To think charity shops have got just too expensive?

[Arnoldthecat]

The high streets of even the fairly affluent towns now often have a selection of charity shops because no one else wants the retail space. Inevitably i often browse them and i dont think im alone in thinking that they have just got way too expensive.

I tend to look for factual books but as a matter of interest, i look at other stuff and prices. Example,used mens shirt £8 ! It was nothing special either.

I spotted a woman looking at a teapot. The label was partly obscured nd she thought it was £1.99 when it was actually £19...oh i dont think so,she said,as she put it back on the shelf.

No one is buying anything. They get it all for free,why not just keep prices reasonable,shift volume,get the money in and get new stock on the shelves/hangers?

The charity shop I work in has reduced it's prices this year. It has resulted in more sales.

if something hasn't sold after three weeks it's half priced, if it still hasn't sold a week after that, it gets sent off for rags

I find this quite shocking. Why is it better to rag something than sell it off for a cheaper price? I know you said you might send it to other stores, but the fact that any saleable item is ragged just boggles my mind.

When we sent things for "rags" they go to a large central warehouse. there is a team of pickers there who sort through everything again. Anything saleable is pulled off the line and either sold in bulk to merchants or if it's really good, put in the online shop.

The stuff which is destroyed is the bobbled, the torn, the old bedding, the stuff which can;t be worn again.

Everyone who thinks that they could do better, make more money, run the shops differently to maximise income - why aren't you volunteering and doing exactly that? It's so easy to criticise from the sofa.

I use a local kids charity shop and don't get the pricing at all. A toddlers George of Asda T-shirt will be £3 as would a Ralph Lauren polo top!

Ours are pretty good, and it's quite an affluent area, but they do sometimes get it wrong.
If I know something is overpriced, I'll speak to the store manager, and let them know (and where they can check). Nobody has been offended.
However, there is a bit of a stigma about shopping in charity shops which needs to change.

Apologies if this has been mentioned further back on the thread but do they keep a percentage of the profit for overheads or is it funded by the charity itself?

When we sent things for "rags" they go to a large central warehouse. there is a team of pickers there who sort through everything again. Anything saleable is pulled off the line and either sold in bulk to merchants or if it's really good, put in the online shop.

That's great but at the charity shop I volunteered at, rags were approximately 38p per Kilo. So whilst they might be resold or put online after they left us, the charity wasn't the one benefiting from the money they sold for.

For us it was better to put the items on a sale rail for £1.

Yes it’s ridiculous. They’re far too expensive. The more affluent the town the pricier the shops are, so where are you meant to shop if you’re poor but happen to live somewhere posh? I get that it’s probably to stop ebayers making massive profits but tbh it’s pretty rare that something in a charity shop is so fantastic that someone would sell it on for a big profit.

The usual offenders - BHF - in our town are ridiculously priced, certain things are priced higher than they would be new. Our Scope shop is heading that way too which is a shame because they used to be our first stop.

We do have a 99p hospice shop but the quality of their items REALLY needs checking as they're usually faded and full of bobbles (not just the usual few bits or well worn - but essentially its one massive bobble or stained too. There is the odd bargain to be had in there if you get lucky on the right day.

Our womens aid is my favourite charity shop, reasonably priced and well rotated stock.

Not charity based but we do have a weekly auction house too that ends up a lot cheaper than most charity shops. Just this weekend there was a three piece suite in fab nick for £2, pine double wardrobes for £4, dyson hoover for £5, Artwork for £2, Chesterfield chair for £25 (I wish it would have gone through my front door!) etc etc.

Haha, just saw a 'worry stone' for £5 😂 in my local Oxfam. It was a small pebble about 3cm long in a little plain cotton pouch.

Charity shop sales are up like for like 1.5% on the previous year so they must be doing something right .

It's all very well saying 'sell everything cheap' but a charity shop in our town had every £1 this weekend. I went in to have a look and there was nothing worth buying. You've got to have decent stock in good condition, as everyone keeps pointing out, no one wants the ubiquitous overpriced Primark top but people will buy good quality stock, neatly presented, fairly priced and rotated. I very rarely do a £1 rail in my charity shop because I am confident that we get prices right in the first place and if an item hasn't sold then it is not going to sell just because it's £1.

Chance most charity shops don't 'keep back' money for actual running of the shop but there is a 'cost of sales' calculation that will take into account all the overheads - rent, rates (yes, often paid despite what you read), utilities, any shop wages, cost of removing waste (very high considering the absolute rubbish that is dumped on charity shops by people thinking they are 'doing their bit for the environment' rather than takin it straight to the tip), etc etc.

