Charity shops. Their noses are turned upwards

Pollycat

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I can't remember the last time I could go into a charity shop and get crockery or kitchen paraphernalia. It was how I kitted out my kitchen for minimal cost - proper tablespoon sized tablespoons, mixing bowl, rolling pin, tea plates, jugs, even my scales (a very well used set of ones with Imperial weights to counterbalance the flour - except the 1oz weight was missing, so that was replaced with four 2p coins) came from a charity shop; cost me £3. And you couldn't get a butter dish anywhere else (50p IIRC).

I'd get recipe books that were old and tatty, but had instructions on almost everything you could ever imagine, gardening books about actually growing stuff, books about repairing things, caring for livestock, and all the time, not one glossy photo of a glossy haired 24 year old who is concealing her eating disorder very effectively with a team of stylists doing all the work whilst she perches on a table and glows with [strike]Photoshop[/strike] youth in the glowy show kitchen of the glowy show house and the glowy sky and the glowy food (with steam made for the purposes of the photo by the photographer/stylist microwaving tampons and tucking them underneath because real steam from real hot food doesn't look as glowy as real steam from real microwaved tampons :cool:).


Going into a charity shop nowdays seems to be a whole less pleasant - there are Fleabayers barging you out of the way to harvest the entire contents of the bookcases (except the obligatory five copies each of Cathy Reichs, James Patterson and Trudi Canavan), there's not a pile of mismatched teaplates and saucers to be seen for miles, the cheap costume jewellery box has disappeared - the only way I was ever going to have jewellery - and all you're left with are £2 Primark tops priced up at £4.95 and Size 6 shorts and jeans.


If I need to replace anything, I'm just going to have to buy it new, rather than making use of recycled items and not a penny will go to charity.

That's a very different experience to some of the charity shops I frequent - especially the hospice shop.
Lots of crockery, cutlery and other kitchen stuff, lots of good books.
Yes, there are some biographies from 'Z' listers but I found a Pru Leith Cookery Bible in good condition.

I think some of the national charities tend to load their space with 'new' goods which seem like tat to me.
Lots of chat on this thread about great bargains - some designer labels - and the sometimes weird pricing of high street donated items:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3859129

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Pollycat wrote: »

No!!!!!
By author! It has to be by author.
When I'm in a charity shop I have a very strong urge to start sorting the fiction books by author order.

My fiction is in chronological publication order. I like to see the evolution of English literature from Anglo Saxon through the centuries spread over the shelves.

In my experience, people don't realise just how difficult training volunteers is. It's a completely different skill to managing paid staff, where if someone doesn't do as they're told they get their P45. It's a delicate balance to be appreciative of someone giving their time, but ensure they are following the same rules as everyone else. Many can be very easily offended if it's suggested they do something different to how they've always done it.

Pollycat

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

In my experience, people don't realise just how difficult training volunteers is. It's a completely different skill to managing paid staff, where if someone doesn't do as they're told they get their P45. It's a delicate balance to be appreciative of someone giving their time, but ensure they are following the same rules as everyone else. Many can be very easily offended if it's suggested they do something different to how they've always done it.

Pollycat wrote: »

When I'm in a charity shop I have a very strong urge to start sorting the fiction books by author order.

The above comment was actually tongue-in-cheek.
I have some OCD tendencies so have a view of how things should be ordered in my own brain.

I have far more interesting things to do than sorting books in charity shops.
If I didn't, I'd probably volunteer in one.

Prinzessilein

Pollycat wrote: »

No!!!!!
By author! It has to be by author.
When I'm in a charity shop I have a very strong urge to start sorting the fiction books by author order.

NO!

I like to see books in shops displayed EXACTLY as I would the shelves at home!!!!

First you arrange thematically...all the children's' book on one shelf, sub categorised by school stories, guide stories, and 'other'...then by author and within the author grouping organised by series.....other shelves are divided by category - religious books, cookery, history, science, poetry and fiction, then by assorted sub-categories and THEN by author.

Ask me for any book and I can immediately put my hand on it.

Order is beautiful!

I fail to see why all shops cannot follow my perfect logic in ordering books! :D

Pollycat

On the subject of order, how do you like to see clothes hung?
Smaller sizes on the left or on the right?

I find it weird to work from right to left from smaller sizes to larger sizes.
Could this be organised by someone who is left-handed?

And I like to see clothes in size order by garment type (dresses, tops, trousers, skirts) rather than organised by colour i.e. a rack of blue shades of all types of clothes.
Maybe this is because I'm usually browsing for something that takes my fancy rather than looking for something in a specific colour.

And - I'm not criticising volunteers, just making an observation.

thriftwizard

“
"Oh I totally agree! My books are almost like old friends, to me... But friends selling houses have been told this by estate agents... "Get rid of" this that & the other "if you want to sell - it's not to modern tastes.""
Originally posted by thriftwizard
”Tasteless tat, yes - but books? Never!

Books, kitchenalia, antique/persian rugs, nested tables, South American tapestry wallhangings and most especially, actual plants, in the house or garden - all things friends have been told to "get rid of" by estate agents! We're needing/hoping to move soon and will probably just have to either hire a storage unit or try to sell the place ourselves!

But I know from the friends who do volunteer & work in them, that our local charity shops truly are inundated with good stuff; they have to move bag after bag before they can unlock the door on a Monday morning. The problem is, it may be good stuff, but it isn't necessarily the stuff that will actually sell...

moneyistooshorttomention

Pollycat wrote: »

The above comment was actually tongue-in-cheek.
I have some OCD tendencies so have a view of how things should be ordered in my own brain.

