Haven is a charity providing refuge and safe houses for parents and children who have been subject to domestic abuse. The charity is based in the south-west of England. Most of the revenue funding for the charity comes from Haven’s 14 charity shops. One of the problems encountered in the shops is that charitable gifts end up clogging the precious floor space. Donations can be dropped at the shops at any time. Typically, a donator will pull up their car outside the shop and bring in several bags of clothing, bric-a-brac, books, digital media, etc. Haven’s shops do not process the donations directly. Rather, they are consolidated at Haven’s central warehouse just outside Bristol, and then redistributed to Haven’s shops according to intelligence on where best to sell certain items. For example, if a shop is adjacent to a bus stop, then it can easily sell small and lightweight paperback books. Accordingly, the warehouse would put extra books in deliveries to that particular shop. Even though there is some thought going into the stock that gets distributed to the shops, the individual shops rarely have any say in what arrives on their doorstep.

As result there is considerable clutter. The clutter is problematic because purchasers cannot see all the goods and the shop environment becomes unattractive and unfriendly. Where could Haven look to get ideas on how to organise both the consolidation and distribution process, and also the organisation of stock within its shops?