If the sales performance of the charity shop is not enough to cover these costs and make a reasonable profit for the charity then the shop will be closed. In the geographical area I live in four shops have been closed for this reason and we are all constantly under review.

I never look at 'reduced' rails in charity shops because I think if it's not sold in months I'm unlikely to want it! (so I agree with you @Ragwort )

What's wrong with eBayers selling charity shop finds for profit?

It’s not necessarily immoral mathanxiety, but if it happens a lot it’s probably a sign that the shop is underpricing and could make more for the cause by upping its pricing, shifting goods to a shop in a more appropriate area or flogging stuff directly on ebay itself.

It must be a difficult balance. I think Mary Portas can be blamed for a lot of the price hikes. (Sorry if this has been mentioned , i skipped a page) Her programme about 10 years ago focussed on the shop profits and on wealthy buyers and locations not on the folks who really need a bargain to be clothed. Became "vintage" mentality. I try to donate directly to our local refuge now where possible. The clothes get used by people who need them without having to pay anything (or over the odds)

I don't have a problem with traders. We price stuff in the shop for what we think is a fair price. If someone buys something for £20 in the hope they can get £25 or £30 for it on Ebay, then fair play to them. We've got our £20 in the till and we don't have to deal with the listing, photographing, posting, haggling with buyers, returns, listing fees and whatever.

The extra effort it would take us to do all that just isn't worth another £10. Far better that we stick it out in the shop and the volunteer instead spends their time pricing stock or serving on the till. In an ideal world with loads of volunteers and no donations to sort it might be a different story, but for us it's just nor worth it.

We have a deal with the local auction house that they cast an eye over the very good stuff. Recently we've sold victorian copper jelly moulds, paintings and some jewellery through the auction house. They don't charge seller's premium either as we;re a charity.

I would see eBaying as an interesting case of a win-win situation too. (Like OtraCosa).

Along with eBayers, you get people inspired by the likes of Pinterest to repurpose and upcycle clothing who buy multiple woolly jumpers for instance, and make house slippers or whatever out of them to sell at a fayre that potentially benefits a school.

What goes around comes around - often more than once...

Every local one is like that so i dont even bother with them any more, i just buy new for the same price or less in some cases

I think Mary Portas can be blamed for a lot of the price hikes

Oh definately Scarletoharaseyebrows(brilliant name by the way) I remember the program and I also remember when everyone started jumping on the 'vintage' bandwagon. Definately a lot of the blame is at her feet.

The result is that CS are increasingly boring - the thrill of a quirky find is gone due to them autioning off anything with the slightest age that is interesting. They are also increasingly relegated to selling modern stuff that is overpriced. So what is the point?

I'd love to know where some of you live where your charity shops are so awful? . Where I live there are 15 charity shops, each slightly different and appealing to a different type of customer, some looking for great value buys, others just want books, some specialise is high end designer stuff etc etc. I only ever shop in charity shops and frequently find lovely, unique items at great prices.
In the shop I run we never put items directly on line, we offer them for sale to our local customers at our normal, good value price, if they don't sell after 3 weeks we can put them on line ... frequently at a much higher price than they were originally available in our store ... and they will sell at the higher price.

A charity chain I volunteered for would not even bother pricing and steaming Primark donations , particularly the PJs . Went in the bag for the rag man or , if not too bad a condition, the bag that another branch takes and sells everything in it for a pound.

"we check on the internet sold prices, we're not daft"

I've said this before on similar threads, but this is ridiculous. eBay is a national market, so you can live in Brighton and sell your rare 1950s bagpipes record to a rare bagpipes record collector in Fife for 50 quid, because he's been looking for it for 13 years. Chances of coming across someone in the Bognor High Street Cats Protection shop on a rainy Tuesday afternoon willing to pay the same? Rather lower to say the least. I think the above misunderstanding is responsible for at least some of the daft pricing of rarer items I see in local charity shops.

On a similar note, you know how sometimes internet sellers put stupid prices on an item because they don't have it in stock at a particular time but don't want to take the listing off eBay or Amazon or whatever - or are just total chancers? I found a (very ordinary) book in the amnesty bookshop the other day priced at an ambitious 229 pounds. I asked the staff member wtf that was about and he looked as mystified as me. We had a look online and there was indeed a random copy for sale at 229 quid, along with a slew of other identical copies at between 5 and 10 quid. It seemed that a well-meaning volunteer must have looked online and decided to match the highest price he could find! The guy at the till laughed and sold it to me for a fiver.

One of the local charity shops I go to tried a vintage/retro area for a while. But everyone just avoided it as it was so expensive. Interestingly that doesn’t exist anymore. Just because it old doesn’t mean people want to pay crazy prices.