St Luke’s Hospice in Cheshire increased its revenue from the sale of donated goods by £10,000 in the first five months.

The hospice installed Nisyst’s CHARiot EPoS system into its nine charity shops plus its hospice shop to automatically collect Gift Aid and drive revenues on all donated goods.

CHARiot enables all of St Luke’s Hospice’s shops to collect Gift Aid donated items from donors that have signed up to the Gift Aid scheme. As a result, the charity has seen an additional 25 per cent in revenue from around 30-35 per cent of donations which amounts to an approximate £35,000 boost in income from Gift Aided sales.

Key features

• Increased revenue from the sale of donated goods by £10,000 in the first five months

• Investment in the CHARiot system will have paid for itself within one year of installation

• The charity has seen an additional 25 per cent in revenue from around 30-35 per cent of donations

• £35,000 boost in income from Gift Aided sales

• Simple-to-use technology for volunteer users

• Successful roll out across its charity shops

Steven Holmes, retail and hospice operations manager at St Luke’s Hospice commented: “With our network of shops selling donated goods, we knew that collecting Gift Aid on every sale would help us increase our revenues and that a charity-specific EPoS system was the only effective way to achieve that.

“As a charity, we needed to ensure that our investment in EPoS was spent wisely and we considered three different systems, opting for the CHARiot system from Nisyst because it’s simple for our volunteers to use, uploads donor details quickly and enables us to process Gift Aid claims easily through our accounts systems.”

Nisyst worked closely with St Luke’s Hospice to specify the right software and hardware for the charity’s shops and training was provided for shop staff and volunteers over three days. This enabled staff in each shop to become familiar with the system so that they could share their knowledge and become confident when using it in real life situations.

St Luke’s Hospice expects to achieve payback for the CHARiot system within one year and is continuing to sign donors up to the Gift Aid scheme.

Steven Holmes adds: “The introduction of EPoS to our shops marked a major change and a significant investment for us but the level of service and simple-to-use technology has given us confidence all the way through the process, maximising the value of donations.”