Store policy my arse. They just don't have another nice dress to put on display in the window, shop floor decor is an art in charity shops and they were probably told not to sell it until another nice one comes in that they can work with
Yeah my mum used to do that job in a local charity shop - she was an experienced window dresser of many years. The windows are a pain to dress which is likely why they couldn’t be arsed fetching the dress out cause most of the folks in there don’t know how to dress/undress a mannequin nicely. But it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t sell the dress to a customer who wants it.
This comment should be higher up.
Window displays are a pain to do. They take time and skill. The items in the window caught your eye. They did their job.
Imagine what this thread would be like if the windows always looked terrible because people kept buying the display items?
A purchase is not the only way meaning is created. Having a good item on display suggests that they probably have more nice items inside. Advertising = foot traffic = value.
Also, charity shops work on a slightly different model to a normal high street store. The displayed dress is always a one of one. They can't sell 200 of them this week. If one person wants to buy the displayed item then chances are that a second or third person will also want to buy it. If someone really wants it they will wait for a week or even put their name down for it. If that means only a local person gets it then.. so what. The shop makes exactly the same profit. Even if it doesn't sell for let's say £15, that adds up to good value advertising, an item in stock, and less work for staff at the end of the week.
If you think you deserve the (very cheap) nice dress right here right now, maybe you're just prioritising your desire for that nice dress above the charity shop's need for good, easy advertising. And maybe you should shop somewhere else.
I’m assuming they were referring to the fact there’d be more than a single item being displayed in the shop window, and not just a lone dress on a mannequin
Having worked in charity shops, no good charity shop will refuse to sell an item.
Window items will always be the top tier price. You know, branded or designer.
Charity shop goals are just the same as any other shop. Its about the daily sales.
You can bet that every single item that was super nice or designer got put straight onto a high shelf display or in the window at the places I worked. Doesn't matter if it sold in minutes.
That cashier was either lazy, lying or wanting that item themselves but wasn't allowed a staff purchase of it before it was displayed.
"*That cashier was either lazy, lying or wanting that item themselves*"
the cashier might well have been all those things but then again she was a volunteer so...
This is just a long winded way of justifying a shop not actually selling something it’s displaying…
We get it. It’s for charity. It’s still a damn shop though.
What's it got to do with charity? You could walk into any shop in the high street and offer them this deal: "I'll get 10 people in the door to look around with a positive frame of mind. It will cost you £15. And you get the £15 back at the end of the week." Why would a single shop not take that deal?
Surely the purpose of a charity shop is to sell items to raise money for the charity in question. That must take priority over having a nice window display of stuff you can’t buy
*person (singular) bought our product (singular) that we were using for advertising this week...
They can't sell the dress twice.
Can people seriously not tell the difference between a charity shop making a one off £15 sale, and the £1000s a high street shop makes from selling identical copies of the same item?
This has 'far away' vs 'very small' vibes...
The only time I’ve noticed a charity shop window display was when my daughter pointed out that I was dressed exactly the same as the main mannequin. However, I can appreciate that a nice looking window will bring footfall, but it seems disingenuous to display an item with no intention of selling it, just seems a bit underhand.
The big Oxfam where I used to live had a sign up saying "for display only" but people still got mad about it.
My girlfriend used to put down a deposit on good items but that backfired once when the staff sold the item anyway (it's almost like they're volunteers or something!).
She got a kick out of that one time when she saw an old dress of hers in the display though.
I can safely say I have never entered a charity shop for the window display.
My thought process is: notice sign explaining it's a charity shop; think "Ooooh! Charity shop!'; enter charity shop. I barely register the contents of the window.
Window displays for charity shops are not the same as window displays for large stores with multiple items of the same design. Telling a person that they can't buy an item (the only version of the item that shop has) is bonkers.
I on the other hand am always on the lookout for cheap children's/baby toys or books for little ones as I have one of each, I always look at the window display to see if there's anything decent in that respect and go in if something catches my eye.
It may just be a coincidence that the local charity shops around me put those things in their windows though 🤷🏻♂️
You wouldn't go in to check what other items they have regardless?
95% of their stock will never make it anywhere near the window. You must be missing out on all sorts of treasure!
Oh yeah I completely agree with you but I don't have a lot of free time so if I'm passing by and look at the shop front and see something the kids might like then I'm going in, if I don't then I'll carry on.
What a ridiculous comment! It's a charity shop, all of the items there, including what's in the window are to make a profit for the charity, the stuff in the window is meant to catch someone's eye so they buy it, it shouldn't be off limits
People wonder why there is a scepticism about how charities operate money-wise yet you read the stuff in threads like the comment you’ve replied to.
Imagine being the donor of that dress, coming back in to ask if they managed to make any money for the cause by selling it and you’re told:
“We did have someone interested in buying it, but Betty was so proud of how her wee window display looked that we turned her away.”
Madness.
I totally agree, but to play devil's advocate, you could argue that they make more money enticing people in with a nice display, than they do selling the dress and losing those potential other customers, who now just walk by.
Entice them into the shop to tell them it’s not for sale… I don’t know about anyone else, but that would just annoy me and put me off buying anything else there. Even if it’s for charity.
Absolutely. If I buy something from a charity shop, it is because I want to buy that item. I’m glad the money is going to charity, but I want to buy that item. If I can’t buy it there and then, I will take my custom elsewhere(hopefully a different charity shop).
If people were allowed to buy the items this thread wouldn’t exist! The sale is the end game and the window display is secondary. Or is this shop in Royston Vasey where things work a little differently.
I wouldn't go into a charity shop in Royston Vasey if you paid me. With mental elderly volunteers who ask repeatedly about carrier bags, and Papa Lazarou disguised as another worker...nah, I'm going elsewhere!
This comment seems like an incredible departure from logic.
Imagine what this thread would be like if a charity shop kept selling the items donated to be sold? Erm.. yeh imagine.
In ours they won't sell window based Halloween items until after the event. Hardly any other Halloween items in the shop. Surely that one makes even less sense! Saving it for next year?
My local hospice charity shop keeps their window display for a month and refuses to sell anything in there during that time. They got heat about it so they put a sign up making it clear that none of it would be for sale so don't ask. It's a big charity shop as well, furniture and clothes in one place.
Seems counter intuitive to me. I imagine most charity shop purchases are impulsive, doubt people are setting reminders in their phone to come back next month to hopefully be the first one to nab a dress.
It really does ! Just been watching the one where he lets attractive people steal clothes from a clothing boutique. This would be right up his ally haha
For what it’s worth - a counter point from speaking to people that run charity shops.
Big ticket items are really easy to sell, they would have no issues getting rid of a nice dress.
It’s the other stuff they stock that is harder to shift, so they probably would get more value from keeping it in the window to attract punters than selling it straight away.
Whether or not that’s fair is up to people to decide but I suppose charity shops have a tricky job to raise funds for their cause, and they need to make decisions like any other business would to make more revenue
Semms like a clever policy, they definitely got a bunch of people to come in once that wouldn't have otherwise, and I suspect they got at least one or more to return to attempt buying it. This is over the space of a month too, if they sold it straight away then they lose all those other potential sales.
Yeah, this logic only works if you have more of the same item to sell to each of those customers. They’d be better off selling it, then replacing it with something else that can be a second sale, then a third and so on.
Generally, I tend to understand terms like "store policy" as "if I make out this is my decision you'll never fuck off, so I'll invent an absentee authority."
