Charity shops have lost the plot

I used to donate all my stuff exclusively to Oxfam until
an investigation found that aid workers in Haiti hired sex workers on charity premises. As a result, I never donated to Oxfam again. There were allegations of a cover up. This. awful behaviour obviously assists in undoing all the good work other staff members do but for me I was of the view that there was serious mismanagement and was not going to donate to them ever again.

They will be paying if you pay by card. Businesses with a lot of outlets sometimes have deals where the cost is negotiated centrally and there is no transaction fee as such, so the cost of offering card transactions isn’t visible to staff.

Yes we need to be less scared about being seen in the same outfit more than once.

I have one evening dress and it comes out for every black tie event I attend (not many). And one dress I wear for weddings (again not that many but it's had about 4 outings so far). Neither were very expensive either, so the cost per wear is reasonably low.

Although that doesn't help charity shops unless I buy from them in the first place.

It's also not new for charity shops to sell online themselves - my in-laws used to help at a charity shop and they used to collect anything decent, sell online (or to a dealer) and donate the proceeds back. I guess now the charities do that themselves via their own channels.

Indeed they do sell on-line, it makes sense to get maximum exposure for items that are unlikely to sell to a random walk in.. The problem is that often what is donated is what the donor has been unable sell him/herself.

Why have charity shops become so far removed from what they’re supposed to be- a way to shop sustainably and feel like you’re getting a bargain because it’s not new?

It’s really bad taste of you to twist the purpose of charity shops to serve you.Those volunteers and those donations are to raise money for the poor, not to keep your purse fat!

Agreed. I see a charity shop is selling 100% silk luxury pyjamas on eBay and getting around £50
per set.

Your entire thread is based on you twisting the point of charity shops to suit your needs. Charity shops are there to raise funds for the cause they support, not to deck you out in cheap clothes.

Both things can be true - and surely the 'cheap clothes' angle is part of their modus operandi. If they really just wanted to raise money, they could get into drug dealing or prostitution - they'd raise shit loads of money that way.

The key advantage to customers being you can and see and try on clothes.
Unlike Shein and Temu, their sales are doing good, for both charities and environment.
I’m an absolute bargain hunter but I’d rather spend my tenner in town than giving it to China.

People donating need to trust that the pricing benefits the charity, the money is going to a good cause and that the shop is well run and volunteers are welcoming. Theres so many clothes out there and not everyone has thd time to post out things to earn £3 back.

@PippaDee123

Our new till (well, we've had it for a bit over a year now) comes with the automatic round-up option. As a volunteer, I'd prefer it wasn't there, but there's nothing we can to do get around it. I try to make sure to point the customers towards selecting the decline option if they don't want to round up.

I know it can be a nuisance for customers, but there's nothing the staff can do about it - the tills are automatically fitted with this system. The staff are no doubt instructed to ask - I would imagine if things aren't done 'by the book' the manager may get reprimanded. The manager of the Oxfam bookshop where I volunteer certainly complains that she's told off if something is amiss.

Of course people can try to obtain cheap clothing. But no one has ‘the right’ to cheap clothing from charity shops.

It’s entitled to think so and calling that poster thick for stating a fact just makes you sound even more entitled.

If a customer says they don’t want to round up their payment to make an additional payment do you ask them why not or just accept it’s a no? The shop I was referring to asks why and said customers have to give a reason as to why it’s a no. And ‘I don’t want to’ apparently isn’t a good enough reason. The person serving me then said was it a financial issue as to why I wouldn’t donate.

@DancingonmyOwn88

I'm sympathetic to your overall point, but I think there's a mismatch of expectations to what the charity views as its mission (and is spelled out as its mission.)

You, not unreasonably, view part of a charity's mission as helping the less well-off get clothes at a more affordable price.

But that's not a part of the charity's written mission and those who run the charity do not incorporate it into their mission. Their only aim is to raise money for the particular cause; they do not see themselves as there to help those on lower incomes (that may end up happening as a by-product of prices being cheaper, but it's not what they set out to do.)

I've no way of knowing, but I suspect that in the past, charities tended to unofficially view helping those on lower incomes as being a part of their service, but it's never been an official aim. And if they used to see themselves in that way, from where I'm thinking, it seems to me like they no longer do. Whether that's a good thing or not is up for debate.

But I think that's where the mismatch of expectations happens. Perhaps in decades past, more charities priced with benefit to the less well off in mind, even though helping the less well-off wasn't their explicit aim. If that happened, then the line of thinking has largely changed.

@PippaDee123

No, we're not required to ask for a reason. I'm glad - I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that. I suspect the staff at the shop you refer to don't have a choice, though - they'll have been told they have to ask for a reason.

How many times?!? It is not the charity shop's role to solve the problem of you not being able to afford new clothes. That's not what they're there for.

I wouldn't normally stoop this low but if you're going to accuse me of being 'thick' then I feel justified in throwing it back. I'm Masters qualified, own a very successful business and earn more than enough money to never need to worry about charity shop prices. It is abundantly clear that you don't understand the strategy behind charity shops. The words pot, kettle and black spring to mind.

That really narks me off, when they ask you to 'round-up!' For goodness sake, they are already getting free staff, and free goods donated to them, and cheap premises for the store, and now they want me to add more to what I am already paying! Just add 5% onto the items if they want more money. Asking for MORE money at the checkout (on top of what the customer is paying for an item) is an absolute cheek!

@BatchCookBabe

I do agree it's cheeky (especially when - depending on the total price - the round up could be as much as extra 50p.) That's not often the case, but it can happen.

I just want to make it clear that there's nothing the staff can do about it. It's not something staff have chosen, but we're stuck with 'round up' being an automatic thing on the till now.

@DancingonmyOwn88

At the Oxfam bookshop where I volunteer, the strategy tends to be to price at a significant discount, but not to price extremely cheaply.

The pricing instructions given by the manager are that books that are new - released within the last year - should be priced at around half of the original price.

It's around a third of the original price for books that are older than that. So if a book was £20 originally, I'll usually price it at £5.99.

Who is there target market though?

I have several friends that buy second hand but only through chi chi “resale” boutiques. They won’t step foot in a high street charity shop as they smell funny and you have to sort through the tat.
They happily spend £100 on a “vintage” designer label. Charity shops could follow this model. Possibly not as successful in all areas though.

Yeah but is a £20 book for £6 a fair price? Who says anyone actually paid rrp for it in the first place? If I got that book from The Works for £3 or half price in Waterstones it was never £20 to begin with. What things say they cost and what they’re actually worth are two different things. I think this about the clothes - the max studio dresses are a prime example, people are buying them at tk maxx for £10-20 and donating them, not paying £100 from a boutique in London. So they aren’t ‘worth’ £30 as a 70% saving as they were never £100 in the first place.

I got 3 for £10 in a charity shop event today - 2 dresses and a cardigan. Everything was 3 for £10 including coats and bnwt stuff. I think that is really good for donated stock and was a bargain. I’m sure the charity is raising money, I’m also sure selling second hand stuff is never going to raise that much for a charity that it’s worth alienating their customer base.