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Charity Shops

[Poll #1557343]I was annoyed by a local charity shop today. I spotted a bird book in one yesterday that looked potentially valuable to me. It was priced at £2. I told the girl on the counter to seriously consider pricing it at a minimum of £10 and when I got home I looked it up on the Internet to find that the cheapest copy for sale was £75.

Went back to the shop today to be told by the guy in charge that he'd sold it to one of the staff. He wouldn't tell me the price, but he stated that as a matter of principle he never priced a book higher than £5. (I'm hoping he sold it to the girl I spoke to, because I think she'll give most of the money to the shop if she sells it elsewhere.) He also added that he sold children's books at 10p and was most disgusted that Oxfam charge 30p for them.

I've spoken to this guy before. His shop barely makes enough money to cover the rent. It isn't hard to see why....

He also believes that charity shops should never compete with other shops. In fact, it is positively sinful for charity shops to compete with book shops. The fact that there are no book shops in Broadstone seems to have slipped past him.

Went into another charity shop in Broadstone and was pleased to see that the skirt I'd donated the day before was on sale at £4.99. (The other place would have sold it for less, which is why they didn't get it. They underprice everything, but the shop looks so tatty that not many people go in there in the first place) Both shops support similar charities - Age Concern and Help the Aged, but the contrast between the two is amazing.

One is dingy and full of junk. The other is clean and bright and has clothes that are properly sorted and priced (and steamed). I shop in both, but I spend more money in the nicer one.

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I'd take the charity involved into account, and the state of the books I was donating!

Mm, this. And (being quite lazy) how close / convenient it was to drop them off.

One of the charty shops Oxfam I think has a specialised second hand book store in Cambridge. Where 1st editions and antiquarian books are priced at the market value.

all our books arepricedby experienced people. We do put rares on ebay and abebooks. generally books are priced at what the shop managers feel is a fair price.

most of the books are listed centrally online (via oxfam.org.uk/shop) and we have now instigated optional p&p - it up to you what (if anything) you pay for postage. We have around 500000 books on the DB now and theres some excellent rares and bargins - i got a complete set of Iain M Banks paperbacks for 20 for everything.

I learnt book-pricing from Oxfam (went on one of their internal courses), which is one reason why I was so annoyed, because I know what books can fetch when they're properly sorted and priced.

(The cheapest online copy I saw of Tunnicliffe's Birds was from Oxfam at £75 - their book sorter had clearly spotted it as special)

It was a copy of Tunnicliffe that they had priced at GBP2? That's a bit of a cock-up.

That said, had they priced it at GBP75, how likely would they have been to have sold it? This is one reason why I think that cooperation between charity shops and specialist booksellers is vital; the charity won't get the full GBP75 from the bookseller, but 50% of GBP75 for a book that sells is better than 0% of GBP75 for a book that doesn't.

It was Tunnicliffe, and the book was in good condition, as well.

Personally, I'd have priced it at £50 to put in the shop (or possibly asked a dealer if he'd give that much), but then tried for £75 on the web (after checking to see if condition, etc. justified more/less).

You should always try the shop first. If people get used to the concept of you having specialist interest books, then they'll start coming in to look for them. (and serendipity should never be discounted - sometimes the right person for the book just happens to come by. I've seen it happen.)

I don't tend to analyse my charity shops that carefully when it comes to donating - we have sufficient of them that I either donate to the first one I get to or donate a bit to several of them in succession (as I did when I hade 4 or 5 nags of kids clothes to pass on). Getting myself out of the door and to a charity shop with the stuff to donate is usually surprising enough in and of itself.

That said I do think that he's an incredibly poor manager because defintely the point of a charity shop should be to maximise revenue, not worry about whether they are offering too much competition to other shops in an area.

I tend to donate to the Children's Hospice shop, habit as well as wanting to support that particular charity.

Just done the poll.

I went for selling to local dealers because they'd know the value and it would place the book into the correct market. Maximising money might be short term as opposed to building up a relationship with dealers.

The Children's Hospice shop prices at around £2, but that's not the reason I choose them. In fact I've never really thought about this element at all.

Also their prices tend to drop when they have too many books and need to shift stock.

My Mum works in a charity shop doing the book section and her policy is anything too tatty (torn or obviously stained) goes out to the discard box which goes to a scrap paper buyer.
Reasonable condition (obviously read with maybe creased spine or slightly dogeared) gets priced on a scale with doorsteps going for more than short novels and kids cheaper than adults but again on a scale. Hardbacks slightly more but not too much, they want to shift stuff after all.
Anything that looks interesting is put to one side to be shown to their expert who will suggest prices based on what it is and what he knows the local market will bear. If it's really interesting then it's up to the charity (a small local one) whether they want to try taking it up to London to an auction house.