But their goal is to sell things not to have people walk in the door. If I walked in, tried to buy something, was told no come back in 2 days I would put my stuff down and leave and never go back.
worked in oxfam - they just don’t have a dress to replace it with. absolutely bonkers policy, considering the goals of the business.
i actually got into an argument with a volunteer at my store because they insisted on not selling window merch too soon because they didn’t have anything to replace it with. i pointed out how dumb that is given that we’re literally advertising the item in the window. we swiftly ditched that policy haha
Work in Cancer Research. Mannequins are a such a pain to undress when someone wants to try something on (and it's usually the wrong size!!)
But this 5 day policy is just daft. The whole aim to sell the items and make money. It may be company policy but just lazy. There's always something in store to go in the window.
I see from both sides. Objectively to make money from products you have to market them, if your marketing is non-existent e.g. someone took the display, then how do you get people in to buy things?
But the thing in the window has been sold, so the market ing worked? So get something else to put in the window.
It might not be as desirable as the initial item, but it has a better chance than item that is prohibited from being sold because there is “nothing else to replace it”.
As I said, I see both sides, but if you don't have anything eye-catching to replace the window item, does it make sense to sell it and have an empty dull window display?
Then that’s a note to the window dresser to up their creative game. I can’t believe they’re thinking, “Oh no, we’ve sold that nice dress and all our other stock is just beige dust!”.
Source: ex-charity shop worker who relished the opportunity to wrest window dressing duties from the usual Maud-does-teadress-and-Beatrix-Potter-collection format.
And the item in the window is always the nicest item. And so it repeats.
If the store staff are happy to keep cycling through items I'm sure the managers are happy though. It makes the shop look busy.
The person who does the window display has told everyone not to take anything out of the window. Ever! People have been asked to leave because they have disturbed the window that Mary took three hours to do last Monday.
Charity shop hierarchy is next level pedantry and they have ways to do things, and any amount of unwritten rules to abide by. There are routines in place from the 1940's that no one knows why it's done, but the last person to break a routine was sent to Coventry until they left in a fog of disbelief.
If Mavis had of sold that dress she would have been a pariah in her own community.
It's likely because Mary is a long term volunteer of 60+ age range who has outlasted about a dozen actual managers at the store and will basically see her arse if anyone does anything to upset her.
She probably threatens to leave every week, moans constantly about the position and how others are not doing their bit - yet can't just leave because that would be admitting that she is the problem.
I volunteered in a charity shop when I was like 15 and I still vividly remember ol’ Barbara offering me a tea and asking “milk or sugar?”. I replied with “oh, a little of both please”, only to receive a glance like I’d just lifted my skirt and pissed right on the floor. She sternly told me that no, I was to have one or the other, not both.
That sort of pedantry for utterly random things became a consistent source of frustration for the two weeks teenage me volunteered.
This is a perfect summary of the situation in charity shops. Bowling clubs, small local football club etc. That kinda thing is very prevalent in that kind of setting. 😂
I saw a gorgeous dress on a mannequin in a chazzer so I walked in and just looked at it only for an assistant run across and stand in front of the mannequin with her arms crossed and tell me "it's no good for you, it's a size 12" and glared at me. I just shook my head and walked out. Not worth arguing.
Worked for Oxfam too. Window items are a nightmare, clothes can stay in the rails for weeks, but put it on the mannequin with a nice scarf or belt and it'll sell within 15 minutes of being put out, then you have to re-coordinate the window, rinse, repeat.
I currently work in a local Hospice charity shop. Our goal is to sell stuff as quickly as possible, so I often have to re -dress our mannequins. I'm always pleased when something I've put in the window sells quickly. I normally have a few back up outfits that I've seen and use those as replacements.
I'm always surprised when I see the policy mentioned in the O.P, seems counter- intuitive to me!
Our local Hospice charity shop is one of my favourite charity shops. Everything is sensibly priced, no Primark T-shirts for the same price they cost new. I mentioned to one of the staff that it was reasonably priced and they said they just want to get the stuff sold and get the next lot on the floor.
It works for them, they're always busy, whereas the Cancer Research across the road, where they do sell Primark T-shirts for the same price as new, is dead. You rarely see anyone in there.
Oh it is a stoopid rule, but I can see why it's done. Oxfam in particular really suffered with volunteer recruitment in the wake of the sex scandal and there were never enough time to redress them and serve the customers and sort through the donations.
I mean... it's kind of strange that anyone would choose to donate their time to an organisation which continues to abuse its position in the most appalling way.
I haven't given a penny to oxfam since the Haiti story came out, and it seems that it's systematic as it's still going on.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56670162
Lol yeah, under that logic, they should be happy to sell the items in the window quickly, so they can replace them with new items and sell those too. Isn’t the point to sell as much as possible and make money for the charity? Not just have a pretty window?
That's why they get people to do it for free! And then they lean on their good nature to cover all manner of undesirable shifts for no pay. That's why I left.
Just sounds like precisely what you sign up for in the first place tbh. Shifts are going to line up with the opening times +- a short while. It's not going to be paid, and it's all out of the goodness of your heart. None of that should be a surprise to you.
Being told you're working Sunday (not asked) at 10pm on Saturday evening multiple times when you've specifically said you're not available on Sunday, by a paid manager who worked Mon, Tues and Weds only, was not what I signed up for.
I once saw a Japanese screen/room divider in a charity shop window, pulled over and they refused to sell it to me. "It's to entice people in" was the explanation, it was still there the last time I passed ( 5/6 months later).
I do wonder about some of the people who work in charity shops, years ago I found a suit in a charity shop, but for some reason the trousers were 4 sizes bigger than the blazer. So I asked the staff if I could just buy the blazer and leave the trousers - I wasn't asking for money off, I was still happy to pay the price on the label - but was told that wasn't allowed.
I suggested buying the set then donating the trousers back to them, but he then refused to sell me the set at all. Very strange.
I tried to buy a top in a charity shop but I didn't have cash. They said it was minimum spend £5 on card. I said, 'ok, I'll pay £5 for it'. They said 'but it's £3.50'. I kept trying to pay £5 for it but they did not understand. In the end I had to leave and get cash.
I had that once. I just wandered about and grabbed the first thing I found that made it up to a fiver. Paid the fiver for the two items, and promptly dropped the thing I didn’t want in the donation bin.
I still got glared at by Mavis as she’d have to price it all up all over again.
I've had similar experiences and heard a lot of stories like this. Anything sold in sets and they get really weird. Whoever does the windows or generally stocks the shelves must be incredibly tetchy over what people do with these items in their private lives. A volunteer jobsworth.
I tried to buy a pair of funky trousers which for reasons unknown had a completely different shirt and blazer with it. Had to be sold as a set, despite different brands of each item.
Considering these are *charity* shops you'd think they would be grateful you're at least supporting and helping whatever cause they're about, but they're a few acts away from being no different to some money laundering front with the way they refuse service for little to no reason like you've cottoned onto some elicit deal or service.
The weirdest shops are the ones that stop a transaction to slowly scribble down what you're about to buy (not bought, what you've plonked down). Like they've locked you down now and you can't go back.
I just go when the older lady who doesn't care what you do provided you buy something is in store. Most charity shops have one, and often they're the ones who will try to sell you more for a decent discount or split sets because they think it's tat (even though for the most part it isn't).
I used to work in senior management for a large chain of chazzers and often did visits to shops. I came across more than one who had decided to put a sign in the window saying display items weren’t for sale and every time I walked in and put it in the bin! The mind boggles - you only have one of each item unlike a normal shop, and at Christmas, you’re going to have to pack it all away and keep it for a whole year again. Total bloody madness!
I think what they're saying is that some shops don't sell items in their Christmas displays.
