Charity Shops!!!!!! bah humbug

argamemnon

I took a box of stuff to a charity shop on saturday and found the woman to be rude, and ungreatfull, i asked her if she was willing to take a mixed box of stuff and her reply was a abrupt How Much Have You Got!!! Oh ALRIGHT then take it out the back not a please or thankyou, Not at all welcoming but the stuff has to go and we are getting ready to move and the stuff was to good to tip.

MoaningMyrtle

This is turning into a great thread, on the whole Charity Shops are good around here. You can get some good bargains. I don't donate much at the moment so can't comment on that. I know that the Sue Ryder Charity Shops now give you the opportunity to make your donations worth more money through Gift Aid when you donate items.

What is slightly annoying is the women who volunteer in the two near here are all terrible gossips, there doesn't seem to be anyone in charge, so they sit behind the counter gossiping and giving their (very non PC) opinions on everything from the local Chemists, their Area Manager (whom they do not like!!), the people walking past the shop to what they are having for dinner and everyone's ailments. It is very cringeworthy.

That's all.

barrymoney

Hi-
Try a British Heart Foundation bookshop next time perhaps? Dunno how many there are around (sorry), but the one in Reading is fantastic. The range of books is large, with v good prices, and excellent staff when I've been there. It got me back into books. I'm sure they'd welcome your donations. Don't get me started on the price of Oxfam books -- I don't bother checking now.

Hermia

I'm afraid I don't donate anything to charity shops anymore because of the attitudes you all mention. The staff in the three charity shops where I live can barely bother to thank you and often refuse to take whatever you bring. I once struggled to town with two bags of brand new popular books and the woman wouldn't even look in the bags. A friend of mine tried to donate a black bag full of clothes. My friend wears designer labels and keeps her clothes immaculate, but the woman just snapped at her saying they hadn't got room. I bet if she had known how much the clothes were worth she'd have found room!

I also don't understand the pricing in charity shops. I know they are trying to be proper shops, but they seem to be shooting themselves in the foot. My local Oxfam charges £2.49 for most paperbacks and you can go in there week after week and see the same books sitting there. The hospice shop charges 50p-£1 and the books just fly off the shelf.

loonee

Whilst I accept I wasn't donating anything, my local charity shop wasn't exactly helpful when I moved business a few years ago.
I moved to a larger shop no more than 100 yards away and a charity took over our old shop. I redirected the mail, the regular postman made sure I got the mail, but when a different postman was on the charity shop got some of my mail, and even though I asked when they got some post to hang on to it and I will pick it up every few days, the woman in charge used to put it back in the post box (which incidentally was further away than I am) with "Not Known at this address" on it. There were 1 or 2 important bits of post I never got, don't know whether that had anything to do with them but.....

rose_sparky

MoaningMyrtle wrote: »

This is turning into a great thread, on the whole Charity Shops are good around here. You can get some good bargains. I don't donate much at the moment so can't comment on that. I know that the Sue Ryder Charity Shops now give you the opportunity to make your donations worth more money through Gift Aid when you donate items.

What is slightly annoying is the women who volunteer in the two near here are all terrible gossips, there doesn't seem to be anyone in charge, so they sit behind the counter gossiping and giving their (very non PC) opinions on everything from the local Chemists, their Area Manager (whom they do not like!!), the people walking past the shop to what they are having for dinner and everyone's ailments. It is very cringeworthy.

That's all.

That's my sentiments of most charity shop workers!! I find whenever I visit there's always someone behind the counter gossiping about Mrs Tartlet who's been extra nice to the Vicar of the local parish.

And don't you just love the volunteers with the permanent smell under their nose who wear white cotton gloves and hold the items with just two fingers!!

It's their feel good few hours you see!

jasmineswhiskers

MoaningMyrtle wrote: »

What is slightly annoying is the women who volunteer in the two near here are all terrible gossips, there doesn't seem to be anyone in charge, so they sit behind the counter gossiping and giving their (very non PC) opinions on everything from the local Chemists, their Area Manager (whom they do not like!!), the people walking past the shop to what they are having for dinner and everyone's ailments. It is very cringeworthy.

That's all.

LOL - One charity shop I went in had a pair of black leather heavy duty handcuffs (proper bondage stuff) which I bought. They were to sell on ebay (which they did very nicely) but the old dear's face was a picture! (Unless they were her's to start with!).
Oh and she asked me if i'd like a bag...er no - i'll just carry them down the street as they are!

Contains_Mild_Peril

jasmineswhiskers wrote: »

Surely selling a larger volume of items more cheaply with a quick turnaround would make the charity shops more money. They obviously have enough people willing to donate the quantity. Plus they'd have less to get rid of themselves. I presume they have to pay for this service. Also why don't they have 'Sale Rails' where items are reduced after a certain period of time.

Almost all the best charity shops have sale rails (I say almost because one of my favourite shops is too small to have one, but they only charge £1 for most clothes to start with). I give to shops which will sell stuff as cheaply as they need to to make room for more donations rather than turning good stuff away. These are also the shops where I prefer to shop, since I like a bargain.
I once saw a "rubbish" bag of books outside a local charity shop, which were unsold mostly because they just weren't cheap enough, so the shop was throwing them out. I asked if I could have them for a small donation, then sold several at a car boot sale for 20p each. If I could sell them in a couple of hours, I'm sure the shop could have managed if they'd tried. Another local charity shop regularly reduces books to 20p when they get overstocked, and it works well for them.
One of the reasons I usually prefer to sell on eBay rather than give to charity shops is that if someone is paying money for my tat, I can assume they're going to use it and not chuck it in the bin. The other main reason is purely selfish: I want the money!
I'd be surprised if a charity shop didn't have a spare box lying around to decant books if a donor wanted their box back. I've never encountered any problems when donating stuff, but I've come across some starnge attitudes, e.g. the woman who forbad me to try on anything from the sale rail when the shop had a perfectly good fitting room (for those buying full priced clothes!), and seemed a bit disgusted that I wasn't willing to buy without trying first.

bella4uk

arthur_dent wrote: »

I have in my time come across some really rude charity shop workers and attitudes towards donations, but I think the worst was a notice on the door of a charity shop that said something like We do not want the remainder of your car boot items, if you can't sell it then neither can we. I understand that the charity shops do not want any old rubbish but if someone has a genuine car boot sale and then wishes to give the rest away that surely is their choice.

I don't see anything wrong in that sign. ....sometimes people just use charity shops as a dumping site....

Contains_Mild_Peril

I think some of the signs saying what they do and don't want can be a bit unfriendly, and "If you can't sell it then neither can we" is just silly given that a charity shop is likely to offer goods for sale for at least 30 times as long as a car boot sale. If something is unsold at one car boot sale that doesn't necessarily mean it won't sell at the next, or in a charity shop. If someone's having a clearout I'm really not sure why a charity shop should mind if they just take their goods straight there or sell some at a car boot sale first. What they're basically saying is "Either give us first pick or get lost". It would be more useful if, instead of just antagonising potential donors and missing out on good stuff which doesn't fit their ridiculous criteria (e.g. you didn't manage to sell it at that car boot sale in the hour or two before the heavens opened and everyone went home early) they would encourage people to think about how likely their goods are to be saleable (whether or not they've been to a boot sale first) and base their decisions on what, if anything, to donate accordingly.