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?

Nope don#t get it either. I am in a large town with many charity shops. We also have cheap end fashion store eg Matalan and Primark. T-shirts and jumpers selling for £4 second hand in charity shop which are £3 NEW in Primark!!!???? Do your homework people!

Yes, been thinking this for some time. I buy most of my clothes in them, have for years for various reasons. I’ve always seen them as serving two useful purposes. Raising funds, obviously, but also providing for often equally needy people who just can’t afford to buy new. I think the second service is every bit as vital as the first. One or two are so unrealistically priced now that I can’t use them anymore. For example, a used Primark T-shirt for more than it would be new.
part of the problem is possibly that lots of the older volunteers still shop in M&S and the like, so price accordingly.

YANBU. I saw a pair of trainers in a charity shop for £90 last week. £90!!! And I live up north!

The problem is, ohflippineck , that if you’re a Cancer Research shop, then your charitable purpose is curing cancer. If you deliberately flog something for two quid that could have raised five, or ten, then you are failing in your legal duty to make best use of your donations for the purpose of curing cancer and the fact that it may be of immense benefit to a woman who otherwise can’t afford a respectable dress for an interview is neither here nor there.

And that’s without allowing for the fact that the woman who buys it for two quid might equally think “Oh goody, a chazza bargain! I was planning on spending fifty quid on one of those in Hobbs but will instead blow it on espresso martinis” or indeed “Fab, I can flog that on eBay for fifteen quid!”.

That’s not a defence of shops which charge unrealistically high prices which nobody will pay of course - that’s just incompetence. But a lot of shops will shove something out at a slightly punchy price at first because you never know, and then cut the rate week on week until it hits the sweet spot. For everything you see and rightly think “nobody will ever pay that” there’s probably another item that gets snapped up by a random person who happens to be a big fan of that precise thing and is delighted with her objectively overpriced purchase.

I think sometimes it depends on the age of the volunteers?, in one of my local shops some of the ladies are quite elderly, they don't know the difference between Primark and Hobbs, and can do a one price fits all strategy, ie. all tops £3.50 , with no distinction between the brands? I prefer the car boot sales in the summer, you can buy lots of clothes for £1-£2 at the ones by me, the charity shops seem expensive compared to them (and yes, I know, charity shops have a purpose!)

I agree with you completely, OP. I live in an affluent area, and the charity shops are batshit crazily expensive. What happened to 50p for a paperback?! Now it's more like £2.

I have two local charity shops.

I never go inside one, not even for a look because it's A) ridiculously expensive and B) the staff are really rude and unwelcoming.

The other one I go in for a browse occasionally, although I have picked up the odd bargain, usually jewellery, by and large they are grossly overpriced.

£8 - £10 for most dresses, many times I've picked one up and thought I like it, i would wear it but I I can pick up a similar brand new dress for the same price and put it back.

If they'd been priced nearer the £2 or £3 mark I would have bought at least 20 by now.

I used to work in a church one, so not a big national one, and our prices were very reasonable. 20p for children's books, 50p for papberbacks, £2 for a top or jeans etc.

Because our prices were very low, I think we attracted some customers who would try it on and expect something for nothing. I once had a customer who quibbled over 20p for a ball of wool, because another ball, not the same but fuller, had been priced at 10p. What annoyed me more was her having to speak to my manager and trying to justify why she thought it needed to be discounted to the same price of lower!

I live in a town and gown type city, and I think as long as you look hard enough, you will find something reasonable. My recent bargains includes a few discontinued Denby items - mug, teapot, jug and sugar bowl for less than £10, as they were having a sale.

My lovely little town has 15 (!!) charity shops on our tiny high street. The pricing is all over the place but I tend to stick to the ones that don't take the mickey.

Not all big charities over price but all the ones that do in my area are big charities

This has been my experience too. I get that having a good turnaround of good items at good prices relies on getting decent donations in the first place, but can't quite see how having the same expensive items on sale for weeks helps anything - after all, if they're nor bought the charity's not making anything on them at all

There's also the point that folk might be less inclined to donate to those who take the mickey, which is perhaps why my reasonably priced local independent has such brilliant stuff

There's also the point that folk might be less inclined to donate

We have 2 near us that often say they are no accepting donations as their stock room is full and they have no space. I look at their over priced stock that's been on the shop floor for weeks and sometimes even months and think if they cannot see the correlation then they are a lost cause.

Also whilst on the subject what's with not letting me buy stuff from your window because its for display only...These items are donated stock too as they have tags and labels on but I'm not allowed to buy them until you've finished using them for the display. My personal favourite was a few years ago one shop near us had a Halloween display but I was told none of the costumes, props or decorations were for sale until after Halloween

I agree, cheaper prices would clear the stock quicker. I wonder how much goes to landfill when they can't shift it!

Yanbu, and it's a shame.

Expecting dc3 who is a different sex to first two. Already spent loads on baby stuff throughout the years so really just wanted some second hand baby grows and vests.