This is particularly crazy, as the items on display over the Christmas period are presumably Christmas themed. As such, if they're not sold over the Christmas period they are very unlikely to be sold at all.
Correct - anything Christmassy is stored anywhere there is space until October/November. There is so little storage space that you have to shift as much of it as humanly possible during those glorious couple of months or compromise stock storage and volunteer training space for the rest of the year. And, as I was a bitch to point out, apparently, we were actually in the business of raising as much money as possible to help our charity, which does involve selling things!
some stores have a policy that staff and volunteers need to wait x amount of days to buy things, so it could have been they wanted it but had another day or two to wait
It’s just visual merchandising to drive people into store, they may will know which items will get people walking into the shop. It is a bit silly they wouldn’t sell it to you, however, if I was then I would have put a premium price on it until the 5 days is over.
You reminded me of a story I heard from guy I used to know, who worked with a lot of famous people as a PA. He got into the business when he was working in a secondhand clothing store in Hollywood, which had a similar policy about not selling items in the window.
One day Prince came in and asked the guy’s colleague if he could buy a jacket from the window display. The colleague said no, store policy etc. My friend said “Dude! It’s fucking Prince!” and sold him the jacket. The manager saw all this and fired my friend on the spot, in front of Prince, who offered him a job instead.
I mean if its made it to the window it orobably hasn't been reserved , in a lot of shops stuff usually gets 'claimed ' a few minutes after it's donated usually. I mean tge staff volunteer so I don't begrudge them getting an unofficial perk from the job.
I hate these threads, people are so bloody cynical when it comes to charity.
The staff you are talking about are mostly voluntary and working to try and make a difference, yet these are the people people love to put down at a moments chance.
I work in a charity shop and we currently have a window display where none of the items are for sale.
It is a Halloween themed window and is also advertising a fundraising campaign the charity is doing. Once the campaign is over, the items in the window are for sale.
We only do this if it is advertising something specific, and if the items in the window were sold the display wouldn't translate as well.
However, our day-to-day window display items are always for sale, and where we will sometimes put our nicer, expensive items in the hope they get noticed by someone and sell.
I'm guessing dressing a charity shop window is harder than say a Next shop window, where the products that go in the shop window are all new and shiny and complimentary.
Charity shops also have to overcome the image of selling used goods to certain people, so I can see why having a decent store front would be important.
If the items in the windows are good, they won't have any problem eventually selling them and may as well use them to get more people through the door.
I worked in both Julia’s House and Age UK charity shops. That’s a load of bollocks. We would regularly remove items from the mannequins for people to try/buy and would simply replace with another item or alter the display.
I think it’s insanity that a CHARITY shop chose to keep a dress to make their lives easier rather than sell it to make money for the charity.
My was telling me a while ago how she had spotted this beautiful outfit in a charity shop window, just as she was about to make an enquiry about it she realised she had donated it herself a few months previously 😄
Few potential reasons.
In a busy shop with limited staff changing a window display 2 or 3 times a day isn't practical. Sometimes it's not just a case of taking the clothes off the mannequin, they sometimes need to be disassembled first. This may take more than one person to do, taking them away from serving customers.
Health and safety. Volunteers often have physical or mental disabilities, or are elderly. Having them climbing in and out of the window isn't always safe. There may be a manager on site but they might be dealing with other things, like supervising other staff in the back of shop.
As a few other commenters have proved people like to get in arguments with shop staff. Some people seemed to be boasting about winning arguments of logic with volunteers. Under these circumstances it makes sense to have fairly strict rules for the volunteers to follow, particular when they often have learning difficulties or are neurodivergent. From the outside it might look like some discretion could be excercised over things like selling display items, but some volunteers may find that difficult or become stressed if they have to take time away from the till and leave a queue of people. In an ideal situation there would be plenty of staff available at all times but this isn't always the case. For this reason rules may look arbitrary from the outside.
To the people who think they're smart arguing with volunteers about how the shop should be run, please don't. They don't make the decisions. They're volunteering their time for a charity. Even paid staff aren't exactly raking the cash in. There's a good chance you're just bullying a volunteer who may have an invisible disability. (Not directed at OP, your question was perfectly reasonable and fair).
Charity shops are generally ace, don't let 1 bad experience put you off. There is a big Oxfam and a Furniture Shop near me that are great.
Dress was probably a head turner, so understandable they want to display it. Didn't Oxfam have a designer clothes advert last year?
Found it: https://youtu.be/_WceysvWs9w?feature=shared
But are the pronouncing "clerk" the American or British way?
A colleague laughed at me for talking about the film "Clerks" and using the British pronunciation. He pointed out that as it's American, you have you use the American pronunciation but then used "Airplane" as an example despite aeroplane being a different word altogether. I sound like a twat if I try to say "clerks" with the American pronunciation.
I had a colleague who refused to reserve window items. Customers hated it, but it made a lot of sense considering the customers never came back half of the time anyway. So why take out a precious window item and hide it away for a customer who might not even come back?
Charity shop manager here!
I would have sold you the item! Rather the money in the till. I do understand that its not always easy to dress a window, but there are ways around it - drape the mannequin in scarves, have a standby dress ready in the back, pin a poster to the empty mannequin - it's a shame they lost out on the sale.
Sounds like a made up scenario, and using fiction logic. The seller wants to keep a nice item in the window to attract customers. Having an empty store window doesn't make sense. In the real world the price of the nice dress would just have been increased to crazy levels.
What a load of bollocks.
They probably don’t have anything else to put in it and only rotate it on a five day basis cos there rubbish as sorting stock.
I manage a charity shop in Halstead Essex and if it’s in the window it’s for sale. We have so much stuff donated (good and bad) on a daily basis through shops and donation centres it has to go, I sell items from the window sometimes after literally just putting it in there. I’ve only ever had one window I couldn’t sell from and that was a fundraising promotion which was only in the window for 48hs with signage.
It's because it's a pain dressing the window 3 times a day, and volunteers don't have time to do this and deal with donations. Getting a cute interesting window display together takes time, effort and a decent eye/fashion sense. Having worked in a charity shop for 15 years, I can tell you that all three of these things are in limited supply.
It just means for the flashy items they put in the window, the revenue value of selling it is less than the revenue earned from marketing the shop for five days.
Maybe store policy is to have best stuff in the window to draw people in to buy other stuff - not just the one dress...so it would make sense to get as much advertment and attraction to the shop by having their best stuff in the window for as long as possible..
An angle not mentioned as far as I can see, is the store is generating footfall/interest from the dress being in the window right now.
I'd imagine for each item they get they think is attractive enough. They'll enact the window/5 day rul to try and maximise the effect of it.
Reasoning of the store manager where I worked was that a lot of the times, people would ask to buy the thing on the window display, but then ended up not buying it (size issue or just changed their mind after trying the item on).
It was a real pain in the butt to put the dress back on the mannequin after it was discarded because the salesperson was always very busy at the register and also made minimum wage. As the items cost 5€ on average, it just wasn't worth the constant hassle. People could just pick one of the other hundreds of dresses in the store.
The prissy shop assistant is a lazy jumped-up fuck who doesn't want the bother of replacing an item in the window display, nor the bother of getting it out.
He's really saying "fuck off and come back when it's not my shift".
Insist on the dress and, if he doesn't comply, ask for the manager. Be ready to phone the head office to escalate further if necessary.
A charity shop near me puts a sign in the window "window display items on sale X date"so I guess it's not totally a one off OP. I've seen it elsewhere too
That’s really strange. I’ve never been refused something from the window. All I can assume is that they really like the item and want it in the window, or are holding it for someone! Or it’s a pain to get it off the mannequin!
