| Non-motoring > Charity Shops... | Miscellaneous |
| Thread Author: No FM2R | Replies: 43 |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 15:13
Charity Shops... - No FM2R
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Maybe everybody but me knew this.... In South America there is a growing popularity of secondhand clothing shops. However, these shops do not really have access to a bunch of South Americans willing or able to hand off great sacks of reasonable clothing for resale. So what they do is buy secondhand clothing in stock from clothing recyclers in places like the UK. I imagine, although I don't know, that this is what happens to any useful clothes that get put in the large bins next to the bottle bank. Then the clothing is used to stock a shop here where a pair of jeans might be sold for £10, a t-shirt for £5 and a jacket for £20. The people here are making a damned fortune; which is fine, I just hadn't realised. |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 15:18
Charity Shops... - Alanovich
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| Yes, they ditch their collection bags on doorsteps, and expect that people will think they are collecting for charity. Some firms have been rumbles in the past masquerading as charities, so their collection bags are slightly less misleading these days. |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 16:21
Charity Shops... - crocks
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I tend to treat the ever increasing number of collection bags as a free supply of bin bags. Also the local paper last week had a full page advert for a company with shops where they would pay you 50p per kg for your clothes. www.redcloudrecycling.co.uk/ That maybe the incentive I need to start clearing the wardrobes. |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 16:31
Charity Shops... - Runfer D'Hills
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| Can't say I have any objection to someone making a buck on my old stuff if I can't be bothered to do it myself. Everyone has to eat. I'd maybe prefer that they didn't pretend to be a charity if they aren't though. That must mislead some people. |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 16:31
Charity Shops... - Alanovich
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| If you buy clothes at H&M, you can bring bags full of old clothes to the shop and they'll give you £5 per bag. Found this out yesterday when purchasing yet more clothes for fast growing children. |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 20:19
Charity Shops... - mikeyb
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| The kids school raise funds this way. Parents send in bags of unwanted clothes all on the same day. They are weighed and the school (well, PTA) gets the cash. Think they managed to get £250 last time around |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 20:31
Charity Shops... - rtj70
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| I think BobbyG said most of the bags you get through the door for charities are actually all just sold by weight and the charity gets very little. I now give directly to our local charity shops if we have anything. And you also often see vans that are taking away the unwanted donations which probably end up overseas etc. |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 20:46
Charity Shops... - Alastairw
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| There are even local businesses that will pay for your old clothes - nearest one to me is called cash4rags or somesuch. |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 20:54
Charity Shops... - CGNorwich
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As rtj70 says taking your old clothes direct to a charity shop is the best way to ensure that a charity receives the maximum benefit. Interesting site here explaining things; www.charitybags.org.uk/donations_and_house_to_house_clothing_collection_types.shtml |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 21:05
Charity Shops... - Runfer D'Hills
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As alluded to above though, why should anyone object to someone profiting from something someone no longer needs or wants? Arguably, and I freely admit I'm just playing here, but arguably, by allowing the goods to pass back into an economic cycle after they should by rights have reached their end consumer and lost any commercial potential, you would be stimulating the market in a currently much needed way by allowing them to once again and unexpectedly to have a transactional value. This in turn creating work for which people might be paid and therefore may in turn have disposable income to potentially donate to charity... :-) |
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New Mon 18 Mar 13 21:36
Charity Shops... - Zero
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| I dont think anyone does object, even if they are making a bob on the side, as long as the place you donate your ole threads to, is not masquerading as a charity. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 08:35
Charity Shops... - Ambo
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| Re-usable clothes are not the only form of textile to be welcomed by charities. Our local (and the UK's only) SSAFA shop makes a tidy sum from selling torn clothes, odd socks, discarded dusters etc. to a dealer, who sells them on for paper production. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 08:49
