Great idea for charities (General Charity Shops)

Member Name: mizzy

Product:	General Charity Shops
Date:	21/02/09 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: They make money, I get rid of my junk

Disadvantages: They must pay a lot of rent/bills

I worked in a charity shop for Age Concern when I was 14 doing my Duke of Edinburgh award. They were very kind to let me work there, and offered me all sorts of training, such as till work, cashing up, stock work, pricing, and sorting stock. For a 14 year old I felt so grown up and it was great when my friends came in and saw me behind the till. I also loved serving my mums mates when they came in.

The best bit was sorting out the new stock that came in, although there were sometimes so minging clothes that smelt so bad, there were so gems. I got loads of surf labeled stuff for virtually free, as I had a kind manager.

Charity shops are a large part of earning money for the charity. Its not just the clothes that are important its the volunteers who run the shops and the managers who get paid hardly anything for working really long hours. My manager was on £5500 a year and she worked 5 days a week, sometimes 6!

Most charity shops sell clothes, books, toys and bric a brac. One of the main jobs of the charity shop worker is to judge how much to price these goods at. I was usually left on my own to do this, with a vague guide of how much to charge depending on where the stock had come from. If it was a label then it had to be above a certain price.

Doing this for 6 months definately got me thinking about the value of clothes and I knew what sold and how much to price it at to get it to sell and try and make a bit of money for the shop.

The charity box next to the till is also important. Lots of things were priced at something 99 so there was always a penny or 2 change. Lots of people tend to put this back in the charity box. Sometimes they felt bad for putting so little in, and they would put up to £1 in! My job was to count this box on a saturday, though it was emptied daily and there was almost always an extra tenner in there, which the manager put straight in the till for profit.

I really liked working there, all the staff were very nice and I only left when the manager changed. I think I worked there for about 8months volunteering 3 hours a week. It got me a future job in retail at the age of 16 and was great for my confidence and people skills.

Now I tend to use charity shops for fancy dress costumes, and books, as they are loads cheaper than buying them new. I dont really buy clothes as I find them shapeless as they have been worn a lot. I donate anything I dont want anymore such as clothes to my local charity shops and they are always very friendly and happy to receive my donation. It makes me feel good that Im helping towards their profit.

Summary: I really enjoyed working there