Charity shops.

Apart from two high street charity shops we also have clothing bins for the Salvation Army and the local Fire Service to deposit used clothing, shoes, etc.

In my large town in the northwest there are many charity shops and are very popular. They vary and some are very good value indeed. One has a pile ‘em high, no price on them style and very low prices indeed.
Our local Salvation Army shop is excellent for furniture and has a modern clean cafe too.

My DS in the south enjoys her forays here and calls them thrifting shops, so we go thrifting together.

Oh Tenko 'Tampons , half empty bottles of shampoo and used hairbrushes from a bathroom cupboard 🤮' Yuck that is dreadful!

I get staff discount at my shop but the items are priced by the manager or assistant manager. And it’s normal prices . And items are supposed to be on the shop floor for a week before staff can buy , but this doesn’t seem to happen .
And I’ve never seen lists of stuff that staff want .
When items have been in the shop for a while , they’re sent to another shop . A van comes round once a week and if we’re overrun with donations we also send them on to another shop. We have free parking , so it’s popular for donations. Other shops have minimal or no free parking.
Unfortunately some customers see us as a dump . We have boxes of stuff that people just tip in the contents of a box , drawer or cupboard . Tampons , half empty bottles of shampoo and used hairbrushes from a bathroom cupboard 🤮

Oldnproud I think I know which small town you are talking about because I live near it and there aren't many places with free parking. There are currently 7 charity shops in the town centre. However there used to be more and I believe they closed down due to rate rises. there was an 'Age concern' that closed, an 'Air ambulance' shop that closed which was a shame as it sold furniture and bric a brack. There was a 'Heart Foundation' and another small charity shop (can't recall the name). There are also two that I know of on the outskirts. One is a hue YMCA that seems to make a roaring trade in furniture and a smaller one in a little parade of shops that is a private charity. My husband knows a small local retailer in the same town and he told us how the rent and rates had gone up so much that the charities cannot afford to stay. More recently I heard in the local news that the town centre is ripe for redevelopment so I think the free parking will go then and heaven help the charity shops. As regards staff getting 1st pickings. I once took in a perfectly working Christmas tree with fibre optic lights. It was just a bit noisy so I had bought another. I took the tree to the YMCA and the staff member who I gave it to said 'Oh I am having that!' I just hope she paid a fare price to the shop. I have seen much tattier and plain Christmas trees going for £20.00 or more!

Musicgirl

@MT62, why do you put your dvds and books in the freezer for a week?

A couple of years ago, a couple of London libraries had to close due to an infestation of bed bugs.
I thought yuk, books could have been lying next to someone’s bedbug infested bed. It always stuck in my mind. So just to be on the safe side I put them in a plastic bag & leave for a week in the freezer.
Never found any yet, heavens forbid.

We have several charity shops in our town and they all seem to be doing really well.

Barnardo’s have several shops in our area - each shop specialises in specific items, i.e. bric a brac, clothes, baby goods. We also have shops which support our local hospice. They all have free parking nearby, but I always check whether they’re accepting donations before I take anything.

In Bedford, we have lots and they all seem to prosper! A new Animal Welfare one has just opened, where Bodyshop once was.
I wonder where al the clothes come from that people donate- although we do still have Primark and New Look…

We have an extraordinary number of charity shops in my town , at least 20

I visit a fantastic charity shop once a week. They sell everything for £1 or less. I buy lots there without trying on. It's so cheap I donate what doesn't fit back. There are 4 other shops in town but at normal prices.

Interesting.
I live between two Bristol “villages” and they both have at least 5 charity shops each. I do look in regularly and donate.

petra and BlueBelle I was at pains to point out (twice) that I was not suggesting any dishonesty or malpractice in staff getting discount (or pricing the items they buy), just that knowing this is what happens makes me less inclined to donate. I know my mum saw it as a return for the time she gave to working there, but I see it differently. There are several staff, as they all work part-time, and by the time all their lists are serviced (for their family and friends as well as themselves) it's amazing anything got as far as the rails. The knock-on impact must be that footfall is reduced as there are fewer bargains to be had, and of course word gets round, so I'm far from the only one to have given up on donating.

@MT62, why do you put your dvds and books in the freezer for a week?

