snobby charity shops

I love those clothes bank bins. Even if my much-loved older clothes would never find a new home, at least I know they will be recycled into something useful.

I currently frequent charity shops in my area to look for toys - like the "as new" bucket of Duplo I pounced on recently for my baby grandson. There is one charity shop on my high street where the women are extremely friendly and welcoming, so I like going there.

What gets my goat is when I see a cheap label (Atmosphere) that probably cost the same new as the price in the charity shop (excepting the latter one of course is second hand).

There is a charity shop near us where the manager is quite hilarious - she puts price tags on with notes "I checked on e-Bay and this is XXX and worth XXX" etc. But she's a bit of a battle-axe too and her shop is mostly the one that has that annoying sign up "No more donations today" when I have just walked there with a heavy bag in each hand (it's the nearest one to where I live). So now my give away clothes go into the clothes bank.

When you consider what charity shops must be spending on rent, rates, energy etc it is hardly surprising they don't sell donated items for "pence". I would rather look through good quality items and pay a fair price for them than face a jumble of old tat, fit for not much more than rags. I hate the charity shop "smell" that can greet you and I salute the brave volunteers who must have to deal with some right shockers! Some people really do have an inflated idea of the value of their crumpled, often even unwashed, donations. If I am unsure about my stuff and am only donating because it is (usually) too tight (!) , I would rather it went for rags. Do you remember jumble sales? They only made money because church halls were usually free along with the volunteer labour -and do you remember the boxes of tat one used to have to shlep to the dump afterwards?
Give me a quality "vintage" charity shop any day -you will still find a bargain.

What I meant to add to my previous post is that the Salvation Army has bins, mainly in supermarket car parks, where you can take bedding. When my aunt and uncle died we found an unusual number of duvets in their house and filled up the bin outside Sainsbury's.

I hunt out the scruffiest shops whenever I move. I take all of our old clothes to that one from then on, and have a rummage after I have handed them by black bin bag. Mary Portas is the reason why they all went colour-co-ordinated and expensive. I used to love the days when you could find things that were wonderful dressing-up outfits. When DD was a young teen and needed bras, I went to a charity shop once I knew her size, and bought up all their smaller bras as I knew she would grow rapidly from size to size. It must have saved me a fortune. They looked brand new, where some other mothers had clearly gone through what I wanted to avoid. Which was, my mother buying me bras that were way too big, so that I had to grow into them!

At the Charity Shop I help at on Tuesdays we have paper backs for sale at 3 x £1.00 and they go very well indeed its the bread & butter of the shop really and we never refuse donations except large electricals as we don't have a lot of space.Our managers do not get paid everything is voluntary making sure every penny goes into the Charity Pot,we are a small shop in a disadvantaged area and price our items accordingly,its pointless charging high prices even if quality named items come in as the clientel just don't have the money to spend, oh and we are very friendly and welcoming and if asked will make you a if you want.

Our charity shops are pretty good on the whole for price and quality . I love rummaging around a charity shop wherever I might be. I agree though with the OP, we have one that is very pricey and I think the manageress is up her own bottom a bit.

I have however mentioned many times my absolute pet hate and charity shops, ' heating on and the door propped open'. grrrr.

This stupidity is a head office diktat and it makes you wonder sometimes who and what mentality lies behind some charities. The staff are for the most part volunteers and they too find it annoying as they give up their time and yet the charity is happy to spend money on heating and yet see it fly out the door!

Perhaps I should go and buy them back (if they're still there)

Yes rose they were called "timeless classics" in the M&S ad.

I just sent two 'trench coats' of mine to a charity shop, both in good condition. Then I realised that they are very fashionable again

I took a pile of nice paperbacks to Oxfam a few years ago; the assistant refused them as she said 'he' only wanted the latest paperbacks published in the last few months.
I have not donated there since.

I have recently been doing a clearing job on DH's wardrobes. In there was a trench coat of lovely quality and hardly worn at all. It had all the requisite tabs and buttons and a nice Burberry type lining. The staff at the shop which I took it to,along with other good stuff fell on the coat with delight. Not many weeks later M&S were advertising a similar coat for £299. This was Age UK.I hope it went on sale!!

My daughter and her partner were moving house and decided to clear out their wardrobes, so took a lot of their stuff to a local hospice charity which, like their house, is in a very good area. They were, at that time, rather peculiar in their dress sense except in what they wore for work - both professionals. The woman in the shop took one look at them and, without looking at what they had brought, said "we have to be rather selective I'm afraid." My daughter said "Oh, so are we. Most of it is Next, Boden, Lands End and John Lewis, but we won't trouble you to inspect it. We'll take it somewhere else." When they left the shop, the woman and a colleague were apparently having a heated conversation! They have never taken anything there again and considering the quality of what my grandson alone wears, and usually not for very long, the shop has seriously missed a trick. My husband loves charity shops. Not a shopping trip goes by that he doesn't drag me round one or two. I have to agree that some of them are rather more expensive than you would expect, but there's so much competition, it must be difficult for some of them to make anything.

