snobby charity shops

I'm not really a fan of Charity Shops - when they invade the high street en masse it's a sure sign your town is going down the pan! The ones near me seem to sell overpriced tat. The only thing I buy is jigsaws from time to time. I hate the thought of wearing second hand clothes - far too much of that when I was a kid. I don't really have items to donate either - I recycle books via my book group or other reading groups and my clothes go from decent/wearable/house only/gardening/decorating/recycling centre.

I volunteer in a local charity shop that supports a children's hospice. The shop exists to raise money for the hospice, not to provide recycling opportunities (although, of course, that is part of what it does) nor to provide cheap clothes (although it also does that). We try to present the stock as attractively as possible and price things reasonably for the local area. Children's books are usually 50p and adult books £1.50. That doesn't seem excessive to me. Personally, like Soutra, I prefer a well-presented shop to one that looks like a jumble sale.

Agreed tresco the shops are there for the charity. I hate smelly disorganised shops, puts me right off, I use them chiefly as a second hand book shop! Clothes need to be washed and well presented to be attractive to buyers, why would anyone want old tatty smelly clothes? I keep my own old stuff for gardening/decorating use. Too many people dump stuff that they cant sell at Car boot sales, and leave the poor volunteers to sort through the stuff, if nobody is going to buy it for 50p at a boot sale why on earth should a charity shop try and sell it for enough money to cover their considerable costs? If you enjoy rummaging through smelly second hand clothes that will likely introduce clothes moth into your wardrobe, then a jumble sale is the place.

The PDSA hospitals, not the shops, will take any old towels or blankets and maybe sheets too for the animals in their care. They depend on donations to operate.

I used to use charity shops. One Christmas I bought all my presents from different shops, helping both them and myself with cut price gifts, good gifts but cheaper. Now though I buy on ebay or Amazon. I can get a good book for £2.81, cost of book 1p and postage £2.80. They even have laundry tongs ethel. And at the moment I can stay warm and dry.

Once it gets warmer, I might venture to look around my new area and find new charity shops but the ones in my old area were closed when they said on the window that they should be open and weren't reliable. I did give a lot of our stuff though to charity when we moved as we had to "bedroom tax" downsize. One of the charities refused a sideboard so we brought it with us and it is now in my kitchen, looking good.

When I first discovered Charity Shops way back in the 70s they were cheap, a bit scruffy and wonderful.

They were a bit like a glorified jumble sale but you could find wonderful bargains if you rummaged around and were prepared to give things a good wash, have shoes repaired etc., That was affordable because the things were so cheap.

I was in a smart Charity Shop sometime ago and there was a tee shirt for sale with a price tag more than the original chain store price, I knew because I had bought one. I did point it out to the shop assistant.

I'm afraid I get less and less in favour of charity shops. I like the idea of thrift shops and I am in favour of some of the charities but they are just too prolific in most towns these days.

When we moved we had a large leather suite to rehome as it didn't fit our new sitting room. We offered it to an instant neighbour charity who wouid only take the chair and one settee. They refused the other settee as there were a couple of cat claw marks on one arm-and it was just a couple. They only wanted furniture in perfect condition. The settee was immaculate, had been professionally cleaned, the seat cushion was still firm-years of life in it. We ended up having to pay the council to come and take away a perfectly good piece of furniture which I'm sure someone wouid have been glad to have.

I think there are organisations (possibly contacted through the council) that pass on items in reasonably good condition to families in need. I'm sure they wouldn't have turned down a perfectly good leather suite. It's so ridiculous that a charity would turn your offer down - most people don't chuck their furniture out as soon as there is a small mark or a scratch on it. What a shame.

Have you thought of putting it on Freecycle Kate? If you show the marks someone will probably be happy to have it.

As a patchworker and quilter, I used to ask to be able to sort through the black bin bags they were sending to the rag and bone warehouse where they pay pennies per kilo to the charities. I offered to buy bags of rags at the price they thought fit but was told that wearable clothes were being sent overseas. So. It is either old clothes donated by family and friends, or I buy new material from shops.

Like Katek, we tried to give a very good G Plan 3 seater sofa to a charity shop. They wanted to know if we had the chairs to match it but we had only bought the sofa to go with two existing recliner chairs. As it wasn't a complete suite, they declined it! We offered it to a homeless charity and they snapped our hand off. I do think some charity shops are their own worst enemy sometimes.

How very old fashioned. I have never owned a matching three piece suite and many people over many years have chosen to mix and match rather than just match. Young people in particular rarely buy three piece suites.

All the ones I know have matching suites, usually a 3 seater, 2 seater and a chair/cuddle chair. This is what we had-haven't actually had a settee and two chairs combination for years.

I went into a lovely Oxfam shop yesterday. The window was beautifully dressed and it was spacious inside with the clothes sorted into colour and sizes- the books etc were all in a good state and there was no smell. Prices were reasonable. That is what I like. I won't even go into them if overcrowded, muddled and smelly- unless I have just one particular thing that I am looking for.

