Most people don’t think much about who runs an op shop.
The stock is donated. Many of the staff are volunteers. It feels informal, community-driven …and that’s part of its charm. But behind that relaxed atmosphere is usually one person holding the whole thing together.
Op shop managers run a full retail operation on a shoestring. They receive stock they didn’t order and can’t predict, price it quickly and consistently, and meet revenue targets that directly fund charitable services. When the numbers fall short, it’s not just a business problem…it impacts the people and services those charities support and provide.
Many are not on a living wage. Yet they’re responsible for managing teams that often include both paid staff and volunteers, sometimes large ones …each with different expectations, motivations, and needs. That’s a genuinely complex people management role, in any context and can be quite a juggle.
And sometimes the expectation, unspoken but present, is that they shouldn’t need to be paid much at all. That working for a charity should be its own reward. That passion should make up the gap.
But managers have rent. Bills. The same cost of living as everyone else. And in this environment, who can actually afford to donate 40 hours a week and survive somehow?
To the charities and organisations running op shops if your manager is not at least on a living wage, that’s worth looking at seriously. The revenue they generate funds your mission. The least that mission can do is make sure the person delivering it can pay their own bills.
And they do it in one of the only retail environments where customers regularly feel comfortable telling them how to do their job. Not unkindly, always but constantly. The pricing, the sorting, the layout, the decisions. Everyone has a view. And some go further …verbal abuse is not uncommon, directed at people who are simply trying to do their job in service of a charity.
Most of the time, managers absorb it quietly. Because the job asks them to. And because many have media clauses in their contracts, meaning they can’t publicly respond, defend their decisions, or tell their side of the story, even when they’re criticised online.
Often they take the scrutiny in silence.
It’s completely fine to put something back if the price isn’t right for you. That’s how shopping works. But if you’ve ever wondered why something costs what it does, there’s usually more thought behind it than it seems, and a person who genuinely cares about getting it right.
That deserves to be seen. And it deserves a thank you.
So to all the Op Shop managers out there – thank you ❤️
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