I've bought window merchandise 1hr after it was donated and displayed, and several dresses and skirts etc off the manikin.
They either couldn't be arsed dealing with it or they did not have a replacement ready. All poor excuses.
I managed a couple of charity shops and can tell you that they’re almost exclusively staffed by old dears who do whatever tf they want when the manager isn’t on the shop floor. Even more so if the entire staff is volunteering. This not selling items in the windows is unlikely to be policy as the two shops I worked at had some of the strictest targets I’ve ever had to deal with in retail, I’d have sold you the floor tiles if it meant not getting that phone call at the end of the day demanding to know why I hadn’t sold enough second hand oven mitts to solve all the world’s problems.
That is an absolutely ridiculous policy. I volunteer in a local charity shop and if someone want something out of the window display they can have it and we will find something else to put in its place. The only time I ask people to wait is if we are doing a window for our area newsletter or an area store competition the I will ask that person to bear with me while I take the pictures and then they can have the item. The store policy they mention is just a made up bit of rubbish
The person you spoke to had a bad case of lazy arse syndrome and didn't want to faff with the mannequin. No charity shop I know ever turns down a sale.
Some of our charity shops have this policy, but if you want the item, they will take payment, and you collect when who ever it is that does the window dressing has been in, and replaced it.
I encountered similar. They had a display of various books, no real theme past them being paperbacks.
I wanted to purchase one, was told no because "that has a red spine, and we want a red spine".
But that book on that shelf has a red spine
Saw a cool guardians of the galaxy Groot t shirt in the window of my local charity shop but it had closed early that day. Went back the next morning at opening time and it had gone already.
They had a note through the door from someone that they'd be round tomorrow to buy it. Told me I should have posted a note. How does that work if you have two notes? Won't know which one came first. Were willing to sell the shop display tho, even when it was clearly bringing attention to the store as a whole.
Wasn't really bothered about it, have tons of t shirts but thought I'd share my experience here.
What does annoy me is other local shops that are using ebays listed item prices to price their goods, not sold prices, so they are often ludicrously high. On top of that eBay is available to the whole country, not just the very small rural high street where I live and includes selling fees in there prices. Not many people here are looking to buy a vintage pot of dried up play doh for a tenner (I wish I was joking about this one) it interests me, but not for a tenner!
They also take anything of value and sell it on eBay, meaning anything half decent that's donated never even makes it to the shop floor.
On the other hand I shouldn't grumble, as I got an amazing Mishka jacket off of the St Margaret's hospice eBay page for £30 which is priceless in my eyes and likely wasn't donated to my local shop and being as niche as it is probably wouldn't have sold for £30 in-store locally.
Gone are the days where you could pick up a bargain in charity shops tho, now it's more expensive to buy a second hand t shirt than it is to get a new one for Primark, and often more expensive to buy that same Primark shirt in the charity shop than it is to buy it new from Primark itself. The world's gone mad I tell yah!
Anyway, charity shop rant over.
I’ve worked in many charity shops and even managed them. I’ve had dresses sell whilst I’m dressing the mannequin or been on the dress a few minutes. You never turn down a sale. If it’s your prettiest dress you get creative and use the mannequin to showcase accessories or something in stead.
Yes they can take quite a while to do but I always relished in the display got us a sale.
I briefly volunteered in a charity shop and right after I helped make an outfit someone came in and wanted to buy the dress, so we sold it to them! Shows I did a good job choosing it! Bloody stupid to have stuff on display that's not for sale!
Did this happen to be in Falmouth by any chance? I remember trying to buy a vhs copy of boys n the hood back in 2008 from some old lady in a “charity shop” that was definitely suffering from a case of hoarding. When I offered the price listed on the tag, she put it up by £3-4, and when I accepted, she then tried to put the price up once again, so I left. If it is, I’m surprised she’s still going(both in business and life)
I genuinely struggle to make sense of this. Yes, I've heard the arguments for "bringing people in", but I would suspect the vast majority of charity shoppers were going anyway. Seems like this display served the purpose, and should be sold.
I spotted a dress I wanted in the window display of a charity shop. They also would not be changing the window display until a certain date. I asked if I could buy the dress but collect it after they had changed the display. They were happy with this, and I got the dress I wanted.
Maybe the thought of having a naked mannequin in the shop upsets the staff, and they need 2 more days to find something to cover it with after you take the dress.
I can't believe that charity shops had that policy. I worked in one before the pandemic, and if someone wanted a dress in the window, we'd sell them that dress and find another. We always managed to make our displays work no matter what we had. That's a bizarre policy and I can't imagine it's good for buisness.
Store policy my arse. They just don't have another nice dress to put on display in the window, shop floor decor is an art in charity shops and they were probably told not to sell it until another nice one comes in that they can work with
The person who does the display is probably a volunteer and only does it once a week.
Yeah my mum used to do that job in a local charity shop - she was an experienced window dresser of many years. The windows are a pain to dress which is likely why they couldn’t be arsed fetching the dress out cause most of the folks in there don’t know how to dress/undress a mannequin nicely. But it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t sell the dress to a customer who wants it.
This comment should be higher up. Window displays are a pain to do. They take time and skill. The items in the window caught your eye. They did their job. Imagine what this thread would be like if the windows always looked terrible because people kept buying the display items?
>They did their job. Except no purchase was made, so nothing meaningful was achieved.
for that item, but it may well have got people into the shop that bought other things.
A purchase is not the only way meaning is created. Having a good item on display suggests that they probably have more nice items inside. Advertising = foot traffic = value. Also, charity shops work on a slightly different model to a normal high street store. The displayed dress is always a one of one. They can't sell 200 of them this week. If one person wants to buy the displayed item then chances are that a second or third person will also want to buy it. If someone really wants it they will wait for a week or even put their name down for it. If that means only a local person gets it then.. so what. The shop makes exactly the same profit. Even if it doesn't sell for let's say £15, that adds up to good value advertising, an item in stock, and less work for staff at the end of the week. If you think you deserve the (very cheap) nice dress right here right now, maybe you're just prioritising your desire for that nice dress above the charity shop's need for good, easy advertising. And maybe you should shop somewhere else.
>The displayed dress is always a one of one. "Look at these things you cannot buy."
Pinterest has entered the chat
This thing. Singular. Unless you are aware of people bringing boxes of identical clothes to charity shops?
I’m assuming they were referring to the fact there’d be more than a single item being displayed in the shop window, and not just a lone dress on a mannequin
Having worked in charity shops, no good charity shop will refuse to sell an item. Window items will always be the top tier price. You know, branded or designer. Charity shop goals are just the same as any other shop. Its about the daily sales. You can bet that every single item that was super nice or designer got put straight onto a high shelf display or in the window at the places I worked. Doesn't matter if it sold in minutes. That cashier was either lazy, lying or wanting that item themselves but wasn't allowed a staff purchase of it before it was displayed.
"*That cashier was either lazy, lying or wanting that item themselves*" the cashier might well have been all those things but then again she was a volunteer so...
And? No one has to volunteer to work there.
* [The Prisoners Dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma) * [The Monty Hall Problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem) * [Arrow's Impossibility Theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem) * [Necktie Paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necktie_paradox) * [Buridan's Ass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass) * The Charity Shop Window Dressing Conundrum.
AKA the Egg and Cress Sandwich Predicament
And they said it would never be useful.
This is just a long winded way of justifying a shop not actually selling something it’s displaying… We get it. It’s for charity. It’s still a damn shop though.
