Charity Shops getting cocky with their prices.

trukdiver

Charityworker wrote: »

Volunteers are not reliable or knowledgeable enough which is why the majority cant get paid jobs.

Not true. A lot are retired, but not being able to get a paid job has nothing to do with volunteering. I had a paid job during the week and worked in a charity shop on Saturday.I couldn't do every Saturday, but I did tell them in advance when I wouldn't be able to come.

As for pricing, I could use ABE, eBay, Amazon etc to get an idea of what sort of prices things were selling for and put a slightly lower price on it - I was often overruled on that though!

trukdiver

Azari wrote: »

In our high street - quite a big one - we have now nowhere to buy stationary, electrical goods (inc. plugs, cables, etc) or decorating supplies. We don't even have a mobile phone shop (no great loss but odd considering how many you get in other places). We do have eight charity shops, though.

Do you have many betting shops and nail parlours?

trukdiver

SpammyTheSpammer wrote: »

Hmm, I and many of my family have regularly haggled in charity shops, usually on the line of:-

"This £5 item is a bit battered and worn, I will offer you £2.50. Do you want that?"

or:-

"This £2.50 game has no instructions and is missing a few pieces, will you take £1?"

This often succeeds where the person on the till has some sense. When they refuse, we say OK and walk out of the shop. Everyone should be happy with this approach, the shop gets money and the customer gets what they want at the 'correct' price. It is a shop after all, even if a charity shop, much of whose take still goes to pay rent, managers salaries etc. However I have noticed that many of the items, whose offers were refused, are still on the charity shop shelves months later....

Yeah, but we used to get a lot of people who'd pull lables off and ask for a price, or would remove part of something then come to the till and ask for a reduction. When the place was repainted, we found loads of price tickets stuck behind the mirror in the changing cubicle.

Also, we had to put a new ticket on rather than knock something off at the till because they could have brought it back and got a refund on the original price...

As I said, we usually did knock something off.

Azari

trukdiver wrote: »

Do you have many betting shops and nail parlours?

Two more betting shops have opened in the last few years.

Some of the units that I assumed were hairdressers might be nail places, come to think of it.

On the plus side, no 'payday loan' shops.

Happygreen

Some chain charity shops now have staff or volunteers that check out value items, es. clothing on-line and flogs them on ebay. The shops are left with what they can't sell on there and sometimes hugely overpriced because they still have to pay their rent (even if not council tax business rates) and manager's wages. I am shocked sometimes what they ask for dvds for example, if you can get the same on-line new and cheaper! Heart Foundation is the most expensive around here as they rotate goods from and to the poorer /more affluent area shops. I give my goods to a local cat sanctuary shop where I know any money raised goes towards the vet and cat food.....
I feel sorry for the old lady and there's never a need to be nasty!

trukdiver

Azari wrote: »

On the plus side, no 'payday loan' shops.

Not yet.....

SpammyTheSpammer

trukdiver wrote: »

Yeah, but we used to get a lot of people who'd pull lables off and ask for a price, or would remove part of something then come to the till and ask for a reduction. When the place was repainted, we found loads of price tickets stuck behind the mirror in the changing cubicle.

Also, we had to put a new ticket on rather than knock something off at the till because they could have brought it back and got a refund on the original price...

As I said, we usually did knock something off.

In my local charity shops, they remove the price labels and stick them on a little sheet - and no, I have no idea why. But why not just ask for the receipt upon return?

trukdiver

SpammyTheSpammer wrote: »

In my local charity shops, they remove the price labels and stick them on a little sheet - and no, I have no idea why. But why not just ask for the receipt upon return?

Because some of the people who worked there wouldn't have been able to match the item with the receipt if it still had the original price tag.

Also, there were no item descriptions on the receipt - just categories and prices. If somebody bought a couple of items that were marked at £5.99 but one of them was actually sold for 99p because it was faulty, they could have returned the 99p one but got a £5.99 refund (if the original tag was still attached).

SpammyTheSpammer

trukdiver wrote: »

Also, there were no item descriptions on the receipt - just categories and prices. If somebody bought a couple of items that were marked at £5.99 but one of them was actually sold for 99p because it was faulty, they could have returned the 99p one but got a £5.99 refund (if the original tag was still attached).

It really does appear that the charity shop was not being run in a n efficient/business like way.....

Was that on purpose or just pure slapdashery?

ThumbRemote

SpammyTheSpammer wrote: »

In my local charity shops, they remove the price labels and stick them on a little sheet - and no, I have no idea why. But why not just ask for the receipt upon return?

It may be for gift aid purposes. If someone donates goods and signs a gift aid declaration, I believe the shop can claim back the gift aid on the value those goods sold for.

Keeping the tags may be one way whoever does the admin handles this. It's certainly the way our local Barnados furniture store does it.