St Barnados Chairty Shops - bargains (children/baby clothes)

GiveItBack

i wish our (according to appearances) big chain had big budgets

mazz1953

My local charity shops sell loads of new items such as jewellery, china ornaments and mugs and clothes. In fact there are more new items in bric-a-brac and jewellery than second hand items. I consider all this new stuff to be no more than Taiwan Tat and quite expensive.

Now and again I buy second-hand stuff from the charity shops, but I don't spend anything like I use to as the items are too expensive, instead I buy at car-boot sales and jumble sales..

garty

made me laugh reading that some stuff donated to a charity shop that they think is not good enough to sell they send it to there discount charity shop:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

a lot of charity shops who over charge are missing out
people will just go to car boot sales or ebay

JesaRose

GiveItBack wrote: »

i wish our (according to appearances) big chain had big budgets

Meant to say Big Targets to meet each month - sorry, my brain is not working properly (should have gone to bed earlier)

I agree that nearly all the "new goods" charity shops seem to sell is tat. I've seem a few suppliers about getting something nice for our shops and most of them just have the sort of stock you would find in cheap markets and discount stores

superflygal

GiveItBack wrote: »

I’m so glad I don’t work for our charity in one of our shops. It’s a tricky balancing act, I suppose. From my perspective, the shops are there to raise money for our beneficiaries, and ethically their first responsibility is to the beneficiaries, not the buyers. Hopefully people can come in and buy things cheaply, but there are lots of hidden costs running a shop – as someone has mentioned disposing of absolute rubbish that gets handed over (I won’t even use the term donated for some of it).

If something WILL sell for more, it should be priced more, but if it won’t it needs to be less. The trick would be to find the balancing level – in the long term would halfing the prices more than double the amount sold? A lot of the ‘big’ shops are moving more and more towards new goods, which suggests to me that maybe lower prices doesn’t add enough to the turnover, but that’s only my inference.

Here’s a question for you. One of our shops recently had 5 new wedding dresses donated from a shop that closed down. They’re all worth different amounts, but for simplicity let’s say the original shop had them all priced at £750. How much should the charity shop sell them for?

Ooops trie to just quote the bit about the wedding dresses but ended up doing the whole lot!

Anyways, If brand new wedding dresses were donated, that were previously on sale at £750, I would expect the charity shop to ask for £150 each. Or maybe say £150 ono.

Its all about WORTH at the end of the day. Just because an item's being sold in a charity shop doesn't mean it ought to be sold for £1. For instance, if someone donated a £1000 diamond ring, do people REALLY think they should be able to buy it for £1? That would point toward the BUYER being greedy. Not the charity shop IMO.

Superflygal x

JesaRose

We've got a donated wedding dress for sale at the moment on ebay. It cost £750, never worn and we've started at £70. I was hoping for about £150 on it

Very good point superflygal - it sounds even more daft when you put it like that

jacmboys

mrsv05 wrote: »

There should be no such thing as "under priced", it was GIVEN TO THEM, therefore, the money made is profit for the charity. For personal reasons i given to cancer charities directly but i draw the line at some of these prices in shops, Charity is no excuse for greed.

I really do hate this they should be grateful for what they get attitude. The charity shops are no longer the thrift stores of yesteryear, not everything for thruppence.

I would feel extremely disappointed if my Barnardos (or any other charity I choose to give my items to) under valued the items they receive, I give to them to maximise a return.

I often offer my opinion to the store manager when I think the price is too low or when I have spotted a knock off instead of an original. The last item I bought in there (some Tomy Thomas rail track for my son) I gave a donation on top of the price as I thought it was still too cheap.

With cheap clothes flooding the market these days and wellwishes casting off last seasons three pound bargain for this years, it's the charity shops that end up with the low quality tat that they may have to try and see if there is anything that they can do with - all taking time and costing rent, electrcity etc etc etc

My local Barnardos is well served in the village community where it is based but come every car-boot sale saturday after midday until closing all the left over tat that the sellers can't get rid of or want for next time gets unceremoniously dumped with the staff who are expected to look pleased and the carbooter who wants to get home for their lunch doesn't understand why thy aren't.

rarrarrar

jacmboys wrote: »

With cheap clothes flooding the market these days and wellwishes casting off last seasons three pound bargain for this years, it's the charity shops that end up with the low quality tat that they may have to try and see if there is anything that they can do with - all taking time and costing rent, electrcity etc etc etc

As well as cheap clothes, very cheap basic electrical and household goods are readily available in the supermarkets and Woolies.
Thus the charity shops are trying to reposition themselves concentrating on the more upmarket clothes, collectables and items which are no longer made or available locally.
A good manager will try to take into account the local needs and market, a city shop with a large student or renting population is very different from a shop in a small tourist town.

lamb7994

As a charity shop manager alot of the over pricing is from people not knowing brands such as primark at £3 which would be over valued.
We try not to over price but it happens due to the amount of volunteers they aren't all perfect!
Some one mentioned target for example my shop in a poor benefit rich area we are expected to take between £1200 and £1600 depending on what we took previously plus an increase.

J