoup more than their costs in cleaning?

To be honest, probably not... I didn't see eye to eye with the manageress & I think she wasted a LOT of good & worthwhile stuff, whilst putting a lot of flashy cr&p out on the floor, only to be junked/ragged two weeks later. We hardly ever made our targets & the shop closed altogether a year after I left. But you'd be lucky to get more than £15 a pair for the curtains even now and I reckon they would have cost at least £30 (that's what our local cleaners charge for a school blazer. Yes, our state school has expensive blazers...) per pair to have cleaned. The dresses; had I had my stall back then, I'd have wanted to take them on & risk not being able to get the stains out. But she would have charged me full price for each one, even though they were unsaleable by high street standards; that was "policy" for you!

If you live somewhere where people have cash and will pay the money for old and expensive things then yes.

Plenty of cash round here, but mostly they won't actually part with it! Many older people, round here at least, don't see any value in "old" or "vintage" stuff, they've spent their lives trying to afford the latest, modern stuff! Which is why I travel to somewhere more sensible to run my stall; didn't work at all on our market here.

thriftwizard

'nother thing... recently I went with a friend who runs a costume stall to one of our local charity shops. They'd told me they had some wedding dresses & morning suits they just wanted to move on; they have a tiny back room & they'd had them for months. But they wanted £100 each for the dresses & £50 for the suits, and wouldn't budge. Way out of my friend's league, TBH; she'd be lucky to get £50 for the dresses & £20 for the suits, and she could wait a long time for a bride exactly the right size that fancies a dress just like one of those. Apparently the donors come back in regularly & need to know they've fetched a good price? So they can't possibly "let them go" for less...

IMHO, a gift is a GIFT; once it's out of your hands it's up to the recipient what they do with it!

alec_eiffel

"Vintage" wouldn't have gone down well in the places I've worked either. The old stuff we would sell would be what folk considered "good", known brands and things like that. Fabrics made in the local area (I worked in the mill towns in Lancashire) rather than anything more jaunty and aspirational.

alec_eiffel

thriftwizard wrote: »

'nother thing... recently I went with a friend who runs a costume stall to one of our local charity shops. They'd told me they had some wedding dresses & morning suits they just wanted to move on; they have a tiny back room & they'd had them for months. But they wanted £100 each for the dresses & £50 for the suits, and wouldn't budge. Way out of my friend's league, TBH; she'd be lucky to get £50 for the dresses & £20 for the suits, and she could wait a long time for a bride exactly the right size that fancies a dress just like one of those. Apparently the donors come back in regularly & need to know they've fetched a good price? So they can't possibly "let them go" for less...

IMHO, a gift is a GIFT; once it's out of your hands it's up to the recipient what they do with it!

I think you've hit the spanner on the head with why a lot of people won't pay a good price for CS things now. Because things are given for free many people think that large amounts of money shouldn't be made on them. I think that sales targets and price brackets were insane, especially with books, but a good manager can straddle the making money and the keeping everyone happy if they're allowed to do their job.

I hated working in the shop and chose to work in the processing room as much as possible, before the Gift Aid rules were changed if someone came back and asked I'd just tell them it sold for x amount. They went away happy and it didn't matter really whether it was true or not. I was too busy to mess about like that. I did enjoy a good "discussion" with a dealer though.

Yes, I am a massive liar :beer:

lostinrates

alec_eiffel wrote: »

I think you've hit the spanner on the head with why a lot of people won't pay a good price for CS things now. Because things are given for free many people think that large amounts of money shouldn't be made on them. I think that sales targets and price brackets were insane, especially with books, but a good manager can straddle the making money and the keeping everyone happy if they're allowed to do their job.

I hated working in the shop and chose to work in the processing room as much as possible, before the Gift Aid rules were changed if someone came back and asked I'd just tell them it sold for x amount. They went away happy and it didn't matter really whether it was true or not. I was too busy to mess about like that. I did enjoy a good "discussion" with a dealer though.

