A NFP thrift-store shopkeeper writes: 
Needing some advice on processing donations. Our hospital thrift shop has a lovely, good-sized, well-lit store. BUT … the area to process donations is very small and piles up quickly with, on late Saturdays, yard sale castoffs and sometimes very heavy items. We’re all volunteers, nearly all women, and nearly all in our 60s to 90s!!! How do you manage your piles, in other words?????
Let’s go with the piles metaphor: Applying some Preparation H should do the trick!
First off: Have your H ready-to-go. Depending on how you manage your price tags, HANDY could help move salable goods from piles to perfection. Pre-prepared tags, stored next to where your piles accumulate, could cut tagging and decision-making down to seconds. Whether you store pre-printed price tickets in manila envelopes push-pinned to a corkboard, or have shoeboxes full of $5, $7, $10 tags, just having them to choose from means that bundle of jeans can be dealt with immediately… before they get buried beneath another pile of incoming.
Another H to hep move mounds to desirable merchandise: Think HYGIENIC.. as in cleaning things up so they are sales floor-ready. While I am not always a fan of pre-dampened cleaning wipes, these may be called for in a pile situation: Wiping down those florist vases with glass-cleaner wipes, or wooden goods with a polish wipe, could quickly diminish the incoming catastrophe. On Monday, these lick-and-a-promise goods can be more carefully groomed on the ales floor as volunteers chat, straighten, and cashier.
Then there’s the HORROR aspect of Preparation H: Things that should never have been donated to your cause to start with. You know what I’m talking about: the soiled undergarments, broken figurines, singleton dinner plates. Be relentless in trashing these… don’t be tempted to put these items aside “to deal with later.” As anyone in the resale industry knows, later never comes. Spend your, and your volunteers’, time on what will raise funds, not sap energy. Sure, maybe that dinner plate will sell for a dime, but is it worth the work and floor space?
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
I just inherited St. Christopher’s Thrift Shop and I have all the same challenges I’m reading about here (along with a few more lol). I feel like I have a million “first things to do” and like I need every product I see on the site. I’m so happy to have found this resource & can’t wait to delve deep into all this knowledge & experience.
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Thank you that is in the works…I am on the right track. Plus we have the Knights of Columbus willing to help out. I wish you could come help. I think we are just getting a huge overflow coupled with mainly ladies in their 60 to “almost” 90s. When you described that one store it was like you were describing us to a T! We do a bag sale 4 times a week. Today I am starting a progressive sale in hopes of dwindling down the inventory. The lady who started this was an amazing woman, my mentor and dear friend. I read somewhere you have a booklet we can order. Can you send me a link?
I would be happy to buy anything you think can help me make this store better.
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Glad to hear that you’re on the right track! The link to my Too Good to be Threw Products for the Professional Resaler is TGtbT.com/shop.htm and if you click on the tab “New Here?” in the header of this blog, you’ll find all the resources I’ve created for shopkeepers. And if you are a member of NARTS, we have a private discussion board that you can utilize as well.
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I was just blessed with the St. Michael’s Thrift Store. Many of the issues you have discussed are now my issues. My biggest problem is the excess of clothes. What do you do with what you “shouldn’t” sale?
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Amy, welcome. There are many things you can do with excess donations, depending upon your market. Dollar racks, bag sales, are a good way to pass on items of low value, if you have the space and labor and potential market to do so. Perhaps a monthly event?
Salvage companies are another possibility; you might investigate that. They pay, usually, by the pound.
Basically it boils down to: are these usable items that your area would appreciate, or are they truly past the point of usability? Can you afford to handle them, or must you simply toss into a barrel to be able to have the time and space to process items which will sell for more?
Another thought, if you are coming fresh to the shop: Are you faced with an excess of items because they are simply coming in faster than you can SELL them? If so, this might be a selling problem rather than a receiving one. Watch your turnover, adjust prices if need be, work on building more sales more often to more people, or even change your store’s floor plan to increases sales.
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I would be happy to visit with you about the things I’ve learned over the past 8 years regarding this problem. Feel free to email me your contact and we can visit sometime. I too run a resale shop for the YWCA Battered Women’s shelter in Oklahoma City. Our shop is called Our Sisters’ Closet. Sincerely, Cindy Reynolds
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Thanks, Cindy, that’s very kind of you!
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Thanks Kate. You are always informative and timely.
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Thanks, Plush… of course this post was aimed at our NFP sisters in resale, and I’m sure YOU never have piles 🙂
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