To think charity shops should be cheaper?

[Chocolatelover45]

The prices in my local charity shops are ridiculous (small northern town) .
E.g.
£2.50 for a rattle
£1 for a scuffed pint glass
£3.99 for a children's t shirt (George)
£1.50 for dog eared children's paperbacks
£4 for hardback puzzle book with half the puzzles already completed
£2.49 for 4 small plain Christmas baubles

Why do they charge so much? Surely they'd sell a lot more if it was cheaper? Or is there a good reason?

It would be more efficient if decent quality clothes could be donated more efficiently.

Try the Salvation Army, or your local church (or other faith institution).

I agree, it does very seem to depend on the charity shop though. Where I live the larger national charities appear to be more expensive but the local charities eg local hospice are much cheaper prices & grateful to receive any donations

Charity shops are there to raise funds for their charity, not to provide cheap good for people in poverty.

For the PP who said they didn't see the designer gear in the shop she donated to - thet's normal. Some charities move high end goods to their specialist shops or online shops. Others have the designer stuff fly off the rails as soon as it arrives.

I hate seeing the bashing charity shops get on MN regularly. They are doing good work for good causes. They are staffed by primarily volunteer workers. If you want cheap prices and haggling, go to a car boot, for heaven's sake.

They seem to vary an awful lot IMO .The local heart foundation shop near us is closing down .Maybe a coincidence but a lot of the things in there were top price ! The Trussell Trust shop opposite ,is well laid out and things are very reasonable .Always seems busy and nicely kept ,not that horrid damp musty smell either .

Ghost is this a small, independent charity or one of the big names?

It's an Age Concern shop. The expensive one is an Oxfam.

Turnover of stock is high, every week the whole shop is completely different

The problem there is it takes a limitless number of volunteers to sort, clean, press, price, tag and hang a garment. If things flew off the shelves at a pound per item the staff required wouldn't fit in our back room, even if there were enough volunteers to do it. Charging a reasonable price gets the best results.

My son had to work in a charity shop recently with his te

These shops have huge overheads, rent, electric etc.. so selling clothes for £1 each isn’t going to pay the bills let alone help the charity.

I like charity shops, I often find clothes with good labels for a fraction of what they would cost new. I find where the problem is lies with lower value goods, I often see primark tops with a price higher than what it would cost new.

But anyway, if you don’t want to pay the prices then don’t.

I'll try again

My son had to work in a charity shop recently with his team from the bank. They had to price items. All decided things were way over priced and put a fair price on. The stuff flew out. The prices he told me were ridiculous.

Often the people working there don't have any idea. I saw a pair of primark shoes in one for more than I paid new.

if things flew off the shelves at a pound per item the staff required wouldn't fit in our back room

I'm quoting myself here to add that the shop in which I volunteer takes around 2/3k a week. Totally not doable at a pound per item.

i feel its a combination of

• people buying stuff cheap and then selling on ebay so why shouldnt the charity shop sell it for the ebay price themselves and get more money?
• mostly people that volunteer are of the older generation - they arent used to the cheap disposable consumerism of today, when they were younger clothes etc were more expensive, better quality and you bought something and it lasted years. They dont realise that this top only cost £3 from primark in the first place or this glass bowl was only £2 from ikea and not £30 from the local department store

They dont realise that this top only cost £3 from primark in the first place or this glass bowl was only £2 from ikea and not £30 from the local department store

Speechless. Nobody over 50 goes into Ikea or Primark.

I totally agree. There are a few in our town. One that sells things like you've mentioned for silly prices, and one that sells things at amazing prices, they have really lovely branded coats, some woollen, and the maximum price tag on them ever is £5. Children's books are 5 for £1, I check in there regularly because it's fab!

Agreed. I once found a primark top going for £10 in a charity shop, it was £3.50 to buy new. 🤷🏻‍♀️

In our charity the policy is that only paid staff price items. If it’s primark or supermarket stuff unless it is immaculate it doesn’t go out and tops are mostly under £2 dresses £4/5 jumpers £3 etc. M&S etc are priced a bit higher and stuff like Joules Boden and white stuff etc is higher again.

In the charity shop I work for we have a ‘policy’ that we must offer everything to our local customers first before it goes on line, at our normal ‘local’ price, I frequently find that I can’t sell a brand new Monsoon dress, for example, for £8 locally but put it on line and can easily get £30 .

Be careful about giving clothes to your local Food Bank, I volunteer at ours and well meaning people often want to give me ‘clothes for children’ but there is usually no where to store stuff and the people using the Food Bank are not necessarily those who want the clothing. I agree the Salvation Army does great work in distributing clothing and household goods directly to people who need them.

In our charity the policy is that only paid staff price items

Yes, ours too. That's the case in most.

I agree. Some of the well worn 2nd hand clothes are more expensive than they would be new.....

I donate alot to these shops but don't buy as cheaper on ebay.

If you're in SW London and want to give baby/children's items to those in need, you could look at Little Village:
littlevillagehq.org/

I agree.

I live in a deprived area in the NW and Of the local shops there is at least five charity shops. I went in there to see if they had anything decent - I got a pair of brand new looking River Island kids jeans in one. However, all the other kids jeans were the same price - and £3 for scraggy, well-worn Primark jeans is just not great.

Having said that, with so many, some are definitely better than others! Example: I bought a massive suitcase for a holiday for £3 then gave it back rather than trying to store it.

My local charity shop throws away bags and bags full of stuff every day (left outside the shop by their bins for the council to collect), because people use it as an alternative to putting things in the bin themselves... but in reality no one is going to buy your broken old toys or stained Primark clothing.

Whenever possible I try to donate good quality clothing directly to projects that work with the homeless, or give stuff away on local FB groups to people who need it.

My local one is great, paperbacks 50p each or 3 for £1. Kids trainers regardless of brand £1, bedding sets £2. And because it's a local charity shop the money goes to local causes, pays for our annual carnival and bonfire night, puts on day trips for pensioner etc

I'm with @Ragwort - I manage a charity shop too and we have to be respectful of the item, its value, and the intent behind it to raise money for the charity. We are in a quite affluent area of town. I don't often bother with Primark/high street stuff because it doesn't sell, we have a branch in the High Street where it would fly off the shelves, so my volunteers and I sort it and bag it up for them.

My volunteers are absolutely amazing at pricing but the shop is open for more hours than I am paid to be there. I weekly work longer hours than I should, and my volunteers work for nothing, of course. Sometimes mistakes can be made in terms of pricing and I do my best to learn from them and keep to a structure. I never turn down donations unless it poses a H&S issue (we have a very small back room, and I mean VERY small).

I have a very long tether but the thing that annoys me most is haggling. I don't abide it at all - only just the other day a young man tried to haggle me down on a 99p book. I often get "Oh but you've been given it for free". "You're only a charity shop though". "I can probably get it cheaper online". Other customers often speak up for me!!

I absolutely love my job, love my team of volunteers and fiercely support them, and I love my local customers and the kind people that offer us good quality, lovely donations. We've just had about 12 bags of kids' toys, all complete playsets and good quality wooden dolls' house parts and furniture, just in time for Christmas, I was almost in tears with gratitude.

I haven't rtft but totally agree with op.

There is an almost everything is a £1 charity shop near me, run by a large charity. They literally put out any old sh*t including once to my horror a teapot with manky teabags still inside... some things are not worth even a pound!