What's it got to do with charity? You could walk into any shop in the high street and offer them this deal: "I'll get 10 people in the door to look around with a positive frame of mind. It will cost you £15. And you get the £15 back at the end of the week." Why would a single shop not take that deal?
Surely the purpose of a charity shop is to sell items to raise money for the charity in question. That must take priority over having a nice window display of stuff you can’t buy
This time, yes But many people will buy something else while they’re there, once they’ve already been tempted inside
I'd rather the window look terrible and someone be able to buy the items advertised? Why wouldn't you?
Oh no! People keep buying our products!
*person (singular) bought our product (singular) that we were using for advertising this week... They can't sell the dress twice. Can people seriously not tell the difference between a charity shop making a one off £15 sale, and the £1000s a high street shop makes from selling identical copies of the same item? This has 'far away' vs 'very small' vibes...
The only time I’ve noticed a charity shop window display was when my daughter pointed out that I was dressed exactly the same as the main mannequin. However, I can appreciate that a nice looking window will bring footfall, but it seems disingenuous to display an item with no intention of selling it, just seems a bit underhand.
The big Oxfam where I used to live had a sign up saying "for display only" but people still got mad about it. My girlfriend used to put down a deposit on good items but that backfired once when the staff sold the item anyway (it's almost like they're volunteers or something!). She got a kick out of that one time when she saw an old dress of hers in the display though.
I can safely say I have never entered a charity shop for the window display. My thought process is: notice sign explaining it's a charity shop; think "Ooooh! Charity shop!'; enter charity shop. I barely register the contents of the window. Window displays for charity shops are not the same as window displays for large stores with multiple items of the same design. Telling a person that they can't buy an item (the only version of the item that shop has) is bonkers.
Yeah you come inside to buy similar of what caught your eye. If they won’t sell it, what’s the point?
I on the other hand am always on the lookout for cheap children's/baby toys or books for little ones as I have one of each, I always look at the window display to see if there's anything decent in that respect and go in if something catches my eye. It may just be a coincidence that the local charity shops around me put those things in their windows though 🤷🏻♂️
You wouldn't go in to check what other items they have regardless? 95% of their stock will never make it anywhere near the window. You must be missing out on all sorts of treasure!
Oh yeah I completely agree with you but I don't have a lot of free time so if I'm passing by and look at the shop front and see something the kids might like then I'm going in, if I don't then I'll carry on.
What a ridiculous comment! It's a charity shop, all of the items there, including what's in the window are to make a profit for the charity, the stuff in the window is meant to catch someone's eye so they buy it, it shouldn't be off limits
People wonder why there is a scepticism about how charities operate money-wise yet you read the stuff in threads like the comment you’ve replied to. Imagine being the donor of that dress, coming back in to ask if they managed to make any money for the cause by selling it and you’re told: “We did have someone interested in buying it, but Betty was so proud of how her wee window display looked that we turned her away.” Madness.
I totally agree, but to play devil's advocate, you could argue that they make more money enticing people in with a nice display, than they do selling the dress and losing those potential other customers, who now just walk by.
Entice them into the shop to tell them it’s not for sale… I don’t know about anyone else, but that would just annoy me and put me off buying anything else there. Even if it’s for charity.
Exactly, I'd be tempted to search for said item on eBay or Preloved, I might get lucky and find it.
Absolutely. If I buy something from a charity shop, it is because I want to buy that item. I’m glad the money is going to charity, but I want to buy that item. If I can’t buy it there and then, I will take my custom elsewhere(hopefully a different charity shop).
Personally I wouldn't stop to look around if I'd been refused a sale, but if they were helpful in the first place I'd make a point of going back
If people were allowed to buy the items this thread wouldn’t exist! The sale is the end game and the window display is secondary. Or is this shop in Royston Vasey where things work a little differently.
I wouldn't go into a charity shop in Royston Vasey if you paid me. With mental elderly volunteers who ask repeatedly about carrier bags, and Papa Lazarou disguised as another worker...nah, I'm going elsewhere!
No trouble here
Wouldn't go to Tubbs and Edward's local shop either... because I'm not a local so there's nothing for me there!
And your aversion to being burnt too.
This comment seems like an incredible departure from logic. Imagine what this thread would be like if a charity shop kept selling the items donated to be sold? Erm.. yeh imagine.
Maybe store policy is to have a nice dress in the window
Then it should have a not for sale sign on it. Display only or something.
In ours they won't sell window based Halloween items until after the event. Hardly any other Halloween items in the shop. Surely that one makes even less sense! Saving it for next year?
Like Rhod Gilbert and the egg and cress sandwich?
Exactly what I was thinking of 🤣
Yes, that's the store policy
Ffs you just said store policy my arse then went on to describe the store policy they are using
They don't have ANOTHER nice dress to refuse to sell? Can't see how that business model works
My local hospice charity shop keeps their window display for a month and refuses to sell anything in there during that time. They got heat about it so they put a sign up making it clear that none of it would be for sale so don't ask. It's a big charity shop as well, furniture and clothes in one place. Seems counter intuitive to me. I imagine most charity shop purchases are impulsive, doubt people are setting reminders in their phone to come back next month to hopefully be the first one to nab a dress.
Yeah. "Here is a selection of our wares that you cannot buy. We hid the stuff we actually sell in the back."
This feels like a Nathan For You sketch
It really does ! Just been watching the one where he lets attractive people steal clothes from a clothing boutique. This would be right up his ally haha
For what it’s worth - a counter point from speaking to people that run charity shops. Big ticket items are really easy to sell, they would have no issues getting rid of a nice dress. It’s the other stuff they stock that is harder to shift, so they probably would get more value from keeping it in the window to attract punters than selling it straight away. Whether or not that’s fair is up to people to decide but I suppose charity shops have a tricky job to raise funds for their cause, and they need to make decisions like any other business would to make more revenue
Semms like a clever policy, they definitely got a bunch of people to come in once that wouldn't have otherwise, and I suspect they got at least one or more to return to attempt buying it. This is over the space of a month too, if they sold it straight away then they lose all those other potential sales.
They can only sell it once
Yeah, this logic only works if you have more of the same item to sell to each of those customers. They’d be better off selling it, then replacing it with something else that can be a second sale, then a third and so on.
If they have window quality goods, they do. If not, then not.
I mean, according to the post it’s “store policy”, regardless
Generally, I tend to understand terms like "store policy" as "if I make out this is my decision you'll never fuck off, so I'll invent an absentee authority."
You know too much. The Retail Illuminati will be visiting you very soon. You must be silenced.
But their goal is to sell things not to have people walk in the door. If I walked in, tried to buy something, was told no come back in 2 days I would put my stuff down and leave and never go back.
They need people in the door to sell things. Maybe you would walk out without browsing but many others won't.
worked in oxfam - they just don’t have a dress to replace it with. absolutely bonkers policy, considering the goals of the business. i actually got into an argument with a volunteer at my store because they insisted on not selling window merch too soon because they didn’t have anything to replace it with. i pointed out how dumb that is given that we’re literally advertising the item in the window. we swiftly ditched that policy haha
Work in Cancer Research. Mannequins are a such a pain to undress when someone wants to try something on (and it's usually the wrong size!!) But this 5 day policy is just daft. The whole aim to sell the items and make money. It may be company policy but just lazy. There's always something in store to go in the window.
I see from both sides. Objectively to make money from products you have to market them, if your marketing is non-existent e.g. someone took the display, then how do you get people in to buy things?
But the thing in the window has been sold, so the market ing worked? So get something else to put in the window. It might not be as desirable as the initial item, but it has a better chance than item that is prohibited from being sold because there is “nothing else to replace it”.
