By Katherine Fridlington, Content & Events Manager at Acopia
Volunteers' Week gave me the perfect excuse to step away from my desk and spend a day seeing charity retail from a completely different perspective.
I recently volunteered at my local Oxfam shop, keen to experience first-hand the work that happens behind the scenes in a busy charity store.
Working in a business that supports over 200 charity retailers, I thought I had a fairly good understanding of the sector. Spending a day in-store showed me there is always more to learn and a lot more goes on behind the scenes than I imagined, including a surprise delivery that had the whole team buzzing and one bargain I'm still thinking about!
Oxfam in Chichester is one of my favourite charity shops. Visually it’s like stepping into a boutique, clothes grouped into bright colours that are perfect for summer, an eclectic mix of new goods from luxury Fair Trade coffee to handmade items from Nepal, as well as a very respectable vintage section.
But the shop is so much more than this as I was about to discover.
Lucy Hellen is the store manager here and I realised we had met before when Acopia donated at the branch in Rustington for Second Hand September. Lucy is a very capable and caring manager, everything runs like clockwork and her team clearly enjoy working with her.
And talking of her team of volunteers, they all bring an incredible wealth of experience with them. From exciting careers at the MOD to working as managers at charity shops before retiring, they all share a genuine enthusiasm for giving back their time volunteering.
Everyone was already hard at work and after a lovely warm welcome it was straight to the backroom, coffee and onto the steamer. My only real experience of steamers was seeing them in our warehouse at Acopia, so I was happy to see it in action and learn how to use it myself.
A quick steam can transform the most wrinkled garment, while also helping to freshen it up too. It’s also a second chance to check the clothing over again for any defects or issues when it had been originally priced. Steaming is an essential part of getting donations ready for sale. It’s straight from the steamer and out onto the shop floor on display for sale.
Pricing is the other big part of donation sorting. Again I got to use another key piece of equipment in the backroom, our Velo pricing gun. I was relieved to see it performed exactly as I had hoped with zero jams, and more importantly, the team like it too.
The hot topic in the back room was the impending arrival of a donation of clothing from Marks and Spencer’s! I had no idea that M&S donate some of their stock to charity and I was delighted to hear this, being a big M&S fan. If you remember their Shwopping campaign, this is an evolution of this idea. The donations could be M&S branded clothing or other brands that customers have donated to them, customer returns, or items that have slight defects.
These arrived after lunch to much excitement (not that the team stop for lunch!) and I was given the privilege of opening the boxes! The backroom became a sea of clothing, all now needing checking, pricing and steaming (where required). It’s a huge ongoing process and all the time the team are also receiving donations from kind customers throughout the day.
Around six pairs of brand new wide leg jeans came out of the boxes which I priced up at just £13.99! These are currently in the shops selling for £50! This is the bargain I mentioned at the start and such generosity from M&S which goes by largely unnoticed.
The day just flew by and I really enjoyed my time getting to know the team but also seeing firsthand how much volunteers are relied upon, from serving customers to visual merchandising and managing the important donation process which is the lifeblood of the charity shop - volunteers play a vital role in every aspect of the operation.
And after spending all day on my feet, I certainly came away with a new appreciation of the very hard work that goes on behind the scenes of a charity shop.
For many customers, a charity shop visit lasts only a few minutes. What they don't see is the huge amount of effort taking place behind the scenes to turn donations into vital fundraising income.