Charity Shops... - Cliff Pope
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>> I dont think anyone does object, even if they are making a bob on the >> side, as long as the place you donate your ole threads to, is not masquerading >> as a charity. >> I'd like to declare an interest here - I run a not-for-profit recycling/reuse company. We take donations of virtually anything that still has some life in it, and sell the items to anyone who wants them. We get a range of quality from basic up to antiques and collectables. Some people donate because they just want the furniture, white goods, etc taken away free, others because they want to help a good cause. We are entirely self-supporting, employ 15 full-time staff, and use any profits to subsidise cheaper prices to people in need, offering a discount of anything from 25% to 100% in needy cases. The aims are to encourage reuse, save stuff from landfill, and provide affordable items to people in need. We are not a charity. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 10:27
Charity Shops... - Robin O'Reliant
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>> I'd like to declare an interest here - I run a not-for-profit recycling/reuse company. We >> take donations of virtually anything that still has some life in it, and sell the >> items to anyone who wants them. We get a range of quality from basic up >> to antiques and collectables. Some people donate because they just want the furniture, white goods, >> etc taken away free, others because they want to help a good cause. >> Is that one of your places on the Goodwick industrial estates Cliff? They have some sort of sale of donated goods every Saturday. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 14:02
Charity Shops... - BobbyG
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Here is how our charity shops work: We receive donations from supporters / customers / strangers. Every bag that is handed into our shops is sorted through and split between what can be sold and what cant. The items that can are then put out for sale and given a 2 week life - if they don't sell they are then transferred to another shop and given a 2 week life and then one more shop is still not sold. At that point they are either ragged or maybe sold on a £1 rail. Everyone who donates is asked to sign up for Gift Aid (if they are eligible) to increase our income as we can then reclaim 25% of the selling price. The recycler pays us per kg of rags that they collect from our shops. All the rags are collected by a clothiong recycler (Nathans Wastesavers in our case) who have a factory in Denny. Everything there goes on various conveyor belts and sorted into jeans, dresses etc and then into cottons, acrilyics and so on. These are then baled up ready for export. The recycling company subsidiary also has a couple of vintage shops which they supply from the items on these conveyor belts. The items that come from us have went through 3 shops before going to recycler but they also collect stock from textile bins in car parks, Council recycling etc that never sees a charity shop. This is the same with most door to door collections (which we don't do). They are then sold onto markets in Africa and Eastern Europe where they are sold on to the traders etc. It is a well -oiled machine and works very well. The items that are genuine rags like spoiled items, ripped etc are sent abroad to be shredded and then brought back to UK (its cheaper this way believe it or not). This is then sold on as cloths, wipes etc for garages and I believe some items also appear inside pillows and mattresses as fillers. What is crucial here is that you are not allowed to export waste - therefore anything leaving here should either be pre sorted like the bales above, or destined to come back to the country like the shredding rags. The cash for clothes types of companies have a different outlook and what they do is pay you money for your items (always less than advertised - think We Buy Any Car) and they just fill containers and ship them straight out to Poland where they are sold in secondhand shops like the OP refers to. Certainly the main company in Scotland doing this had previous as claiming to be a charity and being caught out. Once these items have been through their Poland shops, anything that doesn't sell is then exported to Africa and the markets there. One of the main challenges facing our business just now is the quality of clothing - years ago most items donated were M&S and good quality - nowadays people are buying George, F&F etc and these are no good for trying to resell on a few months later. Finally re Humph's note about no issue if someone can get any extra life out an item - I once approached a national Sofa company who advertised free uplift of old sofas. They collected these sofas and took them to the dump. I enquired if there was any way that we could work with them and maybe do the uplifts for them and sell on the sofas in our shops etc. No was the answer, they told me very clearly that their plan was to remove the second hand sofas from circulation thus persuading more punters buy new. They did not want the punters to have the option of going to a charity shop and buying a second hand sofa! |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 14:33
Charity Shops... - Meldrew
