With charity shops recently becoming more popular than ever, it’s not surprising that a lot more people are beginning to realise that it’s a brilliant way to increase donations and raise awareness for their charity. However, charity shop owners are constantly thinking about different ways that they can raise the bar and bring in even more funds.

Do you know how you can make the most of your donations and make more money for your charity? Here are some of our very best top tips to help you out.

Getting Your Window Display Spot On

It’s important that the window display of your charity shop is perfect, as this will be people’s first impression of your store. The aim is to get customers into the shop; therefore you need to attract them by having a brilliant and attractive window design. As well as bringing in more customers; you also want to attract donors and volunteers.

It should be smart and not overcrowded, and everything should be clearly priced. It’s a good idea to make your display seasonal – so it should be changed regularly to fit in with different periods and times of the year. We also think that a display should be colourful so that it’s more likely to grab attention.

Create an Online Store

A good way of making money for your charity is to create an online store where you can sell all of your high value goods. A lot of charities, whether they are big or small, have found a number of benefits in starting an online shop. The main thing is that it reaches a wider audience, as it’s accessible to people outside of your local area. It also allows you to raise more awareness for your charity and therefore hopefully raise more money. You can also target specific audiences if the products that you are selling are specialist items.

Use Gift Aid

Gift Aid is a brilliant way of raising money for charity without actually paying any more money. Your customers can choose to add Gift Aid to their donations/purchases, as long as they pay income tax. They fill in a short declaration that confirms they pay this, and then 25% more value is added to their donation which can then be claimed by the charity.

Here at Charity Retail Systems, our charity EPoS system makes collecting Gift Aid really easy for you. It has an automated system which processes Gift Aid easier and makes sure that charities benefit from it a lot quicker.

If you would like more information on how you can use one of our systems in your store, please just get in touch. You can give us a call on 01204 706 000 and a member of our team will be happy to answer any questions.