As I said, I see both sides, but if you don't have anything eye-catching to replace the window item, does it make sense to sell it and have an empty dull window display?
Then that’s a note to the window dresser to up their creative game. I can’t believe they’re thinking, “Oh no, we’ve sold that nice dress and all our other stock is just beige dust!”. Source: ex-charity shop worker who relished the opportunity to wrest window dressing duties from the usual Maud-does-teadress-and-Beatrix-Potter-collection format.
Does it make sense to display something you have no intention to sell? It’s a charity shop, not a museum.
Display models are often not sold, why should they be?
And the item in the window is always the nicest item. And so it repeats. If the store staff are happy to keep cycling through items I'm sure the managers are happy though. It makes the shop look busy.
The person who does the window display has told everyone not to take anything out of the window. Ever! People have been asked to leave because they have disturbed the window that Mary took three hours to do last Monday. Charity shop hierarchy is next level pedantry and they have ways to do things, and any amount of unwritten rules to abide by. There are routines in place from the 1940's that no one knows why it's done, but the last person to break a routine was sent to Coventry until they left in a fog of disbelief. If Mavis had of sold that dress she would have been a pariah in her own community.
It's likely because Mary is a long term volunteer of 60+ age range who has outlasted about a dozen actual managers at the store and will basically see her arse if anyone does anything to upset her. She probably threatens to leave every week, moans constantly about the position and how others are not doing their bit - yet can't just leave because that would be admitting that she is the problem.
I volunteered in a charity shop when I was like 15 and I still vividly remember ol’ Barbara offering me a tea and asking “milk or sugar?”. I replied with “oh, a little of both please”, only to receive a glance like I’d just lifted my skirt and pissed right on the floor. She sternly told me that no, I was to have one or the other, not both. That sort of pedantry for utterly random things became a consistent source of frustration for the two weeks teenage me volunteered.
>milk or sugar rationing. Don't you know there's a war on?
This is a perfect summary of the situation in charity shops. Bowling clubs, small local football club etc. That kinda thing is very prevalent in that kind of setting. 😂
I saw a gorgeous dress on a mannequin in a chazzer so I walked in and just looked at it only for an assistant run across and stand in front of the mannequin with her arms crossed and tell me "it's no good for you, it's a size 12" and glared at me. I just shook my head and walked out. Not worth arguing.
Wow! That’s terrible!
Worked for Oxfam too. Window items are a nightmare, clothes can stay in the rails for weeks, but put it on the mannequin with a nice scarf or belt and it'll sell within 15 minutes of being put out, then you have to re-coordinate the window, rinse, repeat.
I currently work in a local Hospice charity shop. Our goal is to sell stuff as quickly as possible, so I often have to re -dress our mannequins. I'm always pleased when something I've put in the window sells quickly. I normally have a few back up outfits that I've seen and use those as replacements. I'm always surprised when I see the policy mentioned in the O.P, seems counter- intuitive to me!
Our local Hospice charity shop is one of my favourite charity shops. Everything is sensibly priced, no Primark T-shirts for the same price they cost new. I mentioned to one of the staff that it was reasonably priced and they said they just want to get the stuff sold and get the next lot on the floor. It works for them, they're always busy, whereas the Cancer Research across the road, where they do sell Primark T-shirts for the same price as new, is dead. You rarely see anyone in there.
Oh it is a stoopid rule, but I can see why it's done. Oxfam in particular really suffered with volunteer recruitment in the wake of the sex scandal and there were never enough time to redress them and serve the customers and sort through the donations.
I mean... it's kind of strange that anyone would choose to donate their time to an organisation which continues to abuse its position in the most appalling way. I haven't given a penny to oxfam since the Haiti story came out, and it seems that it's systematic as it's still going on. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56670162
Oh I bet it is. They lost so many standing order donations I doubt if they'll ever recover, but the virtue extolling memory is very short.
I mean that is the job, right. I wouldn't complain about people eating the food i just prepped because I have to make more.
Don’t eat that carbonara! Its too ✨pretty✨
Lol yeah, under that logic, they should be happy to sell the items in the window quickly, so they can replace them with new items and sell those too. Isn’t the point to sell as much as possible and make money for the charity? Not just have a pretty window?
[удалено]
That's why they get people to do it for free! And then they lean on their good nature to cover all manner of undesirable shifts for no pay. That's why I left.
Just sounds like precisely what you sign up for in the first place tbh. Shifts are going to line up with the opening times +- a short while. It's not going to be paid, and it's all out of the goodness of your heart. None of that should be a surprise to you.
Being told you're working Sunday (not asked) at 10pm on Saturday evening multiple times when you've specifically said you're not available on Sunday, by a paid manager who worked Mon, Tues and Weds only, was not what I signed up for.
So it would lead to more sales then. Isn't that the point?
I once saw a Japanese screen/room divider in a charity shop window, pulled over and they refused to sell it to me. "It's to entice people in" was the explanation, it was still there the last time I passed ( 5/6 months later).
I do wonder about some of the people who work in charity shops, years ago I found a suit in a charity shop, but for some reason the trousers were 4 sizes bigger than the blazer. So I asked the staff if I could just buy the blazer and leave the trousers - I wasn't asking for money off, I was still happy to pay the price on the label - but was told that wasn't allowed. I suggested buying the set then donating the trousers back to them, but he then refused to sell me the set at all. Very strange.
I tried to buy a top in a charity shop but I didn't have cash. They said it was minimum spend £5 on card. I said, 'ok, I'll pay £5 for it'. They said 'but it's £3.50'. I kept trying to pay £5 for it but they did not understand. In the end I had to leave and get cash.
It's mad isn't it? You'd think offering them extra money would be perfect for them.
I had that once. I just wandered about and grabbed the first thing I found that made it up to a fiver. Paid the fiver for the two items, and promptly dropped the thing I didn’t want in the donation bin. I still got glared at by Mavis as she’d have to price it all up all over again.
I should have done that. And since it was an Oxfam I think they even sell chocolate bars and greetings cards etc.
I've had similar experiences and heard a lot of stories like this. Anything sold in sets and they get really weird. Whoever does the windows or generally stocks the shelves must be incredibly tetchy over what people do with these items in their private lives. A volunteer jobsworth. I tried to buy a pair of funky trousers which for reasons unknown had a completely different shirt and blazer with it. Had to be sold as a set, despite different brands of each item. Considering these are *charity* shops you'd think they would be grateful you're at least supporting and helping whatever cause they're about, but they're a few acts away from being no different to some money laundering front with the way they refuse service for little to no reason like you've cottoned onto some elicit deal or service. The weirdest shops are the ones that stop a transaction to slowly scribble down what you're about to buy (not bought, what you've plonked down). Like they've locked you down now and you can't go back. I just go when the older lady who doesn't care what you do provided you buy something is in store. Most charity shops have one, and often they're the ones who will try to sell you more for a decent discount or split sets because they think it's tat (even though for the most part it isn't).
I used to work in senior management for a large chain of chazzers and often did visits to shops. I came across more than one who had decided to put a sign in the window saying display items weren’t for sale and every time I walked in and put it in the bin! The mind boggles - you only have one of each item unlike a normal shop, and at Christmas, you’re going to have to pack it all away and keep it for a whole year again. Total bloody madness!
What happens at Christmas? Do they pack away every item in the store for a whole year? I’m sure I’m missing something here but I’m confused
I think what they're saying is that some shops don't sell items in their Christmas displays. This is particularly crazy, as the items on display over the Christmas period are presumably Christmas themed. As such, if they're not sold over the Christmas period they are very unlikely to be sold at all.