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Some charity has taken over the old Woolworths in my local town and they certainly sell furniture. One could go there in a panel van and furnish a small house for about £500 including electrical goods. I went to a charity shop 2 weeks ago and bought a black jacket with a very fine white stripe, rather Chicago gangsterish! It was £6 and when I got it home I found it was brand new - all the pockets were still sewn up with that tacking thread they use. Now all I need is the trousers, some 2 tone shoes, a fedora and a machine gun! |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 14:39
Charity Shops... - Zero
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>> up with that tacking thread they use. Now all I need is the trousers, some >> 2 tone shoes, a fedora and a machine gun! Do we call you Al now? |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 14:48
Charity Shops... - Meldrew
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| Yes indeedy! |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 14:53
Charity Shops... - bathtub tom
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>>Do we call you Al now? Maldrew? Please don't start another round of name changes, I've only just sussed who Lud is. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 14:50
Charity Shops... - Bromptonaut
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>> Some charity has taken over the old Woolworths in my local town and they certainly >> sell furniture. One could go there in a panel van and furnish a small house >> for about £500 including electrical goods. Ditto a former office stationery warehouse in Northampton. Now used by BHF for furniture, white goods and TV/audio. No market for CRTV even there!! |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 15:07
Charity Shops... - Cliff Pope
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>> >> They did not want the punters to >> have the option of going to a charity shop and buying a second hand sofa! >> Short-sighted. It's a different market, one complements the other. That's like demolishing houses that first-timers might buy in the believe that that would encourage the sales of executive homes. We often get donations of trade-ins or seconds from big stores. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 16:14
Charity Shops... - Mapmaker
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>> >> They did not want the punters to >> >> have the option of going to a charity shop and buying a second hand >> sofa! >> >> >> >> Short-sighted. It's a different market, one complements the other. Maybe, but the scrappage scheme for cars certainly helped bolster the price of second-hand cars. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 15:49
Charity Shops... - commerdriver
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>> I once approached a national Sofa company who advertised free uplift of >> old sofas. They collected these sofas and took them to the dump. I enquired if >> there was any way that we could work with them and maybe do the uplifts >> for them and sell on the sofas in our shops etc. No was the answer, >> they told me very clearly that their plan was to remove the second hand sofas >> from circulation thus persuading more punters buy new. They did not want the punters to >> have the option of going to a charity shop and buying a second hand sofa! >> Other issue with furnishings is the fire label, I had to bin a perfectly useable sofa from my late mother's in Paisley last year because it had been professionally recovered and they hadn't put the fire safety label on it. The heart foundation, who took most of the furniture wouldn't take the mattress from the bed because it also lacked the label, despite being covered with the same material as the bed base which did have the label. I did notice when we were clearing mum's that a few items made it from our first donation bag had made it to the shelves & rail for sale by the time we took subsequent donations in to the same shop |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 16:15
Charity Shops... - BobbyG
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| Commerdriver, out of curiosity, did Heart Foundation charge you for the uplifts? |
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New Wed 20 Mar 13 08:22
Charity Shops... - commerdriver
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>> Commerdriver, out of curiosity, did Heart Foundation charge you for the uplifts? Don't think they did, council charged to pick up the sofa though |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 16:47
Charity Shops... - Ian (Cape Town)
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>> What is crucial here is that you are not allowed to export waste - therefore anything leaving here should either be pre sorted like the bales above, or destined to come back to the country like the shredding rags. Many years ago I used to work for a large sports retailer in London. We had a 'deal' with the large manufacturers that they'd not accept returns, but just pay us out for any that came back to us. Obviously the onus was on us to be honest as to what was or wasn't legit. Anyways, we also had the problem of how to get rid of hundreds of pairs of trainers. We looked into the charity route, but the manufacturers weren't keen - even if we had punched holes in the tongue. So we looked to donate to overseas charities. But for some reason second-hand shoes weren't allowed to be exported. Bizarrely, we WERE allowed to send all of our mismatches and single shoes to a landmine charity, because they were classed as 'new'. Yes, scrotes would steal a single shoe from display, and leave us with a useless shoe! And we had hundreds of them. Also, when the tealeafs cleaned out a shop down in the east end, they took everything - except the shoes on display. So that was another few hundred... |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 15:00
