They think that they're doing a service to the charity they support and poorer people who can only afford to buy secondhand but they're not.

First off all the clothes go for a minimum of £3 even the outdated nylon blouses. Sometimes it's cheaper to buy in the sales. A lot of the time there's a funny smell (Oxfam and the British Heart Foundation excepted) and if I go in some of them with a migraine when I'm especially sensitive to bad smells I end up being sick.

Most of the money raised in the shops go to the landlords for rent (they don't pay peppercorn rents anymore) and on heating and lighting especially as the door is left open most of the time. The charities supported take the little bit leftover once the expenses are paid.

I once worked in a couple of charity shops a few years and I found the whole experience quite depressing. There are permanent adverts stating volunteers needed but they don't want young or single people on benefits to work in them. People who gain retail experience while looking for paid work. The shop managers only want people either like themselves or idiots they can boss around. Most of them can't trust volunteers to sort through clothes thinking that they have no idea of fashion and they have very little idea themselves. The old ladies who often volunteer in them get me down. I walked into one recently and overhead one of them gossiping to another about someone else; "well you can't have everything you want" meaning "you can't have anything you want".

I really can't understand why councils give planning permission to whole rows of charity shops in some surburban and small town high streets rather than just one or two. It lowers the whole tone of the place and then the other traders suffer.

I prefer to wear the clothes I already have and if I want to dump anything I swap with friends. Anything outdated or worn gets placed in recycling bags. When I want anything new I save up and buy a few new items of clothings. Much better than loads of junk from charity shops though it is possible to buy nice things in some of them. To get anything worthwhile means having to search through piles of junk.

lemsip spouted:
Most of the money raised in the shops go to the landlords for rent (they don't pay peppercorn rents anymore) and on heating and lighting especially as the door is left open most of the time. The charities supported take the little bit leftover once the expenses are paid.


That's quite a depressing thought!
I don't think all charity shops are the same and I know a few where you can get bargainous shoes for 3quid and I got a skirt for 50p the other week.
On the other hand, they were selling off 118 vests for a fiver at the 'Cancer Research' one in Huddersfield and unordinarychild wanted one for christmas so I went in to get one and the two doddery old ladies working there weren't very hospitible and the place had an eeerie feeling. The ladies cowered when I spoke to them, like they weren't used to seeing people who were only in their early twenties.

...d'ya want a bag, dear?

I really can't understand why councils give planning permission to whole rows of charity shops in some surburban and small town high streets rather than just one or two. It lowers the whole tone of the place and then the other traders suffer.



dont come to morden then. charity shop capital of the world.

It just so happens I'm taking four big bags of our unwanted clothing to a charity shop this morning !

Usual sort of thing,

Pissy skid-marked knickers,
Sweat stained T shirts,
Tatty stretched jumpers,
Jizz stained bed linen,
Foisty smelling moth eaten curtains,

And there's more than likely a few used tampons chucked in too just for good measure .............. I like doing my bit for charity.

Sweat stained t-shirts I use to clean my bicycle chain though I cut out the material around the arm hole first. I also use old sheets that have been warn in the middle. Rather than take the stuff to charity shops for them to sort and sell to scrap rag merchants for cleaning rags I use them myself. It's a way of closing the recycling loop.

dave brown spouted:
It just so happens I'm taking four big bags of our unwanted clothing to a charity shop this morning !

Usual sort of thing,

Pissy skid-marked knickers,
Sweat stained T shirts,
Tatty stretched jumpers,
Jizz stained bed linen,
Foisty smelling moth eaten curtains,

And there's more than likely a few used tampons chucked in too just for good measure .............. I like doing my bit for charity.

that lot would probably fetch quite a bit on ebanned.com dave :D

I have worked in two charity shops, and they both sucked serious pole.
Picture it...after telling the manageress I used to work with bands, she said "Oh, so you know about music then, that's useful".
She then led me downstairs to a spare room FULL - I mean boxes up to the ceiling - of old vinyl. Initially I nearly did a sex wee with excitement, but after dusting off the tenth pile of albums by Harry Secombe and Shirley Bassey, the excitement wore off. And the old gits who run the places have NO IDEA about pricing...£4.75 for Abba's Arrival! I ask you!
I tried to tell them that as they get all the records for shit all, they should sell albums at, say, 50p and singles at 20p, but they wouldn't listen.
Your average charity shop's assistants tend to be social rejects, outcasts, mongs, people who couldn't get a job even if they bribed the personnel manager with sex with Natalie Imbruglia and a million quid for good measure, and the chronically braindead.
The stuff they sell is largely shit. Any call for a 1988 Wacaday annual?
These indoor car boot sales are the pits.

World Of Weird spouted:
IYour average charity shop's assistants tend to be social rejects, outcasts, mongs, people who couldn't get a job even if they bribed the personnel manager with sex with Natalie Imbruglia and a million quid for good measure, and the chronically braindead.
The stuff they sell is largely shit. Any call for a 1988 Wacaday annual?
These indoor car boot sales are the pits.

That's just the managers and of course they want to employ people like themselves. One day along comes a gem who knows what's what but they don't get trusted. Try arguing with charity shop manager about what's in fashion and what isn't and it's a losing battle because they think they are right when in fact they are wrong.

And it wouldn't hurt for most of them to go on fact finding tours around the normal shops to see what's selling at the moment and for how much. The stuff they are selling is priced higher than the profit making second hand shops who are pretty fussy about what they take in as stock.

Spotted in a charity shop this morning...
All Saints' 1997 album for a stonking TEN FUCKING QUID!!!

You could probably get it brand new for less than that!

World Of Weird spouted:
Spotted in a charity shop this morning...
All Saints' 1997 album for a stonking TEN FUCKING QUID!!!

You could probably get it brand new for less than that!

£9.99 from play.com

£10.99 from Amazon

ROBBING BASTARDS!!!

It's not a bad album actually.......

i saw a lovely large budgie cage in our local oxfam for £12, would have been cheaper to go to safari select (near sevenoakes) to get one)

Yar I went into a copule of charity shops the other week looking for a blazer..... woulda been great if I had a 52 inch chest and tweed was in fashion......

As it was I went to TK MAXX and rummaged through a load blazers for 20 minutes until I found a suitable one.... very nice it is too.

Jarvis Cocker used to shop at Oxfam and the like.
Fucking pikey.

World Of Weird spouted:
Jarvis Cocker used to shop at Oxfam and the like.
Fucking pikey.

I think he still does.

As for Charity shops go, they often are dull depressing places. I have spent some time raking around for some old records. Its always crap stuff not worth even the 50p they what for it.
Dunfermline town centre is littered with them now.

better than those pikey everything is a quid shops that spring up all the time.

I've actually seen a shop (whilst on holiday) called...

EVERYTHING'S 50p

so it's going down. Eventually everything will be free (as long as it has an advert for a big company on it and you agree to accept text messages emails and phone calls offering you newer versions of everything you bought. And porn)

If everything's free, I'll have ten Liza Tarbucks!
Thank you please.

If Liza Tarbuck was sold my the pound then not even the Sultan of Brunei could afford her.

You don't get many of those to the pound!