to think charging £40 for a dress in charity shop is not on!!

[lisad123isgoingcrazy]

Stopped off in little village charity shop today on way home. I normally find some nice little bargins in my local. There was a lovely dress, BNWT but they wanted £40 I know what the price said on tag was £120 new but tbh its properly gone in sale since.
They also wanted £4 for a furby toy, £2 for a kids book and £4.50 for a demin bag!
Anyone else been out priced b charity shop.

I love charity shops, not keen on primark at all, never lasts long and everyone looks like clonned imo. Shame was a stunning dressed, would have brought it if was £20-£25 but even I dont have £40 atm

I do think charity shop prices have gone up a lot though and I find some sell only new stuff at shop prices, which i hatre. I love the hunt of finding something special

Daisy - no, I know you wouldn't and neither would I. But many, many people would. And think they were getting a bargain.

I bought a dress from oxfam for £50 once,
yes i did!!

and it was my wedding dress too!!

no one knew except me and mum, not even DH.

oxfam got £50 and i saved a fortune

so there!!

Ive worked in a few charity shops. Ive noticed 3 things. 1. The greed factor. - why sell for less when people will pay more on ebay, why not charity shops. 2. Fake handbags being labeled as authentic and prices over £50. (also breaks a selling rule)3. prices are not dropped because they feel people will wait to come back later to get it at a lower price. And also most of the time items are graded on the pesonal taste of the workers!

One person I worked with refused to take any more stuff one day because she couldnt be bothered to get through it all! and the rest she chucked.

Now let me tell you something else. I happen to know someone who will take the chucked stuff from the trash they throw, wash it and sell it on ebay or at carboots. Made just under £200 in one day.

If charity shops were more careful on what they chuck then they would have muchmore to donate to their cause.

Some charity shops are still reasonable. I have just bought a lovely vintage dress for £2.99 from a local-ish Oxfam.

Surely if stuff is reasonably priced then turn over is faster & shops more popular therefore making more. Our local Oxfam never has more than one customer at a time but the local charity shop is always heaving. Oxfam -£3.99 a book local one -50p. Stock is constantly changing in the smaller one.

I have no problem with a £40 dress if it's going to sell at that but without being a wellknown designer / wedding/prom dress it wouldn't shift here.

Nymphadora- hits nail on head

Secret to successful retailing is maximising profitable stock turn - not necessarily getting the highest price possible for everything.

Basically, in a charity shop all the stuff you sell is free. Your main limiting factor is floor space, so better to use mannequin to display 5 dresses at £10 than take 6 months to sell one for £40.

People more likely to come in if they think they might get a real bargain. My mum always trawls for china/glass (looks for collectors items) but will often also pick up some books while she's there, but it's insane to charge £3.99 for a book when it's prob in Waterstones for £4.99 new.

I think the issue can be that the people in the shop dont know what stuff is really worth. Some charities now have people who go round and grade things for all the shops in the area(esp bric a brac type stuff to avoid them selling a Villeroy collectible for 10p)

See I know my local MC one has a man come a grade stuff, which i think is a good idea, however I also know one of their staff takes all the collectable barbies pay them very little and then sell on ebay for a lot!
I have to say this charity shop i went to yesterday was very bare, and staff were sold at counter with items, looking lgass and auquite (sp?) pricing books.
Shame have a wedding today, it would have looked great

tbh lisa, after dh working in the BHF shop, i would say its reasonable.

they have a sliding scale of pricing, inc designer, NWT items etc.

though i have gone in, checked through clothes and handed them primark stuff which has been priced wrongly and said 'ahem, this is more than it was new' and they go and reprice it.

if its stock thats been in for a while, i would also probably chance it, and ask if they would take a lower price (not stupidly lower, say £10 off) as most shops are limited on space for storing items, and rotate according to seasons.