Charity Shops... - Cliff Pope
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>> >> Is that one of your places on the Goodwick industrial estates Cliff? They have some >> sort of sale of donated goods every Saturday. >> >> No, just the one at Aberystwyth station. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 16:24
Charity Shops... - No FM2R
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My Father works for a charity which deals in secondhand furniture, I have no idea if his experience is typical or not. However, in his experience the charity is inefficient, overpays their friends, and are playing at being business people. They run horrendously inefficient organisations which are managed and operated abysmally. Having said that, a lot of less well off people usually on benefits, are given the opportunity to obtain the type of furniture one needs when first setting up a home. These organisations / people work inefficiently and uneconomically to provide a service which is, or should be, essential to many. Whilst I am not now poor, this is a service I would have died for when I first left home. So all things considered, they are a net benefit and have my support, for what that is worth. But why don't they ask people like me, who specialize in running companies but who do not need a salary for doing so, to help them run their own organisations? There ought to be somewhere one can donate ones skills. Mind you, perhaps there is, feel free to tell me if there is as I simply don't know about it. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 16:36
Charity Shops... - BobbyG
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I can obviously only speak for our charity but we have volunteers who donate their skills to us and, off the top of my head, we have gardeners plumber electrician accountant fundraiser event planner florist building contracts manager surveyor actuary nurse whole load of clinical and medical specialities PR & Marketing Hairdressing Legal and thats off the top of my head and before you go to the next level of , do you know someone who could do x,y or z for us? I know of some charities that I would say were inefficient and these typically are ones where there is lack of accountability or there is an abundance of money. In our case, where we have a board of trustees, various audit committees and where we report to a regulatory body, I think we are pretty tight. But there is always room for improvement and we are constantly changing and this often comes as a result of some networking, where someone knows someone and have you ever thought of doing x,y or z? |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 16:48
Charity Shops... - No FM2R
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Great, but do you have a professional and excellent manager running the charity for you? Because my experience would be that charities like loads of help to run their charity *their* way, but don't want to be told, helped, or advised that there may be a better way to run it. I'm not sure how much it matters, because the charities I know are still providing a very valuable service, it just seems to me that they could provide more with a little advice. However, from a business management perspective, I am more than happy to drop by if you want the next time I'm in the UK. It'll make a change from repairing broken wardrobes. And if you do want, then there'll be my going rate to consider, which is a beer in the nearest pub for each day worked. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 17:16
Charity Shops... - BobbyG
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>>Great, but do you have a professional and excellent manager running the charity for you? Because my experience would be that charities like loads of help to run their charity *their* way, but don't want to be told, helped, or advised that there may be a better way to run it. I would definitely answer yes to the first part of the question and quantify that by saying that this is because we are always open to others advising us on specifics of our business and always looking to improve. There is a very fine line here and one that I guess is prevalent in all sorts of businesses whereby outside consultants come in, advise, coach etc and then leave the company to progress. A bit like Gordon Ramsay program whereby , from what I have seen, many of the businesses that he revisited had either gone to the wall or decided to ignore his advice. Years ago I worked for Safeay and they introduced 5 star customer training which involved sending store staff away for an overnight in a hotel and receive lots of "fun" training. You know the sort of thing, where you know that very little of it will work in the real world. Spent thousands, if not millions on it, and then pulled it because it was proving to be so far removed from the real world of the supermarket shopfloor. In the charity shop business, we had the famous Mary Portas coming in to shake up our industry but this was a TV reality program so was not realistic and for me, did not pass the sustainability test. Indeed, I know of at least one charity who knocked her back from doing the program on them. Her latest role of "High Street Guru" has been to call for restrictions on Charity Shops......... I came from a commerical employer to the Charity and there is definitely a huge difference and that main difference is volunteers. Our charity relies on them but by the sheer nature of the role, the control you have over them is therefore different to an employee and there needs to be lots of acceptance of this. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 18:35