I have far more interesting things to do than sorting books in charity shops.
If I didn't, I'd probably volunteer in one.

Oh shucks - there was me grinning thinking "I'm not the only one then". I have my own books at home basically in subject order. When I get too close for too long to anything on display anywhere (books/leaflets/you name it) - I'm putting things in order/removing outdated notices/etc:rotfl:. I resist the temptation in charity shops (unless I'm helping in them of course.....) - but anywhere else...

I really hate the odd charity shop where all clothes sizes are jumbled together regardless - and have been known to comment on how they need to be re-ordered to the assistant. I expect to look along the rails from left to right (going from smallest sizes to biggest sizes). Why on earth would I want to have to hunt through every single item on the rack to see what is there in my size? I just want to "zoom in" specifically on the few things that are my size. My idea of charity shopping is very quick 5 minutes here, then 5 minutes there and I've covered all relevant shops within the hour.

EDIT; Yep and I expect clothes to be ordered by garment type and, within that, to be ordered by colour. So I expect to see for instance: within the category of blouses size 8 for instance I expect to see blue blouses all together, then brown blouses all together (for instance) and so on. Thence to size 10 blues, then browns. Dresses elsewhere ditto. Jackets elsewhere ditto.

I think my pet hate is when there are the odd few books the wrong way up. It's down to the fact they've been put correct way up (along with the others) but the book was printed by a small/outdated publisher that printed the title the wrong way round on the spine. Wherever I am - if I spot one like that - I'll take it out and put it with the title facing the same way as all the others. I expect to scan along bookshelves from left to right and not have to crick my neck around the other way to read a "printed wrong way round" title.

Miró

Pollycat wrote: »

And I like to see clothes in size order by garment type (dresses, tops, trousers, skirts) rather than organised by colour i.e. a rack of blue shades of all types of clothes.
Maybe this is because I'm usually browsing for something that takes my fancy rather than looking for something in a specific colour.

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I really hate the odd charity shop where all clothes sizes are jumbled together regardless - and have been known to comment on how they need to be re-ordered to the assistant. I expect to look along the rails from left to right (going from smallest sizes to biggest sizes). Why on earth would I want to have to hunt through every single item on the rack to see what is there in my size? I just want to "zoom in" specifically on the few things that are my size. My idea of charity shopping is very quick 5 minutes here, then 5 minutes there and I've covered all relevant shops within the hour.

EDIT; Yep and I expect clothes to be ordered by garment type and, within that, to be ordered by colour. So I expect to see for instance: within the category of blouses size 8 for instance I expect to see blue blouses all together, then brown blouses all together (for instance) and so on. Thence to size 8 blues, then browns. Dresses elsewhere ditto. Jackets elsewhere ditto.

Oooooh nooooooo....that would totally spoil it for me! I love a good rummage but I do have plenty of time on my hands. I look at other sizes thinking 'can I alter it', 'can I make something else out of it', 'would it suit anyone else I know'. I have been tempted to wear a colour never tried before because I loved a particular garment. Most of the charity shops I go into everything ends up disordered anyhoo as people put things back in the wrong places. If I needed things to be so well ordered I would have to go to a 'proper shop' (heaven forbid!:eek:)

Arklight

FinancialController wrote: »

I read with dismay your post about your treatment by staff in charity shops.

Just over three years ago my wife died after a long illness and I decided to donate her clothing and jewellery to good causes.

I had struggled with the bereavement and was perhaps not taking as much care of myself as I ought to have done. I approached the local Oxfam shop carrying a large box and announced that I had a donation.

You would have thought from the reaction of the troika of witches behind the counter that I was wasting their time and the statement, "We are closing in twenty minutes, there's no time for further donations today" was delivered in such a horrible manner that I just turned around and walked out.

The single volunteer as the Sue Ryder shop was the exact opposite and took the time to look through the items with me. She actually offered to return some valuable items to me just in case I'd not realised what they were. The items were all of good quality with a lot of designer labels.

The lasting memory is though of someone who saw through the fact that a somewhat scruffy man who could have been donating nothing of value was treated with the utmost respect.

I now volunteer myself to help out and it amazes me the number of "do-gooders" who treat the charity work as a "badge" rather than actually wishing to do good.

That being said; all of the charities need the donations as much as ever.

Ugh, sorry to hear that. We aren't in any way posh, but the village in which we live used to be the preserve of rather well to do retired people. There has been a mass influx of young families lately and we always noticed that the charity shops don't seem to have responded to that.


The toy boxes and things are full of mostly rubbish which is why I was so stunned that we were sent packing with the play equipment we were trying to donate, and they have all these unsold shelves of 30,000 piece cat picture jigsaw puzzles.


They are almost all staffed by older ladies who don't appear to have much to do with their time, or a surfeit of social skills, and I get the distinct impression that they probably privately refer to a lot of the people who enter their shops as "the great unwashed."


I think they appraise donations by what they would have in their own houses rather than what they should be selling.


I certainly felt we were being judged as being chancers who couldn't be bothered to drive to the tip when we went into the shops, and it was quite unpleasant.

Hermia

Pollycat wrote: »

I think some of the national charities tend to load their space with 'new' goods which seem like tat to me.

I find a lot of the big charity shops are like this now. One near me has several shelves of new cheap-looking bags all priced at £15. The thing is there is a TK Maxx opposite where you can buy a considerably higher quality brand name bag for around the same price.