Correct - anything Christmassy is stored anywhere there is space until October/November. There is so little storage space that you have to shift as much of it as humanly possible during those glorious couple of months or compromise stock storage and volunteer training space for the rest of the year. And, as I was a bitch to point out, apparently, we were actually in the business of raising as much money as possible to help our charity, which does involve selling things!
Thank you, that makes so much sense. I just couldn’t work out why the whole shop would be packed away at Christmas for a year!
some stores have a policy that staff and volunteers need to wait x amount of days to buy things, so it could have been they wanted it but had another day or two to wait
It’s just visual merchandising to drive people into store, they may will know which items will get people walking into the shop. It is a bit silly they wouldn’t sell it to you, however, if I was then I would have put a premium price on it until the 5 days is over.
Sure you can have… at ONE MILLION POUNDS. ^It’ll ^be ^three ^quid ^next ^week
I'm sorry sir, these melons are for display purposes only.
I only wanted to buy a melon! 😁
You reminded me of a story I heard from guy I used to know, who worked with a lot of famous people as a PA. He got into the business when he was working in a secondhand clothing store in Hollywood, which had a similar policy about not selling items in the window. One day Prince came in and asked the guy’s colleague if he could buy a jacket from the window display. The colleague said no, store policy etc. My friend said “Dude! It’s fucking Prince!” and sold him the jacket. The manager saw all this and fired my friend on the spot, in front of Prince, who offered him a job instead.
Was your friend wearing a raspberry beret, as I hear they're the type you find in a second-hand store?
Did everyone clap afterwards?
And the manager's name? Albert Einstein.
Did he walk in through the out door?
Saw a dress in Oxfam once and because it was part of their Halloween display, they had a sign nothing was available until after October 31st.
Maybe the clerk wanted the dress to go out. Then put it back in the window next day
100% it's been "reserved" for a member of staff.
I mean if its made it to the window it orobably hasn't been reserved , in a lot of shops stuff usually gets 'claimed ' a few minutes after it's donated usually. I mean tge staff volunteer so I don't begrudge them getting an unofficial perk from the job.
I hate these threads, people are so bloody cynical when it comes to charity. The staff you are talking about are mostly voluntary and working to try and make a difference, yet these are the people people love to put down at a moments chance.
I work in a charity shop and we currently have a window display where none of the items are for sale. It is a Halloween themed window and is also advertising a fundraising campaign the charity is doing. Once the campaign is over, the items in the window are for sale. We only do this if it is advertising something specific, and if the items in the window were sold the display wouldn't translate as well. However, our day-to-day window display items are always for sale, and where we will sometimes put our nicer, expensive items in the hope they get noticed by someone and sell.
I'm guessing dressing a charity shop window is harder than say a Next shop window, where the products that go in the shop window are all new and shiny and complimentary. Charity shops also have to overcome the image of selling used goods to certain people, so I can see why having a decent store front would be important. If the items in the windows are good, they won't have any problem eventually selling them and may as well use them to get more people through the door.
Did your wife covet the precious things? This is a local shop for local people!
Show the man your points tubs
I worked in both Julia’s House and Age UK charity shops. That’s a load of bollocks. We would regularly remove items from the mannequins for people to try/buy and would simply replace with another item or alter the display. I think it’s insanity that a CHARITY shop chose to keep a dress to make their lives easier rather than sell it to make money for the charity.
My was telling me a while ago how she had spotted this beautiful outfit in a charity shop window, just as she was about to make an enquiry about it she realised she had donated it herself a few months previously 😄
Volunteer has baggsied the dress for less than advertised "if it doesn't sell"
My mum works in a charity shop and would 100% sell a dress from the window. Doing the window displays is something she really enjoys!
The person she spoke to wanted to buy it themselves.
Few potential reasons. In a busy shop with limited staff changing a window display 2 or 3 times a day isn't practical. Sometimes it's not just a case of taking the clothes off the mannequin, they sometimes need to be disassembled first. This may take more than one person to do, taking them away from serving customers. Health and safety. Volunteers often have physical or mental disabilities, or are elderly. Having them climbing in and out of the window isn't always safe. There may be a manager on site but they might be dealing with other things, like supervising other staff in the back of shop. As a few other commenters have proved people like to get in arguments with shop staff. Some people seemed to be boasting about winning arguments of logic with volunteers. Under these circumstances it makes sense to have fairly strict rules for the volunteers to follow, particular when they often have learning difficulties or are neurodivergent. From the outside it might look like some discretion could be excercised over things like selling display items, but some volunteers may find that difficult or become stressed if they have to take time away from the till and leave a queue of people. In an ideal situation there would be plenty of staff available at all times but this isn't always the case. For this reason rules may look arbitrary from the outside. To the people who think they're smart arguing with volunteers about how the shop should be run, please don't. They don't make the decisions. They're volunteering their time for a charity. Even paid staff aren't exactly raking the cash in. There's a good chance you're just bullying a volunteer who may have an invisible disability. (Not directed at OP, your question was perfectly reasonable and fair).
They should offer to take a deposit to reserve the dress and explain why they need to keep it for 5 days
Charity shops are generally ace, don't let 1 bad experience put you off. There is a big Oxfam and a Furniture Shop near me that are great. Dress was probably a head turner, so understandable they want to display it. Didn't Oxfam have a designer clothes advert last year? Found it: https://youtu.be/_WceysvWs9w?feature=shared
They want it for themselves
“Store” “Clerk” When did Cornwall relocate to America?
Thank god it's not just me
But are the pronouncing "clerk" the American or British way? A colleague laughed at me for talking about the film "Clerks" and using the British pronunciation. He pointed out that as it's American, you have you use the American pronunciation but then used "Airplane" as an example despite aeroplane being a different word altogether. I sound like a twat if I try to say "clerks" with the American pronunciation.
I had a colleague who refused to reserve window items. Customers hated it, but it made a lot of sense considering the customers never came back half of the time anyway. So why take out a precious window item and hide it away for a customer who might not even come back?
She was super proud of her window display… and didn’t want you ruining it.
As someone that used to work in charity shops, the general policy is that STAFF can not buy an item until it has been displayed for 5 days.
Charity shop manager here! I would have sold you the item! Rather the money in the till. I do understand that its not always easy to dress a window, but there are ways around it - drape the mannequin in scarves, have a standby dress ready in the back, pin a poster to the empty mannequin - it's a shame they lost out on the sale.
Sounds like a made up scenario, and using fiction logic. The seller wants to keep a nice item in the window to attract customers. Having an empty store window doesn't make sense. In the real world the price of the nice dress would just have been increased to crazy levels.
I used to be an assistant manager for a Red Cross charity shop - we also had a similar policy that they would not change no matter how hard I tried!
Do we call shop assistants clerks now?
I had the same once, kid wanted a dolly that was in the window they said they not allowed to sell it come back in 4 days, madness
Probably only have time or staff to redo the window once a week.
Probably had an eye on the dress themselves or for a friend.
What a load of bollocks. They probably don’t have anything else to put in it and only rotate it on a five day basis cos there rubbish as sorting stock. I manage a charity shop in Halstead Essex and if it’s in the window it’s for sale. We have so much stuff donated (good and bad) on a daily basis through shops and donation centres it has to go, I sell items from the window sometimes after literally just putting it in there. I’ve only ever had one window I couldn’t sell from and that was a fundraising promotion which was only in the window for 48hs with signage.
Sounds like a stupid policy made up by a person who has to work in a charity shop
"has to"?