I'm not sure, but I don't often buy fiction books at the Oxfam in town becaues they're usually only a pound less than the publishers marked price, and Amazon have usually got them for much less than that, and while I want to support charities, money is tight and books are a luxury right now. Their non-fiction and foreign books are much better aimed..

I didn't do your poll but I am roughly in agreement with you.

Haven't done the poll. There are problems with trying to realise collectible value in high street charity shops.

The internet is a world wide market for people specifically looking for that item, and is also full of trade chancers with automated pricing systems setting ludicrous prices on books. Typical examples: ex-library bookclub priced as if scarce, mint first edition; or alternatively new paperback priced at a penny with p+p £4.95. The local charity and second hand bookshop market is for people with a bit of time to spare and an inclination to buy books, but either not much money to spare or not enough interest in that particular book to seek it out specially. Neither group will pay collectible prices in charity shops.

So the 'right' answer is probably something like: if you think it might be worth more than a tenner try to send it to the bigger market (i.e. specialist bookshop, eBay etc) that will put that value on it, otherwise put it out for less.

Couldn't have put it better.

"The local charity and second hand bookshop market is for people with a bit of time to spare and an inclination to buy books, but either not much money to spare or not enough interest in that particular book to seek it out specially. Neither group will pay collectible prices in charity shops."

I remember selling a first edition of Masefield's "Box of Deights" for nearly £300 over the counter. I think that was the sale that finally convinced the inexperienced volunteers in that particular Oxfam bookshop that collectables really were worth pricing properly.

So, I'd agree with you largely, but I'd always try selling it in the shop before putting it out to specialists or Ebay.

(I agree that some people selling online haven't a clue)

When I donate books to charity shops, I donate to charity shops that have the sort of books that I tend to buy (on the grounds that the sort of person who's likely to buy my books will probably have similar tastes to myself, and so will be looking in places that stock the sort of books I like).

I don't donate books to charity shops that price their books above the rates that non-charity second-hand bookshops charge. My comparison points here are Porcupine Books (for SF) and Peter Rhodes (a local dealer here in Southampton).

I have an issue with certain charity bookshops (particularly Oxfam in Bath) who seemed (c. 2005) to price collectible books at the maximum asking price on eBay/Abebooks *regardless of condition and whether the books were selling at that price*. This is an example of greed and not knowing the market (and, quite frankly, a good example of why charity shops should work with secondhand book dealers rather than trying to drive them to extinction).

You've been talking to Brian!

One of the (many) reasons why the internet has helped drive local second hand bookshops out of business is that high street booksellers using the internet to drive their prices don't understand their markets - they are not professional.

It's a conclusion I'd arrived at before I first talked to Brian, but yes.

It's vital to take account of condition. It makes a big difference to what a book is worth.

There's a good example of this currently on the Oxfam website: a 1st ed. 2nd imp. copy of the Gollancz hardback of Neuromancer, condition listed as 'fair', asking price GBP1000.

Checking on Abebooks, there are 'very good' to 'fine' copies for considerably (20%) less than that price.

This is a subject close to my heart as I get most of my books from charity shops. I find the smaller (ie local) charities charge less than the big ones. And the dedicated charity bookshops, mostly Oxfam, are stupidly overpriced compared to other charity shops.

I don't think charity shops really compete with, in this case, bookshops. There's a reticence amongst a lot of the population to shop in them as they still have a very downmarket reputation. Book lovers (as a lot of your f-list is I suspect) will shop in both. Charity shops main competition will be other charity shops, especially in low income areas like here in Walthamstow where the they are always busy.

I've been buying lots of videos recently. I always get them from the shop that sells 5 for a £1, watch them, and give them back. I treat it as a dirt cheap rental service, and they get the revenue multiple times. When I buy elsewhere, they go back to the cheap shop.

A charity called Lifeline runs book fairs here in Canberra. They are enormous in size and scope. You can find some good deals but they are no fools when it comes to rare and collectible books.

Getting the charity shop to accept donations of books is the problem, in my experience.

After lugging books to one shop yonks ago and being told they wouldn't take them, I changed strategy for the next time I had books to get rid of. I was going abroad for a year and de-cluttering. I popped into a shop across the road from where I work. Yes, said the man, they would take them.

Turned up the following day with two large boxes full. The woman in the shop said they didn't want any more books. When I protested, she agreed to take one box. So I waited until she took that box out the back, sneakily dumped the second box in the shop and made a run from it.

Is forcing donated books onto a charity a sin?

It depends on how much space they have in the back room. They'll often refuse donations of all kinds if they're out of space.

If you've ever been in the back room of an overloaded charity shop, you'll understand.

I recall one time in Oxfam when the sacks were piled so high that it was totally unsafe. (Well, several times, actually)

I do entirely understand. This is why I popped in the day before to see if they were taking books. The manager had obviously not told her staff that they weren't. After making all the effort to take them there (park on yellow line etc.), I really wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.

