Donations to charity shops

Kangoo Man · 30-06-2014 11:13PM

In my opinion some charity shops are very dubious, they seem to be springing up everywhere for all sorts of charities. They don't pay rates, VAT and there's very little accountability as nobody know whats coming and going.

There's a large one near me and I've brought in all types of valuable stuff and I've never seen it again on display. They always have the same rubbish for sale every-time you go in. I was there one day and they were loading stuff from the back store room into a truck.

The shop was set up by a third party in the name of a local charity promising 50% of the takings to the local charity. There doesn't seem to be any rules around these charity shops at all.

Even the ICSA are worried about it - icsa.ie/bogus-charity-operations/

Gael23 · 30-06-2014 11:35PM

Some of them would sell items of value at auctions and the likes rather than in their shops

BabysCoffee · 01-07-2014 08:36AM

ryanf1 wrote: »

Some of them would sell items of value at auctions and the likes rather than in their shops

That seems like a sensible thing to do

Nekarsulm · 01-07-2014 08:40AM

Polka_Dot wrote: »

Would you do the same in a regular shop? It's not a car boot sale, the items are priced, usually very cheaply, and the money goes to charity. How stingy can you be?

Actually I Would try to knock off a euro in a regular shop. Whats the harm in trying? Especially if you are dealing with the owner. So i guess Im very stingy so. I,m shopping in a charity shop, for goodness sake! If I was worried about what other people thought, I would shop in Brown Thomas etc. and parade around with my "posh" shopping bags on conspicious display!

razorblunt · 01-07-2014 09:09AM

I use them for boxsets, buy them dirt cheap (£2 a season for House) watch it on a 2 week holiday break and hand it back when finished.

Back when I played rugby I used them to get the old scholl heavy cotton canterbury jerseys that I'd destroy over the seaosn in training.

Kaycee2 · 01-07-2014 09:38AM

I've seen some of my stuff in charity shop windows and thought crap why did I donate that and I nearly be tempted to buy them back, I think they were reasonably priced.

There's a load of charity shops around where I live, some well known charities and others with no charity specified, these ones seem to open and close in different premises around the town every few months.

If I buy books or DVDs or toys from them I usually take them back when I'm done with them.

Peig Sayers · 01-07-2014 09:53AM

We have donated enough items over the years to build a new wing of a homeless housing shelter! This particular charity shop in Camden St that we donate to regularly never seems to put our items out

. I know the staff get first dibs as I've seen one of them putting black sacks of donations into her car! Also, one day when I was going into the shop there was a chap ahead of me who had a box of donations. In it was a kitchen mixer, a really nice one. I was in the market for one so I thought, great, I'll ask the manager how much she wants for it and if I'm lucky, she'll sell it to me.

I didn't get the chance to ask. The woman behing the counter took the box from him, spotted the mixer and took the box straight out to her car which was parked outside :eek: I watched her do it :mad:. She doesn't work there anymore. I wonder was she rumbled?

spurious · 01-07-2014 10:31AM

Peig Sayers wrote: »

We have donated enough items over the years to build a new wing of a homeless housing shelter! This particular charity shop in Camden St that we donate to regularly never seems to put our items out . I know the staff get first dibs as I've seen one of them putting black sacks of donations into her car! Also, one day when I was going into the shop there was a chap ahead of me who had a box of donations. In it was a kitchen mixer, a really nice one. I was in the market for one so I thought, great, I'll ask the manager how much she wants for it and if I'm lucky, she'll sell it to me.

I didn't get the chance to ask. The woman behing the counter took the box from him, spotted the mixer and took the box straight out to her car which was parked outside :eek: I watched her do it :mad:. She doesn't work there anymore. I wonder was she rumbled?

You could always volunteer somewhere yourself if you think it's such a source of loot.

Peig Sayers · 01-07-2014 10:36AM

spurious wrote: »

You could always volunteer somewhere yourself if you think it's such a source of loot.

Not interested

. Was annoyed that the donations people were so good to give in were going out the door as quick as they came in. We could have had 100 car boot sales with the amount of donations we've given, but we prefer to let the charity shop make money from them (allegedly!)

phasers · 01-07-2014 10:43AM

My Brother worked in a charity shop for a while and the staff definitely had first dibs on stuff and they got it for half price too! I think it's a fair trade since they're donating their time and one time when he was sorting through a bag of donations he found a load of old used sex toys :eek:

Awkward Badger · 01-07-2014 10:56AM

phasers wrote: »

My Brother worked in a charity shop for a while and the staff definitely had first dibs on stuff and they got it for half price too! I think it's a fair trade since they're donating their time and one time when he was sorting through a bag of donations he found a load of old used sex toys :eek:

Yeah but when you think about it you then have staff volunteering to work for free, but getting first dibs on the good stuff which they get for half price meaning the shop is selling its best stuff for half of what it could get to reward the staff because the job they signed up to do for free isn't brilliant.