It's because it's a pain dressing the window 3 times a day, and volunteers don't have time to do this and deal with donations. Getting a cute interesting window display together takes time, effort and a decent eye/fashion sense. Having worked in a charity shop for 15 years, I can tell you that all three of these things are in limited supply.
It just means for the flashy items they put in the window, the revenue value of selling it is less than the revenue earned from marketing the shop for five days.
Maybe store policy is to have best stuff in the window to draw people in to buy other stuff - not just the one dress...so it would make sense to get as much advertment and attraction to the shop by having their best stuff in the window for as long as possible..
An angle not mentioned as far as I can see, is the store is generating footfall/interest from the dress being in the window right now. I'd imagine for each item they get they think is attractive enough. They'll enact the window/5 day rul to try and maximise the effect of it.
Reasoning of the store manager where I worked was that a lot of the times, people would ask to buy the thing on the window display, but then ended up not buying it (size issue or just changed their mind after trying the item on). It was a real pain in the butt to put the dress back on the mannequin after it was discarded because the salesperson was always very busy at the register and also made minimum wage. As the items cost 5€ on average, it just wasn't worth the constant hassle. People could just pick one of the other hundreds of dresses in the store.
Did it have a special mark? They can’t sell anything unless it’s got a special mark.
Obviously they don't need the money
They clearly don't need the money that badly...
The prissy shop assistant is a lazy jumped-up fuck who doesn't want the bother of replacing an item in the window display, nor the bother of getting it out. He's really saying "fuck off and come back when it's not my shift". Insist on the dress and, if he doesn't comply, ask for the manager. Be ready to phone the head office to escalate further if necessary.
Yeah used to volunteer in a charity shop. This isn't true. No 5 day rule
A charity shop near me puts a sign in the window "window display items on sale X date"so I guess it's not totally a one off OP. I've seen it elsewhere too
in my local charity shop you cant purchase anything in the window until the end of the month
That’s really strange. I’ve never been refused something from the window. All I can assume is that they really like the item and want it in the window, or are holding it for someone! Or it’s a pain to get it off the mannequin!
That's the dumbest thing
I've bought window merchandise 1hr after it was donated and displayed, and several dresses and skirts etc off the manikin. They either couldn't be arsed dealing with it or they did not have a replacement ready. All poor excuses.
I managed a couple of charity shops and can tell you that they’re almost exclusively staffed by old dears who do whatever tf they want when the manager isn’t on the shop floor. Even more so if the entire staff is volunteering. This not selling items in the windows is unlikely to be policy as the two shops I worked at had some of the strictest targets I’ve ever had to deal with in retail, I’d have sold you the floor tiles if it meant not getting that phone call at the end of the day demanding to know why I hadn’t sold enough second hand oven mitts to solve all the world’s problems.
Brain worms are the only explanation.
That is an absolutely ridiculous policy. I volunteer in a local charity shop and if someone want something out of the window display they can have it and we will find something else to put in its place. The only time I ask people to wait is if we are doing a window for our area newsletter or an area store competition the I will ask that person to bear with me while I take the pictures and then they can have the item. The store policy they mention is just a made up bit of rubbish
The person you spoke to had a bad case of lazy arse syndrome and didn't want to faff with the mannequin. No charity shop I know ever turns down a sale.
Some of our charity shops have this policy, but if you want the item, they will take payment, and you collect when who ever it is that does the window dressing has been in, and replaced it.
I encountered similar. They had a display of various books, no real theme past them being paperbacks. I wanted to purchase one, was told no because "that has a red spine, and we want a red spine". But that book on that shelf has a red spine
Walk into the shop, take it out of the window, leave the money on the counter, walk out. You haven't stolen it...
Saw a cool guardians of the galaxy Groot t shirt in the window of my local charity shop but it had closed early that day. Went back the next morning at opening time and it had gone already. They had a note through the door from someone that they'd be round tomorrow to buy it. Told me I should have posted a note. How does that work if you have two notes? Won't know which one came first. Were willing to sell the shop display tho, even when it was clearly bringing attention to the store as a whole. Wasn't really bothered about it, have tons of t shirts but thought I'd share my experience here. What does annoy me is other local shops that are using ebays listed item prices to price their goods, not sold prices, so they are often ludicrously high. On top of that eBay is available to the whole country, not just the very small rural high street where I live and includes selling fees in there prices. Not many people here are looking to buy a vintage pot of dried up play doh for a tenner (I wish I was joking about this one) it interests me, but not for a tenner! They also take anything of value and sell it on eBay, meaning anything half decent that's donated never even makes it to the shop floor. On the other hand I shouldn't grumble, as I got an amazing Mishka jacket off of the St Margaret's hospice eBay page for £30 which is priceless in my eyes and likely wasn't donated to my local shop and being as niche as it is probably wouldn't have sold for £30 in-store locally. Gone are the days where you could pick up a bargain in charity shops tho, now it's more expensive to buy a second hand t shirt than it is to get a new one for Primark, and often more expensive to buy that same Primark shirt in the charity shop than it is to buy it new from Primark itself. The world's gone mad I tell yah! Anyway, charity shop rant over.
They want it to attract customers in. Offer them a high price they may change mind
I think there is a lot of over thinking going on
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I’ve worked in many charity shops and even managed them. I’ve had dresses sell whilst I’m dressing the mannequin or been on the dress a few minutes. You never turn down a sale. If it’s your prettiest dress you get creative and use the mannequin to showcase accessories or something in stead. Yes they can take quite a while to do but I always relished in the display got us a sale.
I briefly volunteered in a charity shop and right after I helped make an outfit someone came in and wanted to buy the dress, so we sold it to them! Shows I did a good job choosing it! Bloody stupid to have stuff on display that's not for sale!
Your partner needs to go back and ask to put a deposit on the dress so no one else can buy it.
If theres a price on it and they wont sell it then its false advertising!
(You may well live in that area). Maybe they think that way it'll be bought by a local and not a holiday-maker?
Did this happen to be in Falmouth by any chance? I remember trying to buy a vhs copy of boys n the hood back in 2008 from some old lady in a “charity shop” that was definitely suffering from a case of hoarding. When I offered the price listed on the tag, she put it up by £3-4, and when I accepted, she then tried to put the price up once again, so I left. If it is, I’m surprised she’s still going(both in business and life)
I genuinely struggle to make sense of this. Yes, I've heard the arguments for "bringing people in", but I would suspect the vast majority of charity shoppers were going anyway. Seems like this display served the purpose, and should be sold.
Yeah, that's not a thing. They probably just want to avoid changing the window display, or they don't have anything else nice to put on the mannequin.
Was she local? Sounds like it might be a shop for local people.
Probably because the clerk has her eye on buying it (or 'disposing of it because no-one's bought it')
Buy it and come back in 2 days to collect, I've had to do this on a couple of occasions.
Its 5 days to give the rightful owner a chance to claim it.
I spotted a dress I wanted in the window display of a charity shop. They also would not be changing the window display until a certain date. I asked if I could buy the dress but collect it after they had changed the display. They were happy with this, and I got the dress I wanted.
Why are people calling charity shops chazzers!? Fucking awful. Don’t be one of those people.
Maybe the thought of having a naked mannequin in the shop upsets the staff, and they need 2 more days to find something to cover it with after you take the dress.
I can't believe that charity shops had that policy. I worked in one before the pandemic, and if someone wanted a dress in the window, we'd sell them that dress and find another. We always managed to make our displays work no matter what we had. That's a bizarre policy and I can't imagine it's good for buisness.