The charity shop we took my Dad's things to when he went in to the Residential home were very good. They took sheets, blankets and duvet covers. They don' t sell them in the shop, but sell them to a company that buys rags, they are sold by weight at x pence per kilo. I donated crocheted Santa stockings, hats and scarves to my local save the children charity shop. They were very happy to have them.

I give all decent household goods to the local Women's Refuge. When I rang to ask what sort of goods they accepted, the person I spoke to said that when the women and children are rehoused they have absolutely nothing apart from personal effects and anything from a tin opener to electrical goods is welcome. They also accept toys (clean and unbroken obviously) I usually put in a few colouring books, coloured pencils - that sort of thing for the children when I take a parcel.

This article suggests that to get good effect the admin costs of most big charities should not be restricted to much.

It might just surprise people about what a relatively small proportion of income is spent on admin costs.

www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2013/may/02/good-charities-admin-costs-research

You're 'lucky' anno, our local (small) town has 15, all vying for customers yet the prices are way out of sync- worn and bobbly simple M&S jumpers for £3 - £15!

My local charity is very convenient for me and it has an excellent selection of books. Recently I bought 3 almost new books and the lady was apologetic, asking for £1.60 for the 3. I went to the British Heart Foundation another day but the books on sale were marginally below WH Smith's prices so I left.

It is finding the fine line between overcharging and almost giving them away.

I volunteer in a charity shop (for a local hospice) and can assure you none of the "staff" I work with steal from the shop. We are offered a discount on anything we buy but most of us insist on paying the full amount. There are some things we don't sell but we take anything people want to donate as some of the things we can't sell we will pass on to traders who will pay for them. As for not selling underwear - would you buy used underwear?

Some people do use the charity shop as a dumping ground for their rubbish, someone recently brought in a huge bag of clothes out of which only two pieces were fit to be sold - the rest were old, stretched and had holes. I once sorted through a bag of clothes which contained a childs dirty underwear!

We can't sell things like child car seats as they would have to be tested first and the cost of the test would be more than we could sell it for, but if someone was making a donation and a car seat was included we would dispose of it for them. Electrical goods also have to be tested before they can be sold.

Our small town has four charity shops within a very small space. I have never been pestered when I've gone in to browse and the volunteers are all retired women who are quite happy to chat. However, it's true to say that some are more expensive than others. A jigsaw in Age UK costs about twice as much as a similar one in the Cerebral Palsy shop.

ethelbags1 the article was mainly about AGE UK and how many thousands they have lost to staff thefts of money and goods , they found out by putting covert cameras in shops that appeared to be losing money. I think the article says they now intend on putting in CCTV , seems dreadful to steal from a charity.. thats given you a job no matter what your circumstances.

Jess, I don't agree, they are there to raise money as well as being a shop for those who maybe cant afford to buy new. If everyone went in with just a couple of pounds to spend and find nothing they can afford then they will have raised nothing, if everyone goes in and can afford the high prices well and good but those people can afford to go to shops selling new stuff. I wouldn't go to a charity shop if I could afford new stuff. they will price themselves out of the market.

I agree about the quality of the volunteers though, if they are on work placements and just don't want to be there then they will not be nice to customers.

I like to go to seek something that the ordinary shops don't have, I recently went looking for a pair of laundry tongs as I have a bit of paralysis in my hands due to chemo and tongs help me to get washing out of the machine. No 'new' shops had them.

I think a lot of fun has gone from charity shopping and it is always good fun to get an item that is valuable for a few quid.

Some of the people who work there are totally out of touch with the price of clothes, especially children's, when new. They will sometimes sell a top for £2 that can be bought in Primark for £1

Jess, definitely not all staff are volunteers and I donate clean bedding etc to the local homeless charities or the Dogs' Home.

As petra says it's not charity anymore , it's business, and largely due larger Charities seeing increasing demands for their services as Government pushes for the Third Sector to pick up the fallout from underfunded Health and Social Care services as well as the proliferation of smaller Charities developing to meet local needs.
I too have noticed that their shops are far more choosey about what they'll take as well as hiking prices, effectively changing the traditional image. One local shop says they only take 'designer' or high-end market goods which surely is counter effective?
I much prefer to use the small, local groups' shops where I'm more confident that the money will go to the intended recipients.
In the past I've checked on how much money goes to salaries and back-office functions - you might be shocked how much never goes to the intended targeted groups, it can be as much as 80p in every £ in big national charities!