I've been so busy this past week I haven't had time to post my finds at
the shop last Friday, and it is already 'next' Friday - i.e. tomorrow!
Here is what I found last week: Book on recycling - 20 cents. It is about ten years old, but it has some great information about composting. The worms have disappeared from our compost bin, so I'm hoping to find out why, and what I can do to prevent it happening again.
Craft stamper thing. I don't really have a use for it but I have a friend who is very into paper craft and if she can't use it, I guarantee she'll know someone who does! $1.50
Scarf 50c and beautiful scarf clip $3.
Another small bowl for the kitchen shelf where I keep these for little jobs like cracking eggs and putting measured quantities of ingredients into. You know, when you have a few different items to use in a recipe and it is easier to have them all measured out and lined up before you start cooking? (Sorry, nobody wants a how-to lecture on cooking preparation.) This bowl was actually a freebie. Sometimes on Fridays we find a box of perfectly good bric a brac out in the back room, marked to be thrown in the skip, because they have been on the shop shelves for longer than a month, so it is obvious nobody wants to buy them. In the meantime we have donations every day, so we try to put fresh things out and recycle the old ones. Our Friday ladies can't bear waste, so we put them out in front of the shop with a little sign "FREE". They are usually all gone within a few hours!
Toilet roll holder 50cents. LOVE it!! Even if I don't use it for that purpose, I can cut off the kitty fabric and recycle.
Buttons for 5cents each. We have a couple of button jars and regular customers who come in and spill them out down the back of the shop, find the ones they want, and put the rest back in the jar. Last week a woman came in and wanted to buy one whole jar. I said I'd have to tip them out and count them to find out how many there are, and multiply the quantity by 5c to come up with a total. She said no, just give me a price for the lot. I explained again that's not the way we sell buttons because we have customers who like to go through them just to buy a few. She walked out in a huff. So another customer standing by came up with the jar, emptied it on to the counter and we happily sorted through them to find exactly what we wanted!
6 comments:
hi Gina,
it sounds as if you have a really good time on your Fridays. I haven't forgotten about the craft magazines I said I would bring for you when we finally get to visit Eltham. now the warm weather is here it should be soon.
linda x
There will always be more buttons i.e. from clothes that are no good to sell if someone wants to pay for the lot set a price and make the sale.
Op shops are becoming to much like traditional retail outlets. Keep the spirit alive and let someone go home happy.
Point taken Kazza, but we only have two jars of buttons in our little shop, and if we sell one, then somebody else comes in and wants the other, there will be none left for the many who come looking for a handful. As for cutting buttons off clothes we are throwing out, well, if you knew what goes on behind the scenes at most opshops, you would see that nobody has time to do that!
Kazza, I just had a peek at your blog (one of them) - you are very creative! Love that blue summer dress!
yeh i agree with Kazza it wasnt as if they were asking for the buttons for free why not let them have them! Sometimes I think some of you ladies take things a little bit too seriously these things have been donated in the hope theyll be reused I wouldve gone off in a huff as well
Battle of the Button Box could easily be a Danny Katz etiquette write up in The Age lol
Ginia, thank you for your reply to my feedback. And for your lovely comment about my creativity. I like to think I have some but I do not have a current blog?
5 cents is a great price for a button in an op shop. I know of op shops that charge 20 cents! Pricing praise for BSL Eltham with its button stock.
However, probably a bit like Anon I am struggling with the logic of the button policy and procedure for BSL Eltham.
I take your point about being too busy to cut off buttons to refil other jars. I have just started working for an op shop and have been told the same thing. It will be interesting as my passion is recycling and saving stuff directly from landfill therefore if I have my way I will cut off buttons for sale on clothes for the recycling bags when I am in the sorting room. I promise to get back to you on whether it is frowned upon and I am sacked from my volunteer position.
Anyways, I ramble and get off track. Let's get back to the logic of this issue. I can be totally illogical at times, hormonal probably, so I sat down with my hubbie this morning and I mentioned your experience.
He rolled his eyes and said, I just don't get it. Would the milk bar man tell the kid he can only have four jelly beans and not the remaining dozen because someone else might like some. I doubt it was my hubbies reply. It's all about turnover and a sale.
I told my hubbie he was very helpful to this debate and his logic and reasoning were improving.
I then butted in with another example of the customer in Spotlight who wants to buy the last few zippers in the store. Would she be told by the salesperson no you can only have one, two if you ask nicely?
Please believe me when I say I would not have huffed at you personally, you are probably really nice and just volunteering your butt off in the frenetic environment, but the logic of the BSL Eltham button policy and procedure just does not make reasoned sense. It's that fact that would have made me huff and puff too.
The shop where I volunteer has a button box. I can't wait to sell all the buttons in one go because as Anon reminded me who wants to be a serious lady in an op shop.
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