Charity shop workers - please share your tips

annieb64

The volunteers will also be able to tell you if they do have someone who does specialise in music etc. We used to have a volunteer who was very knowledgeable about stamps so we would always tell anyone who asked about them to come in when he was in.

Pollycat

Not a charity shop worker but someone who has shopped in them for many years.

I very carefully check an item before I buy.
My Mum always said I was bobble-obsessed. 
I feel down the front of a garment, especially round the bust area and also round the side-back where cross-body bags can rub and bobble the fabric.

I check the inside underarms or crotch area if it's trousers.
I check the inside 'care label', it can give a good indication of how much it's been worn if it's faded.

I check if it's been taken up. I don't mind shortening hems on skirts, trousers or dresses but prefer to do it myself from the original starting point than from somebody else's higgledy-piggledy attempt.
I also check zips.
And if it has all the buttons (if it is something that will cost more than it's worth to replace the whole set e.g. a double-breasted coat).

Finally, if it's a patterned dress or tunic, I turn it inside out as it's easier to check for holes on the reverse side.

Pennylane

Pollycat said:

Not a charity shop worker but someone who has shopped in them for many years.

I very carefully check an item before I buy.
My Mum always said I was bobble-obsessed. 
I feel down the front of a garment, especially round the bust area and also round the side-back where cross-body bags can rub and bobble the fabric.

I check the inside underarms or crotch area if it's trousers.
I check the inside 'care label', it can give a good indication of how much it's been worn if it's faded.

I check if it's been taken up. I don't mind shortening hems on skirts, trousers or dresses but prefer to do it myself from the original starting point than from somebody else's higgledy-piggledy attempt.
I also check zips.
And if it has all the buttons (if it is something that will cost more than it's worth to replace the whole set e.g. a double-breasted coat).

Finally, if it's a patterned dress or tunic, I turn it inside out as it's easier to check for holes on the reverse side.

So glad you mentioned checking crotch area!  We used to get beautiful mens suits, really expensive ones and although they looked immaculate on the outside we used to don plastic gloves and check the inside crotch area because invariably they were stained 🤮🤮. Good suits always have that area lined with light coloured fabric and sometimes that fabric was absolutely stained yellow!  We might get a few quid for a suit jacket but the trousers usually had to be binned.

kiss_me_now9

I only work in a CS for a few months in between jobs as a student but my biggest irritation was people who'd try to haggle on something. I appreciate that the price given may not be what you want to pay but if that's the case then don't buy it! It just embarrasses all of us. 

I miss my old CS, there's only one in our village and it never has any good books, nothing that was published in the last 10 years and they're quite expensive (£2  - £3 a book whereas all the ones in town are £1 - £1.50 a book). I have had some great books from other CS but my rule is that I'm not paying over £2 for something that's been read to bits! 

I did however once find a sealed and (presumably) signed copy of a beautiful hardback 80s book that has been reprinted multiple times and appears to have a bit of a cult following. I bought it at a slightly higher price of £5 but it's a thick book, clearly something that would be collectible to the right person and it caught my eye.

Rosa_Damascena

Pennylane said:

Pollycat said:

Not a charity shop worker but someone who has shopped in them for many years.

I very carefully check an item before I buy.
My Mum always said I was bobble-obsessed. 
I feel down the front of a garment, especially round the bust area and also round the side-back where cross-body bags can rub and bobble the fabric.

I check the inside underarms or crotch area if it's trousers.
I check the inside 'care label', it can give a good indication of how much it's been worn if it's faded.

I check if it's been taken up. I don't mind shortening hems on skirts, trousers or dresses but prefer to do it myself from the original starting point than from somebody else's higgledy-piggledy attempt.
I also check zips.
And if it has all the buttons (if it is something that will cost more than it's worth to replace the whole set e.g. a double-breasted coat).

Finally, if it's a patterned dress or tunic, I turn it inside out as it's easier to check for holes on the reverse side.

So glad you mentioned checking crotch area!  We used to get beautiful mens suits, really expensive ones and although they looked immaculate on the outside we used to don plastic gloves and check the inside crotch area because invariably they were stained 🤮🤮. Good suits always have that area lined with light coloured fabric and sometimes that fabric was absolutely stained yellow!  We might get a few quid for a suit jacket but the trousers usually had to be binned.

That is just gross. 

hannerrbabes

I worked as a travelling manager for a charity for a couple of years and it really does vary by so many factors. Size of shop, location - tiny town or large city, near a prominent university or on a council estate, etc, number of volunteers, quality of donations, number of donations, how picky the volunteers/paid staff are, how the donations are shared between the charity's shops, which charity and what rules they have, whether they're a bargain shop (eg £1/£2/£3 shop), furniture shop, or boutique shop, whether the shop is brand new or been there for decades.
I can't recommend one single tip that would suit every charity shop I've worked in, aside from become a volunteer/employee. You get to see all the donations first hand, can put them aside to buy yourself and you might even get a discount.

ShinyStarlight1

I worked at a charity shop for a year.

I learned what regular customers really liked and would tell them if I thought they might be interested in something we hadn’t displayed yet. I liked our regulars and appreciated their support of the shop so I happily tried to steer them towards things I knew they liked or were searching for.

My pet peeve was people asking for discount or bartering. The items were already madly knocked down in price and the purpose of the shop was to raise money for the charity’s cause. If someone was really struggling or needed something then I didn’t mind, but often it was clearly comfortably-off people trying to knock the price down. I had no respect for them.

ShinyStarlight1

One of my favourite customers in the charity shop I worked in was a mother of three young children. Every year, over the year, she bought 25 books from the children’s section and wrapped them up. These books became a book-based advent calendar - one book unwrapped and read on each of the 25 days leading up to Christmas. The kids loved it.

sillyvixen

Many years ago I had an electric lamp I didn't want anymore, i put it in a pile of stuff to go to the tip, hubby was up in arms saying someone would pay for that in a charity shop (my thinking was charity shops don't want electricals). We had had a clear out and took stuff to a charity shop, we walk in with our black bags and hubby carrying the lamp - they didn't do electricals, but had a shop 10 miles away that did. We kept the lamp untill we had reason to be near the shop that did electrical donations, so several weeks later we dropped off the lamp at the electrical charity shop on our way somewhere else, a shopper was quite taken by  the lamp and asked if it worked, yes, they had no one in to test it on the day - but would test it the next day, the customer was told it would be £10 once it was tested, she put down a £5 deposit to secure it and collected it the next day.

kimwp

I slightly broke my rule yesterday, I bought two dresses that weren't quite perfect in fit but I loved the patterns on them.

I've heard that Oxfam are quite savvy with their pricing and tend to sell at market value, so you are less likely to get a bargain (but still likely to find something nice).