To think certain charity shops are charging far too much?

[wintersnow]

Our family isn't very well of and I rely heavily on charity shops for clothes, toys etc as we have no cheap shops in our area - primark/matalan and the like. Certain ones like Oxfam are so expensive I no longer go in there, some of the things are cheaper to by new! Obviously I realise the money is for charity and they need as much of it as they can get but the cheaper shops are always full of customers and get massive donations whereas teh more expensive ones are always empty, can't see the logic.

Totally agree OXFAM is sooo expensive for what is someone else 2nd hand clothes/toys

sometimes, yes.. i went into one yesterday, had a lovely knee length fake fur coat, really gorgeous, good condition.. £49.00. erm. no. if it was proper vintage, maybe,but no. hvae seen them new for less in matalan etc
on the other hand i've had crocs for £1.99 ,brand new and books for a few pence.. so you have to dig around.

Sheepskin coat in the window of Oxfam - £150
not even designer or brand new

That's a bit steep!

I was going to say that we have the same problem here in Australia with the Salvation Army shop - there was a chest of drawers marked for $500 in one, which I queried just because I couldn't believe it! But they said it was right, because it was antique and they were sick of dealers coming in, buying it for a song and then making a mint themselves, when the Salvos could have had that money.

However - what you're talking about is a different matter and does just seem wrong.

How many other UK charity shops are doing that now?

They sell at the highest prices they think they can get for their products so to maximise the amount of money their causes get

Same in our local ones - I saw a cashmere jumper in cancer research the other day that had been shrunk and thus had that 'boiled' look. I'd have used it to line the cat's basket. Their price? £20

Their prices make me reluctant to give, and so now I tend to give most of my stuff away via free cycle where in can directly benefit those in need. The charity shops are shooting themselves in the foot methinks.

Agree with SugarMousePink re: realistic prices. I have a serious charity-shop book-buying habit - if I pay, say, £1.99 for a book, I'll read it and donate it back again, which surely is a good thing for them. If however Oxfam want me to pay £3.99 (for what is essentially a second-hand, often quite battered paperback), I won't buy it. Simple.

It seems to me that increasingly, charity shops - and Oxfam is a particular offender - aspire to being 'real' shops that charge 'normal' (ie high) prices. Remember Mary Portas doing a TV series in which she wanted to update charity shops and make them into vintage boutiques charging ££££? Ridiculous. Surely their whole point is a rapid turnover of stock at realistic prices, thereby making money for them and enabling more donations to flow through at a steady rate. Or am I missing something?

I think some charity shops do filter out the better quality, vintage clothes and possibly even sell it as such with a higher price - but that is reasonable, and not what is going on here.

I agree re. the books, btw - I never minded paying up to £3 for a book but more than that, especially if it was very dog-eared, was taking the mick a bit.

I wonder is Mary Queen of Shops had anything to do with it?

i have seen stuff in red cross shop whic is selling for more 2nd hand than it is currently on sale for brand new in primark.

We have some charity shops near us (wont name any) who charge more for secondhand Primark things than they cost in the first place!

If you work in a charity shop do you have to pay for anything you take for yourself - or is it seen as a perk?

Was a bit pissed off when i donated a very nice designer coat only to see the woman who works there wearing it around town.

I have noticed this as well, and agree that they are shooting themselves in the foot. It is odd when they cost more than the new item would, I always wonder if perhaps the staff are just clueless at how cheap primark etc really are.

This is Oxfams response to being too expensive ont heir website:

"Ask some of the world's poorest people ? who we work with ? if they'd rather we sold a top for a fiver, or a pound. Because that money directly funds what we do. So what's a nice top worth if it helps someone break free from poverty? Glad we've got that one sorted out."

Fair enough - but if stops people actually buying the items then it's even less help to the world's poorest people. Apparently donations are really down in their stores, I wonder if there is a connection? :(

I think some of the staff are a bit out of touch with what things cost. I'm shopping for baby stuff at present and brought two reasonable condition growbags for 75p and £1. Lady behind the till asked me what they where for and thought they were a bit of a nonsense. They had plain asda babygrows for £2.95 each when they're about £4/ £5 for 3 new.

Perhaps OXFAM should be pointed in the direction of this thread - might give them a heads up that their tactics aren't actually working that well.

Mind you, if they're charging £5 instead of £1 for a top, then they only need 20% of the paying customers to make the same amount of money, so perhaps they really don't care.

Nancy66, normal practice is that volunteers get first pick of the stuff and often are allowed a discount on sale price (50%) common AFAIK). They should never get stuff for free unless it's going to be chucked out.
Obviously the system is open to abuse if you get dodgy volunteers and there aren't any checks - some shops do have a problem.

Oxfam sell some of their 'better' stuff through their own website. In theory that sounds great - that they get a better price - but it means that the High Street shops are left with cr*p. If you go into the shops often enough and they only have overpriced Primani then eventually you stop going.

I don't know if it is because of ploys like this, e-bay or the recession but there are fewer quality bargains to be found in charity shops these days.

Nancy66, at the shop dd volunteers in (and most of the staff are unpaid) the staff get a smallish discount (about 10-20%). They also have a very rigid pricing structure which means that staff can't price something they want themselves cheaply if you see what I mean. It's this pricing structure that leads to very cheap stuff (primark) being overvalued too.

DS works in BHF as a volunteer.
They are allowed first pick but have to pay the discounted price.

OK - thanks.

I realise that they're working there for nothing but I still don't like the idea of staff getting first dibbs on everything. What's to stop them selling it on Ebay?

But that's the point, nancy, if they are paying a fair price for it (and my MIL works at Oxfam and pays full whack for anything she buys), then there is no point selling it on ebay; they are only going to get the same price there, iyswim.

I've only experience of the Oxfam where my MIl works and I think the pricing is very fair: there are firm guidelines for pricing and it depends a lot on the msterial the garment is made from and its condition. Paperbacks are rarely more than #2.50, usually less than #2. While I appreciate that some people do use charity shops for necessities, a lot of people were using them as a rummaging ground for their own vintage/antiques businesses and the charities naturally want that money for themselves.

At the shop I used to work in (an Oxfam) we had a very strict pricing structure which meant that each brand and each item of clothing had a pre-arranged price. The problem for me was that whoever had decided the prices obviously didn't understand much about what might be worth money and what wouldn't be - so we'd get 15-year-old Karen Millen stuff (ie., horribly 90s) that we still had to price just the same as last season's. And Oasis and Coast stuff were the 'same' price, so you'd be charging 39.99 or whatever for a full-length evening dress and for a polyester summer dress ... it was very odd!

I volunteer in a British Heart Foundation shop every now and again, standard practice is staff get 1st dibbs on anything witha 10% discount. I will admit though I do think they over charge for quite a lot of things but other things are cheaper than expected so it kind of balances out.

I am still not too keen on the first dibbs idea either because someone who genuinely needs could want it when it's just a case of 'oh I like that' from staff.

Bernardo's is reasonably priced I think, they had a Silver Cross Linear pram with all accessories in fab condition for £35 I almost bought it just incase LOL. DS has had a few nice bits of clothing and toys from Bernardo's too.

Barnardo's is great, I often shop & donate there as it's very fairly priced. Shaw Trust & Oxfam are the most expensive ones where I live so they have very few customers and always have notices asking for donations. The fairer priced shops have donations coming out of their ears & are constantly packed with people