Charity Shops... - No FM2R
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>> the control you have over them is therefore different to an employee and there needs to be lots of acceptance of this. Not really. Everybody does a job for a reason. Usually this is a wage, but it is not necessarily so. Thus, everybody volunteering for a charity is also doing it for a reason, and whatever that reason is it brings satisfaction to them. Managing people correctly involves understanding why someone is doing a job, and what they feel they need to get from that role. That is as applicable to someone working for no or little money as it is for someone earning a high wage. It is simply that the latter is easier to understand and quantify. Every role should be managed and targeted appropriately. Those measures and management approaches should take account of what they are doing and why they are doing it. For people doing a "normal" job for money, the control is still limited. They can strike, leave or simply become inefficient. Thus, for a good manager, there is no difference in control. There may well be a difference between how your previous "commercial" employer managed things and how the charity managed things, but that is more likely to be representative of quality than it is of appropriateness. These TV gurus are presenting a TV show, not a management school. They come from a belief that there is a magic bullet and that there is something mystical about good business and people management. Neither is true; good management is simple to understand, easy to do and always successful. However it is also sadly rare. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 19:26
Charity Shops... - Zero
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>> >> the control you have over them is therefore different to an employee and there >> needs to be lots of acceptance of this. >> >> Not really. >> >> Everybody does a job for a reason. Usually this is a wage, but it is >> not necessarily so. Thus, everybody volunteering for a charity is also doing it for a >> reason, and whatever that reason is it brings satisfaction to them. Having been volunteering while working, and volunteering since retired, and been managing volunteers while volunteering you are right in most ways, but wrong in one. >> Managing people correctly involves understanding why someone is doing a job, and what they feel >> they need to get from that role. True, like dog training, find what makes them motivated and use it. That is as applicable to someone working for >> no or little money as it is for someone earning a high wage. It is >> simply that the latter is easier to understand and quantify. True, money does not work as a reward for volunteers, but status does. Uniforms and badges of rank are great for this. Volunteers love to be in teams and led, and long to be team leader. >> >> Every role should be managed and targeted appropriately. Wrong here I am afraid. Targets do not work for volunteering. Nor does KPI's or any other form of measurement. Complete waste of time. You get a kickback along the lines. "I aint getting paid for this, what you gonna do, sack me?" Thats why anyone who has to perform to to targets in a volunteer organisation is paid. You can however pit teams against each other in "contests" If your volunteers are useless and you need to get rid of them, you need to manoeuvre them out carefully so you dont upset the others. Divide and conquer works well there. Last edited by: Zero on Tue 19 Mar 13 at 19:29
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 19:41
Charity Shops... - No FM2R
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>>> Every role should be managed and targeted appropriately. > >Wrong here I am afraid. I disagree. "targeted appropriately" can mean not targeted at all, targeted with a free beer, or anything else. >Targets do not work for volunteering. Nor does KPI's or any other form of measurement. I disagree. e.g. a free pint for the first person to finish stacking those videos. >>You can however pit teams against each other in "contests" You mean manage and target appropriately? |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 19:48
Charity Shops... - Zero
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Teams, not individuals, which i think you meant when you said "role" Beers wpnt work either by individual achievement either, causes resentment, |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 20:07
Charity Shops... - No FM2R
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>>Teams, not individuals, which i think you meant when you said "role" Yes, I did. Individual achievement has its value, within the context of managing team behaviour though, I agree. Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 19 Mar 13 at 20:07
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 22:24
Charity Shops... - BobbyG
