Charity shops have lost the plot

Bingo!

How many times a day are cash strapped Mumsnet members advised to put stuff on vinted, marketplace for sale. We're hurting financially in the UK.

That's sort of the point I was making. The salaried staff tend to be paid well under the going rate for the levels of responsibility, so why is that different for the executive staff?

Public companies need to report the top level salaries and average lower quartile salaries, and state how many multiples of the lower quartile that the top levels earn. Would be interesting to see this for charities.

Well, you got them for free, so...

so it’s a great donation for the charity. 😀

This is the funniest article (and truest on the topic) I've read in ages. So much resonates with my own charity shop shopping experiences 😂. Thanks for posting

I expect the person who donated them would be pretty pissed off if they let them go for a couple of quid. I donate clothes to charity shops to support the charity, not to provide fodder for people's Vinted resales.

Exactly!

I used to work in one, they colour coded price labels, so every week they removed all items with that colour tab and sent it to another store. That freed up space and some stores had different types of customers, so our unsaleable stuff would be sold there. I do admit this was 30 years ago

They are giving the stuff to charity because they don't want it. They're not searching through their wardrobe and thinking "oh I still like it but I'll give it to charity so the charity can make money". Honestly I give stuff like Hush, Nobody's Child and Me &Em to the charity shop and I really don't mind what they sell it for. It's not cluttering my drawers. That's what I care about.

A Lot of people who donate do care about how much we sell their items for. Many people have been directly affected by the cause they support and want to make as much money as possible for the charity.

Nobody gives a flying f#ck what the shops do with them. People want their stuff off their hands, and charity shops do the trick for them. I give a hell of a lot of stuff away, and I couldn't care less how much they sell it for.

That's not true. Some people don't care and just want stuff out the house. But others will hand over bags and say that there is BNWT in it, or designer, or top end high street and that shops will make "good money". This has happened to me multiple times, and some customers absolutely would be cross if they donated a BNWT Hobbs dress which was sold for £2.

Ime a lot of people do care.
if people don’t really care what happens then surely they just put it in the bin rather than schlepping it to the charity shop.

Also happens to me on a weekly basis, especially with donors who gift aid.

Agree, people will come in and say they've had an email telling them they raised however much all the time.

The bin?? Wash your mouth out!! What will the neighbours say? 😂. Honestly I would judge myself for putting it in the bin even if it was the biggest retail mistake I ever made!! The charity shop salves my conscience. I do only give them decent stuff though- I’m not one of those people who gives them stained primark pants.

Liz Truss hasn't done to badly has she for being Prime Minister for just a few days. Sunak walked into a well paid consultancy job for which he had no obvious qualification.

Well don't buy them. No need to moan about it. The same way I don't complain about beans being more expensive in Waitrose.

Years ago, I took a bagful of decent clothing to my local charity shop. Lots of BNWT stuff like All Saints and Karen Millen.
Got a letter saying it raised about £5 in Gift Aid, which did make me
But this was years ago. A lot of charity shops are catching on now to how much they can get for things, and price them accordingly. There is nothing wrong with that... they are ultimately there to make money for their cause.
One chain of them here has volunteers who research what things are worth, and they sell them on eBay to increase their audience. They sold a rare book for over £900 earlier this year... money for the local hospice.

@XenoBitch - wow that’s fabulous!

It was amazing. They have a bookshop which has lots of great stuff in it anyway.
Apparently this book was some rare first edition. If it had not been noticed, or even donated to a different charity, it would have gone for 50p.
it is good that come charities have volunteers that look out for stuff like that now.

I would hope they take more leave than Paid staff!!
As they aren’t being paid!
I wouldn’t pay £2.50 for new paperback! As I buy a lot of paperbacks from The Works!

@ShanghaiDiva I certainly wouldn't have a problem with charity shops selling designer clothing for well above the price they sell standard clothing for (assuming it's in decent condition of course). The issue I and many others have is that the reduction for some items compared to the new price is tiny, much smaller than a standard end of season sale at the retail shop.

You get 3 types of shoppers in charity shops in general, the people who buy to sell on Vinted etc, the people with money wanting a bargain and maybe something a bit different, and those who are on a very tight budget.

The people on a very tight budget need value for money and will be very aware of how much new things cost in places like Primark, supermarkets, or on line. They will only be looking in general at the lower priced items, and for many if they see something that's clearly had a season or 2 of wear in it and therefore (as a low end item) will be half way through it's life, they won't pay more than 50% of the new retail price.

Many (not all) of the people who browse looking for a decent higher end bargain have started to look at on line resellers as well as charity shops, and are very clued up on what's a reasonable price for a higher end item so won't be willing to pay the same for a used item they could have got new in the sales for the same or less. I've bought new with tags on items in charity shops from brands like M&S, but never paid more than half price from the new retail cost.

The resellers will only pay enough so they can make a bit of a profit after listing & postage costs.

The world has changed over the last couple of decades, and charity shops don't seem to have reacted well to those changes.

I mentioned above walking 10 yards down the road to buy new for the same or less money, I literally did that myself once. Browsing in a charity shop, unbranded t-shirts in OK condition but clearly not new, priced at £2 above Asda. I walked out across the square and bought the new ones.

@Allergictoironing - I have volunteered for six years and the comments I see on Mumsnet are not the reality of where I work- of course this is just my experience. We are well aware of how much things cost in Primark etc and price accordingly. We have vest tops (including M&S brand) at £1 or £2, huge variety of dresses at £4, putting out knitwear now at £4/£6. We are always in the top three performing stores in our area. It’s frustrating we are all seen as clueless.