Charity shop book

My local Sainsburys had a book exchange shelf but discontinued it due to Covid and haven't brought it back. Pity.

Petra
Oxfam is a business? Well, yes, there to make money. The worn books I mean are out of print and hard to find, sometimes valuable to the buyer because of their age. Of course all charity shops sell off some unsold books for pulp, they are hardly going to pay to have them collected as rubbish. What concerns me is the shops (possibly with very limited space for books) who send off good condition donated books for pulp without having put them out for sale. This is not what donors expect.

I’d have left it too.
Charity shops make more money by keeping prices low, thus ensuring they have a good turnover of stock, thus encouraging buyers expecting something new to browse.
This applies to clothes as well as books; some charity shops have been pricing Primark & Matalan stuff far too keenly.

Elrel
Oxfam don’t care if it’s readable. They will sell the old worn books for pulp.
Oxfam is now a business.

I use our 2 local charity shops quite often but regard what I pay as a donation. More things seem to me to be underpriced than overpriced so it all evens out.
Oxfam bookshops at least are prepared to take books in less than perfect condition. Too many charity shops only want books in perfect condition whereas Oxfam is willing to take the ‘well thumbed’ which at least shows the book is worth reading!

Definitely gone off Oxfam.

I would have left the well thumbed paperback book on finding that I was expected to pay £3.50. not £1.

My local railway station in the village had donated books in the 2 waiting rooms each way Venus and they disappeared. I was very disappointed as I used to pop in for a browse and also donate books.
Can’t remember the reason, but probably the same as yours and vandalism 🙄

Books can be a lifeline for some people. £3.50 is a lot!

I volunteer in Book shop Called Freebooks and the name of our town Not saying were incase i am not allowed to advertise
Its a charity run by trustees who save books from land fill of which there are far to many going to these days We get them from schools Librarys that are closing down and customer donations
We are situated in a Large outlet shopping centre and Open 11 until 4 6 days a week
Its a joy to volunteer there and books cost nothing to take away 8 adult books and 5 childrens books are allowed each visit People do leave money in the donation box but its not asked for as they want to give The money is put towards the electricity but the Shopping Centre give us free rent as we are a non profit making group
I love going in every week on my allotted shift because i love books having worked in a library for over twenty years i cant get enough of books they give so much... reading is a pleasure many people are now going back to after so many years for ebooks and online technology
We have many conversations with so many people who cant believe no cost and they can walk out with all these amazing books/donations free
We have a Waterstones Bookshop in the Centre and am sure we have more customers than them as its always empty when i walk by We arent in competition just different and free No money changes hands thats the difference and the books old and new you can find on our shelves that have been preloved and maybe travelled the world so if only some could talk am sure they would be best sellers

I am sure you are correct Renata about better quality items being sold online rather than being donated but on the other hand I volunteer for a charity where everything is donated to those in need rather than sold. Sometimes we receive new goods still with their price tags on costing anything up to £100. Significantly we do not accept any adult books as they are never requested whereas children’s books sometimes are.

I worked for a charity shop as a volunteer 30 years ago, and was horrified that the rent THEN on the small, High Street shop, was £50,000 a year. Our local business landlords were particularly greedy, and didn't give special rates to charities. Our business council tax was the only thing that was reduced because we were a charity - and not by all that much.

There was income tax, and high rates of insurance to pay to cover paid staff and volunteers, and all the customers who ventured in. There was water and electricity and telephone outgoings - levelled particularly high, because we were a business.

There was also a wage and pension to be paid to the manager and assistant manager. The assistant manager was only part time, but was there to fill in when the manager was sick, had a day off, or was on holiday.

We sold books, toys, clothes, videos, C.D.'s, jewellery, bric-a brac, etc. One year our takings were less than the outgoings on the shop, which meant we might have had to close - so we dared to put up our clothing items from £2.99 to £3.99!

You wouldn't believe the aggression we received from our customers, who felt ripped off!! They felt as the items were donated, and not all new - they expected to pick them up for nearly nothing.

Another problem causing charity shops to raise even less money today than they used to, is that all the best second hand items - including books, are being sold a lot on-line, so the more inferior items end up in the charity shops.
This means less people bother to go in and spend money - because they know they are unlikely to find anything really special. I remember finding some beautiful things in charity shops once - but not anymore!

I asked my manager why we bothered to work so hard running a shop at all when all the money made mostly went on overheads, and almost none went on the charity. The answer I got, was that the shop with the name in bold above it was important, because it continued to raise awareness of the charity. I think that's very sad - that a charity might not benefit at all from the shop.

I think if someone came in to the shop, and handed over money without purchasing anything - that was counted as a "Donation" and was able to be kept separate, and passed directly on to the charity.

Unfortunately charity shops are charging too much for many items. I see brand new items cheaper. I have bought ex library books and know that the money will be used to buy more stock.

I sort the books in our local charity shop and we charge 30p for paperback novels and 50p for non fiction. I don't stock hardback fiction as very few get sold. We have donated £200,000 into the village in the last 10 years. We're all volunteers and it is the cheapest charity shop I know about with children's clothes being 40p each or 3 for a pound.