I hoped they sold them to a deserving SF fan in Aylesbury.

Very fair point. IF you check beforehand, then you have a right to expect they'll take them.

It's complicated. Here, most charity places (and the annual book fair) will charge low because people aren't going to pay much. Maybe in the capital cities they could price up (and the book fair does have a 'specials' table, but the prices are still not that high) but there really isn't a practical way to get them to collectors' attention (ebay et al involves postage, lots of postage)

I guess they look at it as better a dollar in the hand than books sitting on the shelves and taking up room for months...

Most second-hand books will never fetch more than a few pounds, but books on certain subjects like railways, for instance, will hold their value for a very long time and should be priced for collectors.

Even with overseas postage, the right book will sell on ebay. If you're paying £75 for a book, then £10 postage might not be a killer. It's not worth it for novels (apart from hard-back first editions), but the more specialist the book, the more likely that the right buyer will pay for it.

I think it's a case of pricing to sell (no good having something at 15 quid if nobody's likely to walk past and buy it at that price.) If they can afford to get a good price via ebay or dealers without building up lots of unsold stock, great, do it! If not, then I'd rather they gave things a realistic selling price. Realistic doesn't mean dirt cheap -- it depends a lot on quality and sellability.

I find the Amnesty bookshop has a wider and more realistic range of prices than our local Oxfam. Oxfam's prices are higher overall, but I spend much more in Amnesty because I usually make a few cheap whimsical purchases on the offchance. Paperbacks might be 75p, 1, 2, 3.50 etc, or 4, 6 or more for certain items. Items that aren't selling go out on the front for 20p. I'd rather ride to the amnesty shop and spend 6-8 quid on a bundle of books that look interesting than spend 4 or 6 quid on a single book in Oxfam that I may or may not like.

Age Concern and Help the Aged are in the process of merging. They will probably consolidate their shoppage. I wonder which business model will win out?

Pretty much a no-brainer. The one that raises most money.

It's also noteworthy that the better shop finds it much easier to attract volunteers. The lesser shops often has to close for lack of staff.

Actually I was just thinking about this - how many charity shop workers have the time to check book values on the internet? Most of them won't be worth anything. And the same thing applies to designer clothes, works of art etc. I bought a copy of the old Games Workshop game Talisman in good condition for £5 and I've seen worse examples being sold by dealers for £100. Charity shop workers just can't be experts, really.

The trick is to learn to recognise key categories of books and have a check list of names of collectable novelists. (Check lists of this kind are very useful for unskilled volunteers, but training courses can also be helpful)

Having said that, 90% of donated books are paperback novels and those are almost never collectable, so are just sold on age and condition. (though I did once catch a rare Dr Who novel) Sorting paperback novels is an art, and can be quite fast once you get your hand in.

If you have a book on birds, canals, railways, knitting, etc, you check the price (knitting books sell well at present as a lot of people are taking up knitting). If you see a book by a famous writer, then you check to see if it's a first edition. (You get good at spotting first editions after a while). Only some first editions are valuable, and condition is very important, but many are worth £10-£30 and some are significantly more.

You get better over time.

It's great if you have someone who knows designer clothes - I remember one Oxfam shop manager locally who was brilliant in that area, but lesser mortals learn to check the label and look at the list provided to see if a dress is an expensive brand. Likewise, I remember check lists of what was currently in fashion.

You can't get experts in all areas (charity shops LOVE volunteers who can identify valuable china/art/etc), but the better shops have experts who visit now and then and check stuff over.

Having said all that, there will always be something that slips the net. Your game is a good example.

IMO Charities should attempt to get good value from their donations, but that doesn't mean that they should always attempt to *maximise* their return simply because many of their customers are students/ unemployed etc who might like to get something a bit nicer than they can usually afford.

Talking of books, I once heard from a friend that he'd been in a Charity Shop that was selling copies of the "99p Classics" series for £1.25 each!

Oh yes, Oxfam tried selling them for £1.50 - I pointed this out to them and they shrugged. This was many years ago though.

The pricing policy of shops around here tends to vary enormously - we have shops charging £5 for a second hand book that you can get new on Amazon for less, and you have places like our local Wildlife Centre charging 10p per book and 30p for hardbacks. I gave the Wildlife Centre far more than they'd try to charge me, but still far less than they could have sold the books to me for: they tried to charge me £1.10 for 2 hardbacks & 5 paperbacks, including a hardback by a best-selling author, which is not yet in paperback (though we already had 2 of the paperbacks & were buying them just in case we'd lost them). From the pleased response, I'm guessing that most people are happy to pay the least they can get away with, even if it's for charity.

I've never actually recognised a collectible book in a charity shop. The Wildlife Trust would probably sell them for a pound if you said it was collectible!

As for giving books to charity, I won't give books to a charity I think are charging far too little for (or far too much).

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