Greciangirl, at my daughter's university, there was a scheme whereby graduating students could leave things behind for other students, who needed things but had very straitened circumstances. I thought this was a really good idea and it would also have the byproduct, hopefully, of fewer items that charity shops were not able to use.
On another note, when our daughter started university, we bought all her crockery, cutlery and cooking utensils from charity shops and car boot sales. It saved a fortune. I bought some of her bedding from Ebay and only basics like towels, mattress protector, duvet and pillows were bought new. We saved a fortune and many items from landfill in this way.

Hope ours don’t shut. Bought a brand new hand held clothes steamer to iron my new curtains £10. The same one is £40 odd at JL.
I stock up on dvds & books (which go in the freezer for a week).

knspol

I've taken lots of stuff to the local charity shop and it'd always been washed and ironed or dry cleaned first. I do gift aid so make a note of sale proceeds and declare them on my tax return, every little helps.

The gift aid is such a good idea, I donated quite a lot of things before we moved and they have claimed on items I donated. I don't think that you actually need to declare them, the shop can claim if you sign the form.

We're in greater London and there are quite a few within a 20 minute bus ride, but none very locally. There are Salvation Army bins for clothing and shoe donations on our estate and others at local supermarket. Also my daughter regularly has a charity come and collect a sack of childrens' clothing and household effects from outside her front door. I would probably contribute to this rather than go on the bus to the charity shops.

We are raising money for a charity so I m perfectly happy with the term charity shop Nana8

Grandmaderby we have a van every two weeks that moves the goods around our 48/50 shops We are a local charity to my county and nearby ones , so decent items will maybe sell in one area that wouldn’t in another. My shop does extremely well on children’s toys and clothes having a decent size area so a lot of the other shops with a different demographic send their stuff to us
We pay for any goods we buy doodledog with 25 p in the pound off. No one buys loads just odd things here and there
I give 24 of my hours free a week, plus I take bags home to wash and dry using my electricity ( my choice) I also take home bags of battery toys to test or baby stuff to age into bags while I m watching tv I don’t feel in these least bit out of step if I occasionally buy something a bit cheaper !!!

Musicgirl I think it would be a good idea for charity shops to put a list up of things they won’t accept and also to say whether or not they accept rags (a legitimate source of extra income for some charities)
because the rag market fluctuates and the shop may not have storage room to spare either
It beats filling the household bin with good quality fabrics.

We have six fab charity shops in our Thames side town. I buy 90% of my tops and jackets from them as they are generally very good quality. Also the costume jewellery is good too.

Doodledog
My manager lets me buy items at heavily discounted prices.
That’s because:
I pick up goods from people’s houses.
I deliver to peoples houses.
I deliver to women’s refuge and other charities.
I take washing home.
I take clothing home to repair.
I take rubbish to the tip when our skip is full.
My partner has done no end of repairs to the shop.
My manger is very very grateful and shows it.
I save that shop far more money than the discounts I get.

The ones I have worked in -all nationwide charities, would bag things that weren’t selling after a certain date and they’d be collected to be taken to another branch. Things that don’t sell in one shop will apparently sell in another.🤗

The stuff that was bought with a staff discount (where this applied) had to be priced and out on the shop floor that day before it could be bought after the shop closed. A record was kept of each staff members’ purchases.

I love charity shops and we have several in my small town - as ever, some are better than others. In a nearby town, there are a few lovely charity shops with a big warehouse style one out of town, which sells furniture. My favourite in this town is a small charity bookshop, which raises funds for a local charity for blind and partially sighted people. Unless specified otherwise, every paperback costs £1.50 and every hardback £2. I give the books that I am not keeping to this shop. I regularly donate other items to other charity shops and, if l have clothing that l know is not good enough to sell or old underwear and odd socks, l put them in a separate bag and clearly mark it as rags as it saves the volunteers a job and money can be gained through rags

I used to volunteer in a charity shop.
I was always surprised and a little shocked when the stock used to get rotated and most of the older clothing was put into bags for rags.
The problem is: so much stuff is donated and they can’t cope with it all.
Also, a lot of clothing is rubbish and unsaleable.
You wouldn’t believe the dirty stuff that we had to sift through.
Especially students who used to dump bags on the doorstep after term time ended. Disgusting.
But it all has to be checked.
There are around five charity shops where I live, so they are still needed I think.