We have several charity shops and most charge around £1 but there is one which is much more expensive. I don’t give them my books or my custom.

Our local hospital shop sells all books £1. If I buy any I then donate them back when I've read it.
No way will I pay £3.50 ..

Woollywoman

Wonder why Oxfam are charging so much…it must be a national policy?
Excellent charity bookshop near me has paperbacks for 50p, hardbacks for £1, and donations for children’s books.
Do bookclubs mean multiple copies are bought at the same time?

I don’t know, but it does strike me as daft - they’d surely sell more if they were cheaper. And my local Oxfam bookshop evidently isn’t selling enough - last time I went to donate they had a sign outside saying No More Books For Now Thanks.
I took them elsewhere.

I suspect it’s just sheer stubbornness on someone’s part. When I worked in a library we had to ‘weed’ the shelves now and then, to make room for new stock, etc. I often had arguments with a colleague, who insisted on pricing hardbacks at quite a lot more than paperbacks - and paperbacks are what most people wanted, especially if they were going on holiday. Yes, they’re more expensive to buy, but for many people (including me!) they’re must too heavy to hold, esp. if reading in bed.

So a good many high-priced hardbacks would sit there for too long unsold on our ‘for sale’ shelf, until eventually they had to be binned.

If they had asked for a donation and gave you nothing, would you have ponyed up? As it is, you would have enjoyed reading the book, and contributed to a worthy cause. But it depends upon how much you wanted it, and how much you were ready to spend, and what the price of the book, new, is, and how you were feeling at the moment - you were probably feeling that you'd been had, so that explains it, perhaps.

Sueki44

Oxfam books are always expensive! Apparently they sell online as well and check prices too.

I’m a semi-retired book dealer… most Charity shops nowadays won’t accept ‘old’ books and fill their shelves with books that are new looking . They seem to think it LOOKS Nicer! Our local Animal Charity charges 50p an average paperback and £1 per hardback. Red Cross £1.50/ £2.50 for any average book but Oxfam charges £2.99 per paperback and more, if they decide to, and all their books are looked up online and the online retail prices asked. They have high prices on books I’d throw/give away and ridiculous prices on books they have checked …I saw one I thought interesting the other day, a modern hardback… £24.99! I’d charge a LOT less!
They may look them up, but the real value of any book has so many variables that just to put down the ( often highest) cost of a book as offered online is ridiculous. For a start any book offered online has an average 20% taken off the true sale price in commission for the selling site. Plus monthly fees, admin fees etc… so Oxfam in their shops are invariably asking way over the true SELLING price. Also there is the fact that many books at that price may not sell, indeed may never sell. I have sold books I have had on sale with no interest for 25 years! They run separate books only Charity shops in a few places, and have their own online store, but I do wish that for the books that actually get through the sorting process and actually end up out for sale in their LOCAL shops, they would price to sell and get some profit for the LOCAL stores! I totally agree with the OP who said surely better to sell lots cheap than the books getting pulped, etc! Books in Oxfam tend to sit unsold for months because of this practise! So silly IMO.

I should add that we used to raise upwards of £2500 every year (in just one day) and that this was more than 20 years ago,

We used to run a charity book stall at a Christmas Fair, one of the beneficiaries was our primary school. I agree that it is much better to sell more books at lower prices, if they don't sell you have to get rid of them somehow at the end of the time. The alternative is to keep them for a year and try again, but if they don't sell one year they're not likely to sell the next. We always had loads of books left and actually gave them away at the end of the day.

We have a table in our village hall, where we can bring books we have read and exchange them. They are all free, but a neighbouring village does the same and asks for a voluntary small donation, and apparently last year raised over £2000 for community events.

Tenko, I understand completely. Most charity shops are brilliant at re- homing what might otherwise go to waste. I donate to, and buy from, my local ones. I am referring to the exception.
Thank you for your volunteering: the grandchildren enjoy the toys/ puzzles/ books from such shops.

Wonder why Oxfam are charging so much…it must be a national policy?
Excellent charity bookshop near me has paperbacks for 50p, hardbacks for £1, and donations for children’s books.
Do bookclubs mean multiple copies are bought at the same time?

Chocolatelovinggran

I, too, use the bookswap box in the park, plus charity shops and the donate - to - charity bookshelf in a nearby supermarket.
I do go to bookshops, too!
However, I think that some shops do price rather high , resulting in books being pulped, and clothes sold for rags.
A friend who volunteers at one such was astonished to find that donated children's clothes went straight into the rag bag because " we dont have the space"
Now, she intercepts them and brings them to foodbank, where they are gratefully received.

At my charity shop , only poor quality , unsaleable clothes go into the rag bag . Out of season stuff goes into storage . We have a lock up .
Unfortunately we get a lot of worn , tatty and dirty clothes which can’t be sold . Ditto battered books and board games . Many people dump stuff at charity shops , rather than use the tip. Some people dump bags and boxes and then disappear before we can ask what they’ve left !!! .