Salvation Army opens the door to new Croydon charity shop

Croydon celebrated the opening of a new Salvation Army Trading Company charity shop as it welcomed its first customers to the brand new store at 249 Lower Addiscombe Road, Croydon on the 4th February.

The opening ceremony was a huge hit with Croydon shoppers and the shop was chock-a-block with bargain hunters who had gathered to be among the first to browse the high quality items for sale.

Area Manager for Salvation Army Trading Company, Salvador Fernandez commented: “The opening ceremony proved to be a big success and the shop’s team of staff and volunteers received some heartwarming comments from the local community who attended. We’re delighted to be establishing an even stronger presence in Croydon to complement the amazing work done by The Salvation Army’s Croydon Citadel and we’d like to thank everyone who came to the opening to show their support for the Salvation Army.”

Salvador continued: “We’re always looking for extra shop volunteers to join the Croydon team, so we were delighted when three people signed up on the shop’s first day of trading. We’d like to encourage anybody who’s interested to pop in and talk to our friendly staff. There’s a whole range of tasks to get involved with, including merchandising, steaming and hanging clothes, ticketing and coding and we provide training on all aspects of the work. If you think you can spare any time at all, please do get in touch.  

“We’re also keen to encourage donations from the public, whether it’s clothes, shoes, accessories or homewares. We only ask that items are clean and in good condition.”

Profit from the sale of donated clothing contributes to the valuable social welfare work of The Salvation Army, including homelessness and addiction services, care for older people, help at emergency incidents, support for adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales, a Family Tracing Service and much, much more. Over the last five years alone the Salvation Army Trading Company has donated over £35 million to the charity.

Customers visiting the new shop will be offered one of its innovative loyalty cards. The free ‘re:ward’ card rewards customers each time they spend £5 in the shop or donate their unwanted items using one of the shop’s reuseable ‘re:bags’.

Each time a customer spends £5, one side of their re:ward card will be stamped, with 10 stamps entitling them to a £5 credit to spend in the shop. On the other side of the card is the reward scheme for donations, which works in conjunction with a re:bag – a reusable black, white and red bag that can be bought at the shop for 99p. Each time a re:bag is brought into the store full of donations, a stamp to the value of £2 will be given.

For more information click here.