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You have both kind of summed it up between you but also add in to the mix that volunteers do not have the same commitment requirement. So, if grandchild needs looked after, or a 5 week holiday, or a last minute break etc then they have the right to not come in to "work". Yes, we have a procedure whereby if constantly off it would be an issue but if a volunteer is useful to you and you can live with the varied attendance, then you do. But it can give you operational issues. Perfect example - you have a volunteer surveyor who does all your property stuff free of charge, saving you a fortune. But his paid job obviously takes priority. So you may be delayed getting reports or whatever - the cost saving you are making means you need to accept that and that you cannot threaten them with the sack if they don't deliver on time. There are many similar type compromises. Also, on a slightly different note, I recently attended a conference whereby there was a session from an employment lawyer explaining the differences between a paid employee and a volunteer. It can be argued, and has been argued successfully, that if you are a volunteer with certain set parameters, then you could be deemed as being an employee. So if you volunteer to come in every Wed and do the filing and you have your own desk and you do this every week, and you get invited to the nights / lunch out, then it could be argued that you have the same rights as employees. One case was quoted, similar situation and then charity told volunteer they were no longer required. Took them to a tribunal, were declared that they had employee rights, had the right to backdated minimum wage for all the hours they had done, and an unfair dismissal case. An out of court settlement prevented the charity from going bankrupt. Incidentally , to our CAB moderator, quite a few of the test cases were actually against the CAB ! |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 23:05
Charity Shops... - No FM2R
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>So if you volunteer to come in every Wed ........... and then charity told volunteer they were no longer required. ............declared that they had employee rights, had the right to backdated minimum wage for all the hours they had done Now I would be ok with that, because why should a volunteer be abused? They're not working for money, but they are working for satisfaction and should be treated fairly. But where did someone decide that hourly wage should be involved? idiots. Last edited by: Webmaster on Thu 4 Apr 13 at 08:58
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 16:53
Charity Shops... - Ambo
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>>There ought to be somewhere one can donate ones skills. Mind you, perhaps there is, feel free to tell me if there is as I simply don't know about it. Try your local library service. Ours has a list of charities seeking helpers. I joined two as a result but couldn't stand the infighting, backbiting, toadying, sheer inefficiency and general chicanery of the other volunteer members, especially when the leader of one, an excellent chartered accountant, was railroaded by a hopeless cabal of nonentities. I had enough of all that while teaching. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 16:54
Charity Shops... - No FM2R
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| Sadly, draiber, that would be my experience too. |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 17:04
Charity Shops... - Ian (Cape Town)
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did a few days at the local animal welfare shop, sorting out their books. Or attempting to. After seeing all the stuff I'd selected for pulping being put back on the shelves, I gave up. "But we can sell this..." "No you can't. It has been there for at least five years to my knowledge." |
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New Tue 19 Mar 13 18:01
Charity Shops... - Mapmaker
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>>However, in his experience the charity is inefficient, overpays their friends, and are playing at being business people. I happened to become quite close to a charity for a short while. The previous FD and friends had milked it for every penny. They had non-existent staff on the payroll; they'd paid builders an absolute fortune to refit their offices, and had doubtless taken a massive kickback from the builders. Every trick in the book, really. The new FD then spent a load of time, effort and money trying to take his predecessor to court. Like all attempts at going to court it was a waste of time, effort and money. I doubt a commercial organisation would have bothered. |
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New Wed 20 Mar 13 00:29
Charity Shops... - Armel Coussine
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My current formal whistle is a sort of double-breasted undertaker's black pinstripe thing. I don't mind it being a bit frayed here and there but I guess I may have to waddle by the Oxfam shop again soon and see if they have something more or less wearable that will more or less fit me. Where people get the money for new clothes is a total mystery to me. Most of them are bank robbers probably. |
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New Wed 20 Mar 13 08:16
Charity Shops... - madf
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>> Where people get the money for new clothes is a total mystery to me. Most >> of them are bank robbers probably. >> A perfectly respectable pair of jeans under £10 in Asda-- which also buys trousers in Aldi.. Dress yourself in new men's clothes for under £50... No need to look like a Last edited by: madf on Wed 20 Mar 13 at 08:17
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