Trading regulations and best practice

General trading guidance for charity shops

Trading standards, shop opening rules, music, pricing and more.

Retail best practice with a charity retail emphasis.

Find out what you can and can't sell, what you need to do to play music in your shops, how to carry out exchanges and refunds, and much more. If you can't find what you are looking for, please contact us.

UK-EU relationship

Points that you will need to consider post-Brexit.

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General Product Safety Regulation

Applicable in Northern Ireland and the EU

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Music in shops

PPL PRS Ltd run a licence to play or perform music in public called TheMusicLicence

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Pricing, refunds and exchanges

Legal requirements around these integral components of charity shop trading.

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Types of goods

A library of policy guidance on items that may come by your charity shops.

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Shop opening regulations

A summary of the regulations at present and how charity shops need to take account of them.

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VAT and upcycled donated goods

HMRC guidance on when VAT should be applied to donated goods that have been changed in some way.

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