or is my local charity shop having a laugh?

[AmberNectarine]

Just popped in for a quick browse, and was staggered at the prices:

Not terribly nice Kurt Geiger flats - £45
Radley bag - £100
Primark acrylic jumper - £6.50

Haven't done any charity shopping since I moved to the area (though have dropped off a couple of bags) but is this the norm now? While I appreciate they are trying to make money for the charity, surely people would buy new rather than pay these prices? As a case in point we bought MIL a Radley last Xmas - it was £95 but John Lewis were doing a 20% disount so it ended up being seventy-something, and it was brand new...

Flame me if I'm wide of the mark here but aren't they going to put themselves out of business?

It was all fine until Mary supposed Queen of Shops started doing programs trending up charity shops and encouraging them to up their prices.

They have gotten too expensive, I've seen some real rip offs, and I think they have forgotton their purpose, it's actually cheaper to go somewhere like Primark and get a new bag and jumper for £6.00 or go on Amazon get a second-hand book for £0.01 plus £2.75 delivery than go into a charity shop these days. They are no longer for the poor it seems.

I think it's preposterous the way they aren't willing to support the poor in their local communities. Surely that's why charity shops were successful in the first place?

I don't see any harm in charging a leeeeetle more for a designer item in good condition, but charging a hundred pounds is ridiculous.

Good, fair prices where I live - have eight charity shops in our small town and I usually end up finding something most weeks . We also have 'pop-up' charity shops which smaller charities/PTAs etc can run for a couple of weeks - great fun !

It does make me laugh though when they have ten copies of a book that was obviously given away free with a magazine and are charging three quid for it

I saw a childs bike seat for £30 in my local charity shop. It was in vgc but still the same price as the bike seats new in Halfrods (they were 1/3 off at the time). I did complain as I would have bought it at half the price, the lady commented that she looked up the price they go for on ebay and thought it was fair. I went to halfords!!

We have 2 excellent charity shops nearbus and I rarely leave empty handed. However we also have several dreadful ones. One was charging £250 for a leather 2 seat sofa that was all scuffed and scratched!! Argos next door was cheaper even with delivery! Was in one today and saw a nice hand drawn picture of the Hall in DH's home town. I thought ooh i'll get that as a stocking filler. £15 they wanted! £15 for a piece of a4 in a tatty pink frame. A fiver I would have bought it, but £15! No way!

I think it's unfair to blame little old ladies for pricing, it goes tits up when people think they know the value of something so check ebay.

I went in to one of my local ones and they had a bag on a really prominant display

"very good Fake Louis Vuittin bag only £30.00!!!!!"

I left with a leather Jaegar Morgan that was like new for £9

I can't afford chazzers any more. I don't even bother going in. eBay all the way for me.

Shops that overcharge lose out twice. I don't buy from there and I won't donate to them either.

Charity shops aren't what they once were. I think that people donate Primani and e-bay the nice stuff. Or if they do donate nice stuff then the shop e-bays it. Either way, there is a lot of tat in the shops these days. It's hard work finding nice things.

A charity shop in one of the nicer suburbs of Birmingham, which used to be a really good hunting ground for quality items, was selling an "Yves St. Laurent" bag for £99. The worst thing was it was a very nasty fake but "someone who knows about these things" had told them it was genuine so they priced it as such. So not only were they selling a fake (which is illegal), they were also aiming to sucker some gullible person into parting with the best part of £100.

I haven't found any bargains to speak of since my brand new with tags from 2 years ago, Armani Collezioni blouse for £16.

I think that a lot of the problem is down to a crisis of supply - there are so many charity shops now and people are donating less (and Oxfam had a huge warehouse fire which didn't help).

If your rails are full to bursting and your back room is full of donations waiting to go out, then you should price that Primark jumper at a quid, get shot of it quick and put the next thing out. But if you know there isn't a pile of stuff waiting to go out and when you've sold it there might be a gap in the rail then you're better off pricing it at a fiver and hoping that someone comes along who's prepared to pay that.

On the subject of low quality donations, it is very rare for charity shops to be charged to get rid of clothes - most of them will have an arrangement with a "Ragman" who'll pay a small amount for any fabrics they can't sell, which will then be resorted and sold for export or recycling. So you needn't have qualms about donating slightly crappy clothes, I do my donations in two separate bags marked "Saleable" and "rag quality" to save the volunteers time. NB that this only applies to clothes, not to any other goods.

When I was looking for a wedding dress quite a few people suggested going to a local charity shop as they had a full stockroom of dresses and since it was in a rather well off area they were all good quality and expensive dresses - I went along, the little old lady looked me up and down and then said "you get 10 minutes - don't break them and don't make a mess" (quite what she thought I was going to do I don't know!)

