For not paying nearly £20 for a second hand coat?

You certainly shouldn't have ranted in the store, that's dreadful. I hope you bought it in the end.

If it was a good coat I'd have thought £18.50 was quite reasonable. what did you expect? Charity shops sell good quality stuff these days.

I paid £60 for a charity shop jacket - but it would have been £400 new. I was in a perfect condition, I think it was a bargain!

These replies are ridiculous (well it is MN so what do I expect?).

Of course you don't want to pay that much...you go into a charity shop to get a bargain that you don't have to think about too much. Charity shops have so much stuff donated that I often feel cheeky for donating and they'd make more money if they charged less and had a faster turnover. The charity should extend to the customers.

The last coat I got was a vintage John Lewis wool coat in excellent condition. It was £3.99. In my town, most of the charity shops still have reasonable prices.

It's for both. That said, anyone who expects prices in a charity shop to remain the exact same price for 20+ years are being ridiculous. These shops have overheads too. The people working there have to be paid, and they do need to raise money for charity.

Does the amount of time you are going to wear something, affect how much it costs to make? Or the quality of it?

It depends on the brand and the shop. A lot of Cancer Research shops are closing down and I assume they are struggling because they price things like brand new goods. Meanwhile there's a Mind shop near me and I picked up a brand new with tags North Face coat for £10.

You can always sell it on vinted when you’re done.

I got a very new- looking Barbour quilted jacket for £20 recently. I was very pleased with it and the new version was nearly £200.

i think you have to accept that the function of charity shops is to maximise income for their charity.

I paid £6 for a very warm second hand designer jacket, then £12 to have it dry cleaned - so £18 in total. It has been worth every penny. (The money went to the Yorkshire air ambulance BTW).

Depends on the quality, as others have said. I picked up a vintage wool Aquascutum coat about 10 years ago in a local charity shop for £25, and I still can’t believe my luck! But I would pay it for a normal high street coat made out of cheaper materials.

Charity shops are not, and never have been "for people who could not afford much at all".
I understand that people have budgets but that's not why charity shops are there.
Yes, they get a lot of stock for free - all of it, in fact. But a lot of it is utter crap. People donating jumpers with holes in, used underwear (which clearly show signs of use), items the shops say they cannot take (e.g. electrical goods, furniture), single shoes, opened cosmetics, torn and stained clothes.
It all has to be sorted and dealt with.
Sometimes people turn up having done a house clearance and dump their stuff on them. That means there's no room for quality donations.

All that said, some volunteers have no idea about pricing. That's an issue for management. Many charity shops now have fixed price points, set by their head offices, and they have sales targets too.
But seeing £1 primark tops priced at £2 is wrong, I'll concede. That's something that people need to raise with the staff. It's easy to check the 'going rate' for items.

I still disagree that £20 for a decent winter coat is expensive.

Guessing it was a brand if going for that kind of cash. Without knowing it’s not easy to say if unreasonable. For all we know it was an Aquascutum wool coat, at which point I’d definitely have bit their arm off.

🙄 would you not pay £20 for a 2nd hand coat if it was a decent brand which would have cost £100 new?

You spent £25 on a takeaway which is just a waste of money imo.

You're wrong. Charity shops are there to raise money for the work of their particular charity. That's it. If someone doesn't want to pay £20 for a coat, someone else will, and the charity will use the money to do its charitable work.

Charity shops have never been about cheap items for people who can't afford much. The original British ones were about raising money to alleviate the WW2 Greek famine. When I donate quality items to a shop, I want them to get as much as they can for them. The manager has to judge that obligation against an item not selling or staying unsold too long. Sometimes an inexperienced volunteer will under or over price an item. I once got to work and found a high fill down coat on the floor for £6.99. I whipped it into the back, put £50 on it and it sold an hour later to an archaeologist heading out to The Orkneys who was very happy with her bargain.

They sell gorge clothes in Tesco?

I recently bought a coat in a charity shop for £28. It felt a bit pricey, but I really liked it ( and it was in Brighton, so not a cheap part of the UK ). I think if you like it and will get a lot of wear out of it, then it's a bargain, especially considering how much a decent coat costs new.

I was in charity shop about a year ago looking at a top just a plain white vest that said gorge on the tag (tesco) the price was £6.
I put it back went to tesco and 3 for fiver.
A few weeks back went looking around for some fluffy pjs, found a few in defferent charity shops.
The prices went from £8 for just fluffy bottoms to 7 for a fluffy top, did find a set for £15 but it was just so tatty and worn out not worth 15 tbh.
And another set for £13 but it had a stained crouch.
I went on temu and got 4 new sets for £30.

It would have to be very good quality and in good condition for me to pay that much.

Charity shops used to be so cheap so it stings to pay so much for stuff now.

I often just don't buy, especially because I feel like the item is usually a bit worn, not in the latest style, not my first choice where buying new gives you more choice. I already feel like I'm making compromises by getting second hand, so I don't want to pay a lot for something that isn't perfect basically. If rather just pay more and get the coat I completely love, than one that's nice.

If it was cheaper I'd think, it isn't perfect but it's nice and it's cheap and would probably buy it.

Fractionally over 15p per day if you only wore it for 120 days...

No, I don't think that's expensive at all.

I bought my North Face jacket for £20 in an Oxfam shop in Oxford - absolutely thrilled with it. Had it been a cheaper brand it would have been not so much a bargain. It really depends on make etc.

I’d be content with paying £20 for a coat even if was for a few months. Say 20 weeks for the duration, that just a pound a week. Bargain.

Why should charity shops sell things cheaply? £18.50 for a decent winter coat is a bargain.

I paid 60£ for a faux fur coat (leopard print) 9 years ago now in a charity shop

I’ve just spent 45 on it to have it relined and a pocket that was torn fixed and maybe il get another 9 years out of it 😬 it’s beautiful