I was unaware that they pay rent on these shops, where I live they get the shops for free from the local council for a short time and when the lease is up they just move on. The shops get all donations free and volunteers are free with maybe only the managers who get paid, apart form heating and lighting what overheads do they have.

Yes it is nice to see colour coordinated rails of clothes but seriously does this make us buy, If we cant see something in we like in a mixed rail then do we really want it, also I don't have a problem washing something, in fact I wash everything even if it looks clean.

I thought was lovely when I went in to a salvation army shop and I was chatting to the volunteer, when a man came out from the back room and thanked her very much, she told me he is homeless and calls about once a month to get a wash and he leaves his clothes in a bin liner and they give him a completely new outfit for free, he was smelling of aftershave and one of the volunteers had trimmed his hair.

However I miss the old days of the jumble sale where at the end you could fill a bag with as much as you could for 50p, you might find that half the stuff was rubbish but once I got 3 summer skirts and 3 pairs of trousers for 50p and the rest I sent to recycling. I used to work for the salvation army and when they had a jumble sale coming up I was allowed to pick a bag of my choice but I always made a good donation and a system like this works, if the staff steal from charity shops they should be allowed to pick something for a small donation that would help stop stealing.

If charity shops won't take your furniture, try Freecycle/Freegle. You can firnd your local organisation on line.

I just won't search through a mixed rail - not if there is a lot on it.
I have got some good things in jumble sales when helping and having to sort. As a customer it is all too off putting.

Not quite true- I will search if I am looking for something in particular, but not just generally.

Our local charity shop is fabulous. It has very friendly staff. They are very helpful. It is a Sue Ryder - link to it: images.app.goo.gl/6r4Q8R1JE9mk8TDWA. Hope it helps!

Yet another thread dragged up from the past. In this case from 5 years ago. Things may have changed in all those years.

Never been in a snobby charity shop in my life. Even in a local town where a row of charity shops have designer clothes and exquisite accessories, I have never met anything but really friendly people running them. I bought a beautiful 1960s Jaeger linen dress there for £40 and considered it a bargain.

Try comparing the rise in charity shop prices with the rate that prices as a whole have gone up. You will find that they they are roughly in line. When books were 6d in a charity shop, a new paperback was 5 shillings. Now, when a new paperback can often cost up to £10.00 or more, £2 for a secondhand one seems quite reasonable.

The reason Charity shops do not sell visibly worn clothes is because there is little or no demand for them. Most people will simply not even consider buying a garment that isn't in really good condition. So there is no point in a charity shop keeping such garments, so few customers want them. The same applies to china, glass, bricabrac. We run a small antiques stall and we have found the same thing there. No one now will buy a piece of porcelain, no matter how pretty, if there is the slightest chip or small hairline crack. Once there was always someone keen to buy such pieces because they were so much cheaper.

Individual charity shops know what they can sell and what they can't. I recently took a whole load of stuff to a charity shop. They didn't want 2 rugs 'because rugs do not sell' and they didn't take the books, because they had so many in the storeroom. That struck me a eminently reasonable. So I went to a shop in another nearby town, who were absolutely delighted to take all my books. The rugs, DS decided to take.

I read through a few posts then thought - hang on I know that poster has changed her name ... then noticed this is a resurrected thread from 2015!
?

There is a place near here where they will take virtually any clean and useable clothes, furniture and other household goods. They help people who have nothing to set up home, such as a family who lost everything in a fire or a homeless person moving into a flat. I like that kind of recycling.

No I don’t agree at all ethelbags I don’t recognise the shop you are referring to in the original post the charity shop I work in sells all paperbacks for 50p cds are 50p and DVDs are 75 p 1000 piece jigsaws are £2.00 and 500 pieces are £1.50

Toys often nearly new are rarely more than £2 to £3 if something is retro or we know it can get more than a few pound on the shop floor it goes to eBay
Children’s clothes go between £1.50 and £2.50 and I don’t recognise the shop in the original post We do colour coordinate and keep it looking very smart and clean all toys are tested to make sure they work The volunteers are all lovely and never ‘meet’ people at the door we have one person on the till the rest of us are too busy sorting things out

We do sell good bedding but are not allowed to sell duvets themselves we sell sheets duvet covers pillow cases curtains etc
We don’t sell knickers but decent clean bras are in a 50p bin
Everyone is so friendly with lots of regulars we always get complemented on what a lovely shop it is
So guess you are very unlucky, is this a city shop ? we are a small/ medium size town

The British Heart Foundation actualy put the good stuff on e-bay which i think is wrong as the local public should be offered them first.
And they over price many things as do most charity shops do.
and i agree,some of the staff are horribly rude and the managers are on a damn good wage,i know that as my x sil was one and yes things do get stolen or not even put on the shop floor.