Retail Therapy days

Project overview

Saint Francis Hospice, Romford, has 15 charity shops and a warehouse. However there is no shop on the hospice premises and none in the local area.

A couple of years ago, the hospice set up a pop-up shop, to give patients, staff, and visitors some much-needed retail therapy. Since then, the Retail Therapy days have grown in popularity. Each one follows a theme, with music and refreshments included.

Outcomes

Retail Therapy days are held twice a year and make on average around £2,000 per day. This is the equivalent of what one of the smaller hospice’s charity shops generates in a week.

However, there is also an important social value. The pop-up shop opens up the hospice to the wider community, bringing in people from the local area who might never have been to a hospice before.

Staff, volunteers, patients, and family members come together at the pop up shop, meeting new people and talking about the items on sale. This gives them a few minutes’ break from the stresses of work, or of living with a terminal illness.

The refreshments also give people the opportunity to stop and chat, and this has resulted in some therapeutic discussions.

Key facilitators

The pop-up shop is hosted by the hospice’s Education Centre, which has the perfect atrium space. The Retail team have worked to provide the same customer experience as you would find in one of their shops, including:

• changing rooms
• music
• a till with cash/card/phone purchases
• a return and refund service, via the warehouse.

The whole event is a team effort. Stock for the shop is provided by the retail teams, who send their best quality items. The hospice’s E-commerce team label up the stock and a team of two staff members and three volunteers set up the shop.

As the Retail Therapy days have developed, the team have asked customers what they would like to see in the shop. Some of the requests have been surprising, for example coat hangers!

The events are advertised in advance, within the hospice and the local area. The team also share the amount of money raised afterwards.

Hospice staff have been very supportive of the Retail Therapy days. Some even invite their family and friends to come along to do some shopping and see where they work!

Challenges

At first, it was difficult to know what stock to bring to the pop-up shop. But over the years, the team have listened the feedback from colleagues at Saint Francis Hospice, and are now able to search in the stores for items they think will sell.

The Retail Therapy days receive great feedback – that lifts the team and gives them renewed energy to search for items to sell. They want to get this right!

The Retail team would love to take the Retail Therapy Days ‘on the road’ if they can secure the resources. This would help raise awareness of Saint Francis Hospice services, as well as income generation and sustainability.