Yes, I am a massive liar :beer:

I don't go in CS shops much any more
A. Because they are to expensive . ( I have griped about this before on os but while I and friends as teenagers dressed from CS shops, my neices cen get stuff CHEAPER new, and so creativity in dresing is minimised:(


B. I am not hoarding:A

alec_eiffel

I don't shop in them either. I donate, I'll donate money to certain charities but I don't buy from them. Whenever I've decluttered my wardrobe the majority of stuff I got rid of was stuff that came from a CS in the first place. I have two items of clothing that came from one, both from the 60's - a wool coat and a Betty Barclay skirt. Everything else was bought because it was cheap. I now have a tight capsule wardrobe of less than 50 items (not including shoes and accessories) and that does me.

I went into a CS a little while ago and nearly keeled over at the prices! I don't shop for recreation these days, never go to places to browse and shop with a list, helps with the clutter and the bank balance!

idristhedragon

Afternoon! De-Richarding been put back to tomorrow AGAIN as Im rubbish ha ha.
Im having a conumdrum with an ebay seller. I bought 2 items and each had a (very high) p&p charge of 3.99. I emailed and said do you combine postage and got an email back saying "oh dunno, have never done it, dont know how to send new invoice" then another one saying "actually you got a bargain so please pay both".
I am torn- i bid on both items with those p&p costs so knew potentially that was the fee, but I (wrongly obviously) assumed they would combine (its clothes so the p&p was daft high anyway) and now Im rattled cos the attitude is they are trying to recoupe money by making me pay £8 postage for two tops!!!!
I guess Ill just pay and sulk a bit.............

idristhedragon

Oh and baby DDs most wanted Xmas present in the colour she wants keeps selling out all the time and is THE toy for christmas. I just manged to get one at a brill price, in stock on amazon. However I had husbands card details saved on my amazon account so guess what I did Oops.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Hi all, still taking a while to get used to meds - and I'm having a flare, so expect they will need to be increased at some point - but that means I'm not actually doing a great deal of anything, and certainly not making mess, at the moment.


Still glad to see everyone getting on with things, even in the times when it seems as though everything is standing still. I have to get around to lining the bedroom curtains, I have the fleece blankets to do it, but just can't get them down to tack them in at the moment.

But the kitchen is clean, the living room is manageable, upstairs is fine and I just have to get my bum into gear and practice for a gig - first rehearsal is this Sunday - so have to get the meds down my neck to be able to do it justice. Priorities, you see :rotfl:


Gentle, careful hugs to all that want or need them! xx

365days

There is one CS I have stopped giving to completely. They treat you like they are doing YOU a favour when you take in stuff. (I understand now why they may act like that) but I only take things in that in my view are sellable, otherwise they go to recycling/bin. (When the final decision has been made of course!!)

Interesting to have the question asked why people find seemingly worthless things so precious. I agree that it is the story behind it. My toothbrush holder is a grey marble pot, stolen in my teens on a drunken night by my then boyfriend from a 'theme' pub whose shelves groaned with pots and ceramic jars. Just added up how long ago that was......23 years. Maybe it's time to let go of that one!! It has no 'value' but is part of a story that only I can tell.

Likewise, i have a small decorated kilner jar. No one knows that the jar was given by me to my dad one christmas full of posh syrupy nuts as he was dying and all gifts had to be kind of instantly useable, no point buying a dying man spanners! To anyone else its a glass jar, but to me its a memory and a link to the past. It's a pretty jar and it will be kept.

There are hundreds of items in my house which have a story to tell, but many of those stories have more than one 'prop' I need to get into the mindset that having a few select objects carefully and lovingly displayed will be more enjoyable to me than hundreds all fighting for space,being tripped over and 'churned' a new word i've learnt which means just moving stuff from place to place. I'm getting there and it's a very exciting feeling.

Thanks for listening!