Doesn't that somewhat defeat the purpose of hiring volunteers to sell stuff in charity shops ?

BabysCoffee · 01-07-2014 11:39AM

My eyes have been opened by this thread!

Nekarsulm · 01-07-2014 11:50AM

BabysCoffee wrote: »

My eyes have been opened by this thread!

Hi BabysCoffee,
The easiest way to avoid paying various Tax's in this country, is to become a charity. I remember listening to a report on the radio about the subject, and apparently there are over 100,000 registered charities in existence. Regulation seems very light, and little if any follow up scrutiny is done.

Pumpkinseeds · 01-07-2014 12:01PM

There are a lot of unfounded statements about charity shops being thrown around on this thread. Firstly, most charity shops rely on volunteers, they are not paid, they volunteer.

Not all shop managers are paid, I chose not to be, I had the time on my hands as well as the experience, although it is an easy mistake to make, people often assumed that I was paid and I had the odd nasty remark passed until I would point out that I wasn't paid, so don't just assume that someone is paid.

It's very difficult to find reliable volunteers to work in charity shops. The charities are charities but the shop is a shop and has to run as any other shop is run, i.e. as a business. Which means that volunteers will still get arsey customers that they have to deal with. If the shops aren't making money for the charity then there is no point in opening.

Charities pay rent and rates. Very few landlords are going to give anyone a free shop. I know that a lot of shady practices came to light before Christmas and it has done a lot of damage to genuine charities. If you are unsure about which one to donate to maybe you should look at their websites or just donate to 1 that benefits your local community.

If you want to see the reality of charity shops then volunteer. You won't be long changing your minds about the nonsense accusations being made on this thread.

Steppenwolfe · 01-07-2014 04:44PM

Polka_Dot wrote: »

Would you do the same in a regular shop? It's not a car boot sale, the items are priced, usually very cheaply, and the money goes to charity. How stingy can you be?

It's not about being stingy. The prices are not always marked up and some shops are definetly not cheap. Some of the profits may go to charity, but that's not the point. It's a business like anything else. When I want to donate to charity I do it directly. When I shop in a charity shop I'm looking for a bargain. I tried to donate some books to a charity shop once. They were all bought new and popular authors. I was told they couldn't take them because they had too much stock. When I looked at their book shelf they had a selection of total rubbish all over priced. They had no clue how to run a shop whatsoever. The good shops are good, but the bad ones are just pathetic.

Pumpkinseeds · 01-07-2014 06:22PM

Steppenwolfe wrote: »

It's not about being stingy. The prices are not always marked up and some shops are definetly not cheap. Some of the profits may go to charity, but that's not the point. It's a business like anything else. When I want to donate to charity I do it directly. When I shop in a charity shop I'm looking for a bargain. I tried to donate some books to a charity shop once. They were all bought new and popular authors. I was told they couldn't take them because they had too much stock. When I looked at their book shelf they had a selection of total rubbish all over priced. They had no clue how to run a shop whatsoever. The good shops are good, but the bad ones are just pathetic.

The stock in a charity shop will be cheaper than when it was bought, that is where the bargains come in. Most volunteers don't have the authority to give discounts, whether it be a cent or a euro. You sound more peeved that they didn't take your books than about anything else. Most shops have very little storage space and can't accept things they can't store, especially books.

There is surprisingly little interest in second hand books, regardless of how low they are priced. The volunteers were probably told not to accept any more donations of books. They can't just pull stuff off the shelves and bin them. Donations are really appreciated and sometimes people get very aggrieved when you can't accept things they want to donate. It really is a good idea to contact the shop and check in advance that they can accept the stuff you want to donate.

Good quality clean clothing in good condition and bric a braq are always very welcome. But please don't be offended if a shop can't take other things, they simply have nowhere to put them and like everyone else they have to pay for the things that they put in the bin. Also a BIG thing to remember is that most volunteers have NO retail experience and there for, very often, very little customer service skills. It'd be great to be able to cherry pick great volunteers with previous sales experience but sadly there are very few of those around.

Donations to charity shops

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