Remember my mum got me some vests, 5 for £1 when dc2 was born. Same shop won't do them that cheap anymore so now £1 each. Sorry but £1 each is what shops charge new.

It's a real shame, as I feel that if a charity shop is taking up retail space at a huge discount then the charitable element goes three ways -

1. To raise money for the charity
2. To provide poor people in the community with affordable stuff
3. To help the environment by giving people an option not to buy new every time to save resources.

By pricing stuff the same as new stuff it feels like they should are only fulfilling 1 with out the other two important services.

Once again it's just the same in our city centre, HeadsDpwn, with donations refused and the place full of stuff that's been there for ages

And while I'm not sure about stuff going to landfill now, when I worked in one the unwanted/unsold stuff was "ragged" ... as in collected to be shredded and recycled into goodness knows what

I think its changed it the last 10 years. I would love to shop in them more but if they are going to be more expensive than primark I might as well go there.

We still rag all textiles unfit for sale. I think a lot of it ends up as mattress stuffing.

But we can't rag non-textile rubbish. The dolls with their heads missing, the DVD boxes with no discs in them, the dried up felt tips, the cracked and chipped mugs...

Yes, Hannah they do. It’s partly why there are so many.

This is not always the case. They do get rates relief and may qualify for tax exemption (its complicated because donated items are exempt from tax anyway) depending on their setup.

Some will get their space free/reduced rent because its cheaper to have someone using the space and getting rates relief than for the owner to pay rates on an empty property, but free is fairly rare because as soon as the property is leased to someone else the charity gets turfed out, so it's not worth the investment to the charity to setup.

Charity shops still have staff and overheads, whilst things are donated, the running costs are still there.

I’ve always seen them as serving two useful purposes. Raising funds, obviously, but also providing for often equally needy people who just can’t afford to buy new. I think the second service is every bit as vital as the first.

As lovely as that is, it's not actually what charity shops are for. They're there to raise funds for a charitable cause so they have to raise as much as they can.

We've got a local Help the Aged and Mind who are both expensive, I donated a few bags to Mind and saw them priced up at more than I paid.
We also have one that sells everything for £1, I've had loads from there, some beautiful dresses for dd's from Monsoon, Next, M&S etc, they also collect unclaimed lost property from the local schools and give it away for free, I've picked up a couple of logo'd coats.

Definitely getting more expensive. There's a charity distribution warehouse near my house where books are 6 for £1, but if you go to any of their branches in town it's 2 for £1, and if you go to other charity shops it's £1 each, £2, or even £3. It's only a tiny bit more to buy brand new off Amazon!

Books are the only thing I tend to buy from charity shops so that's all I can look at, but on the whole, they are definitely getting more expensive.

Completely agree, OP. I don’t bother with the nationwide ones now and stick to the local charity ones which have sensible pricing. I’ll happily donate cash to charity but buying overprices stuff is not going to happen.

Remember being in a national one who had a large sign on the door saying they weren’t taking donations at this time as there was nowhere to store them. No wonder when a pair of second hand high street brand jeans was going for £15, for example.

The hospice charity shops in the areas I've live and lived sell good stuff at decent prices, and oddly when I have good stuff to donate I give it to them. I have to be careful not to donate and buy something. Some of the stuff they sell is clearly new e.g. items retailers can't get rid off which isn't junk and isn't over priced. Oh and the volunteers in them are lovely.

The chain ones have volunteers that are rude unless they are teenagers. I don't bother giving stuff to them any more due to this, and they are over priced as well.

Totally depends on the area but yep, some are horrendously overpriced.

One just down the road is not too bad but ones in a "posher" town the prices are laughable!

I go in looking for yarn (normally odd balls or where there are 4 balls from a bag of 6 etc) and can get some for either normal prices (or cheaper) in the local one.

Ones in the "posher" town are charging STUPID prices for yarn these days, and that's for "part bags" where one or more balls have been used. Went in there a couple of weeks ago and had "mohair" style polyester yarn going for MORE than you can actually buy some mohair brands for. (4 balls for £20!)

Was even a crap colour as well.

Yeah I avoid buying from most charity shops now because it absolutely doesn't cost them more to clean a £20 item than a £3 item and it's clear from the ridiculous way they price things that I'm no longer their target audience for sales. I can buy the same stuff cheaper from private sellers on ebay.

I live in the South East and the prices in my local charity shops are not tremendously cheap but the brands can be really good quality. Jaeger, Paul Costello, Hobbs and even Jean Muir. I’ve also had some brilliant success with new shoes and boots with my last pair of shoes by Vivienne Westwood. Wimbledon & Raynes Park shops I found to be inordinately expensive but you’re much more likely to find designer items. If you just want cheap then you may as well go to Primark but I much prefer to buy nicer brands as the quality of fabric is usually much better and I love not knowing what I’m going to find. The environmental benefits are an added bonus.