My local hospice charity shop regularly rotates stock that isnt sold (each label has a date on it and is removed after one month) and is very busy on stock coming in as it has parking outside. Overall the prices arent too bad either. Clothes are steamed before being sold and the old ladies do a brillant job.

The majority of charity shops in the town however are really overpriced and empty of customers. The stock isnt rotated to regulary and smells.

The local oxfam now specialises in books only. The prices are a rip off £3.99 for a paperback. More than I would pay new in Asda. I would go there and pay £1 for a book every week if they lowered the prices but instead go to my local hospice shop and get them for between 50p- £1.50.

£40 does seems a lot but if dress is new and not worn then its a 3rd of the price so seems a bargain

saying that our ymca is way over priced and 2nd hand tables/chairs/bedside tables for £80 where you can go to argos/ikea and get new for £40ish

what i do find weird is as others have said and tshirts that are peacocks etc and £3 and can get new in shop for same price

but i like to try and support our charitys and you can find lovely stuff,i brough a M&S black&white dress for my friends wedding for £15 and was £80 in the shop as i looked at it the year before wondering if i could justify buying it from M&S - glad i waited

YANBU, unless it's original price was hundreds? I wouldn't know tbh how much a new 'designer' dress costs these days, I have no cause to wear them.

This week I managed to buy a Phase Eight wraparound dress for £7 (local hospice shop), looks great on. Also bought a Boden skirt £4.25 (cancer research), unfortunately was too small but have sold on Ebay so at least someone gets to love it.

I do find it annoying when I see Primark and the like, heavily worn, being sold for more than the original shop price. It's madness, and puts people off going into charity shops.

I saw a really cheap looking wedding dress in a charity shop recentley for £95. Was so shocked at the price especially as it looked so cheap!

I have worked in Charity shops and the last one was reasonably priced however with china etc I always look on ebay to see what things may fetch.

For instance we had a funny looking vase with a budgie on donated to us, on ebay there were two of the same one was a BIN price of £36 and the other on auction at £18 with 5 bidders- turns out it was art deco, we priced it at £20 and attached a print out of the ebay page - we sold it in an hour.

We also had a genuine Prada bag, but I bought that and paid £25.00 for it

its gone very silly, one local to me charges almost 20 quid for used shoes, and they are used! I think they cant afford their rent anymore. but pricing second hand tat too high is not the answer

i think they have guidelines on pricing?

i love buying from charity, you get a bargain, its recycling, gives the charity something.

if you were interested in the dress, you could try making an offer?

horntail- I disagree. I think that a secondary purpose of charity shops is to provide cheap clothes/books/toys to poor people.

My local one makes a profit of £250k pa!

Very glad to see this thread - last week I had a discussion with my NCT group as I was in shock at seeing a cotton debenhams dress in our local charity shop for 35 quid that I felt sure couldn't have cost much more than 40 new.

The general consensus was IWBU thinking it was too pricey, as the charities need to make cash (and we live in fairly leafy area). Fair enough, but if it had been 15 pounds I'd have snapped it up and they'd have made a sale. I did say to the sales assistant it was a bit expensive for my budget but rather than barter she advised me to have a look around as they had lots of other nice things. Yes, they did, but nothing else I wanted!

I think YANBU - customers are expecting a bargain when they go to a charity shop and I think they'll suffer from inflating prices like this.

thing is with charity shops is the have to cover rent and bills but thats all. They dont pay for good so 100% profit and staff arent paid either so no overheads there. I might nip back and try it on and see if its down in price.

There are some paid staff i.e. the shop manager and the deputy manager. At least, I know of one charity shop where both these people are paid.

YABU. Charity shops are there to raise money for their chosen good cause, not to save you money.

Charities vary a lot.

The one I work for has a pricing system eg. In the t-shirts category there would be 3 pricing bands (1 for low-end High St like Primark Tesco, 1 for middle range like Next, River Island, M&S and the 1 for the better labels like Boden etc)

Verity Re: fake handbags etc. If we have any doubt about whether or not its genuine we do not put it in the shops