She then took me round the back and up the fire exit ladder (I kid you not) to a damp smelling room "all dresses are £150, except any on a blue hanger - they're £300" wow thinks me, what a bargain! Well - I've never been so wrong in my life! They were all gross, many stained and atleast 6 of the 20 dresses were from asda or littlewoods catalogue (less than £100) the ones that were marked up at £300 were designer (there was a vera wang) but they were all either size 6, 8 or 24 (I kid you not) so I didn't fit in any (I cried A LOT when I saw the Vera one was a 6) but they all smelled disguting! Most had very weird stains and one even had green mold on the bottom!

Thing is, I then went online and they were flogging them on there for much less!

Turned out nobody who reccommended the shop to me had ever been, all just word of mouth - I could not believe this charity shop was so expensive!

There seem to be two types of charity shop. The ones that really are selling on used stuff at good prices.

Then there are others which seem to see themselves as upmarket charity shops. They look better, the operation is slicker and to pay for that I guess is the reason they charge much more; often they also sell brand new things too (dolls house anyone?).

I also wonder whether some of the older people that work in these places have much of a realistic idea how much things can be bought new nowadays.
My SIL runs one and has to keep a close eye on her volunteers.

What I think is a shame is that many (here at least) don't sell many children's clothes or toys anymore.

I've given bags and bags of dc's clothes and toys away and like many people my dc outgrow their clothes before they wear out. Most of it has been in excellent condition. It's on children's things that I think people who really need a bargain can benefit. But only if its put out for them to buy.

They don't seem to sell much for children in charity shops these days; not nearly as much as they get in I suspect. Maybe there's not much profit to be made, but I know I've been very grateful to buy nice second hand clothes for my dc over the years, especially when they were younger and needed bigger things every couple of months.

I live in North London and agree about most of the charity shops; though our Oxfam bookshop is very well managed I think - great stock, very quick turnover (which encourages you to pop in once a week) and almost everything priced at £1.99 or £2.49 which is - cunningly - cheaper than £0.01 + postage on Amazon. I buy something there almost every week. It does seem to depend a lot on the particular staff though - this lot obviously know what they are doing. I asked them once and they said they rotate their stock very rapidly with other shops if it doesn't sell, as they know that most of their customers are regulars.

Well the last time I went inside Oxfam to buy a book (it was a large childrens Atlas from the 1980s) I was shocked when I approached the till and took out the £1.00 necessary to purchase as stated on the back, only to be told indignantly by the volunteer that £1.00 was too cheap and something must be wrong with the price. I did point out that some of the countries and facts prsented in the book either no longer existed, or were wrong (really wanted it for DC to trace outline of countires as it was quite colourful and easy to copy)

She then insisted on going upstairs to check with someone else whether the price was correct. Fortunately she came down looking very miffed and said it was £1.00 (assuming other person explained what I did and that it was virtually useless as a teaching tool anymore) I almost said forget it.

I am really tempted to mention which branch of Oxfam it was since I know others it has happened to.

A relative of mine voluntered at a charity shop a while ago and she was horrified at how much decent stuff was creamed off by staff often in return for a very paltry donation compared to what they would have sold for.

Explains why this particular shop is always full of tat.

Come to SE London - I recently bought a Boden (child's) coat AND Steiff teddy bear, both in perfect condition, for £3.50 total, in a charity shop in East Dulwich. I felt so smug!

Themighty - many, many years ago (15+) I worked in a charity shop in Leeds. It was also selling furniture. The very 'upright' old gentleman manager (a bit of a racist pig too) got caught selling good furniture for paltry prices to one of his friends, probably getting a good cut in the process. Allegedly and all that.

Amber - my money's on Putney then :)

Charity shops do sometimes have slip ups with pricing. One charity shop my mum went to was charging more than M&S for polo shirts!

Buying donations when you volunteer in a charity shop is a perk, i suppose, but wouldnt a better system be to givevolunteers any stock which hadnt sold for a long time ? the date is on the price ticket when stock is put out. I was a bit miffed to see a volunteer in an outfit i donated (know it was mine - i made it !)it would have sold for quite a bit, but i wondered how much the old dear paid. I am turning into a grouch, but i wanted to give to the charity not BE a charity

I agree, like any shop staff discount is a perk but filling carrier bags of stuff then slipping a couple of quid in the till is a bit off. Problem is everyone from the manager downwards did it so no one to enforce the official discount. Puts me off donating, these days I tend to sell stuff on ebay then give all or a portion my fave charity.

I went charity shop shopping today with my move and we couldn't believe the ridiculous prices!

mum not move

Glad I am not just being tight! I really do think charity shops are great, both morally and environmentally but I think they need to be mutually beneficial for customer and charity. I might fire off an email to the charity in question as I think hospices do amazing work and need all the funding they can get!