Charity shops and their hugely inflated prices..

[Charityshops21]

I've always loved charity shops and usually pop in whenever I pass one but I've noticed since they reopened post lockdown the prices have more than doubled in many places.

Take the Sue Ryders local to me, women's tops and dresses used to be between £3 and £5, I went in this afternoon and saw that the same type of clothes (not expensive brands in the first place) have at least doubled in price.

£9.99 for a second or third hand faded jumper with loose threads.

£7 for an atmosphere (Primark) blouse that I know only cost that brand new.

£15 for a battered pair of shoes.

I understand the need to recoup losses but AIBU to think this is bad and will alienate their most frequent customers? IE poor people me

Agree, I can afford to pay more, but for people who need them to keep prices down, they are awful. I did find a box of puzzles for my toddler in one the other day though - nearly new, all pieces, John Lewis, for only £1.50 - I thought that was amazing

@ShanghaiDiva no of course I wouldn’t buy anything smelly or ripped, what a silly thing to say
I buy things for myself , DP and DC and choose nice hardly worn items to go along with our new items , makes us look ok and presentable in daily life .

People always want a bargain but if the shops are managing to sell items at higher prices then I don't see why they shouldn't increase the prices. The charity shops are trying to raise money not undersell items to please the bargain hunters..

There are ebay sellers that regularly trawl all the charity shops in town and the second hand markets. They are very pushy about buying at the lowest possible price and then list the items at hugely inflated prices on ebay. All you have to do is look at newly listed items from local sellers.

I'd prefer my donations raise money for the charity not ebay.

[quote JackRabbitSlimsTwistContest]@ShanghaiDiva no of course I wouldn’t buy anything smelly or ripped, what a silly thing to say
I buy things for myself , DP and DC and choose nice hardly worn items to go along with our new items , makes us look ok and presentable in daily life .[/quote]
Are you deliberately being obtuse?
The items we rag are not saleable. It’s not a case that they do not fit with the shop aesthetic or that we only cater to the ‘poshos’ as you described them.

It really varies on the shop and area. I used to work for a charity which has shops across the U.K. and they have different ‘tiers’ depending on how affluent the location is - stores in ‘naice’ areas will normally have higher prices, whereas less affluent areas will have cheaper stores where everything is under £5. Sometimes donations will get moved around between stores if it’s better suited to a different tier than it was donated to. Pricing is set per store (there are guidelines for clothes, books etc) and although managers have some discretion they’re generally working to guidelines rather than just making it up as they go. I went to some of the shops sometimes to help out and they even had a price breakdown for certain brands (ASOS, Next, M+S higher, primark/George/F+F much lower).

But generally I think there’s a lot of variety between each charity. In my local area the Cancer Research U.K. and Oxfam shops are at the higher end price wise, whereas the St Christopher’s Hospice and Scope are a bit cheaper. Best to shop around if you think a particularly store/charity is asking for too much.

[quote JackRabbitSlimsTwistContest]@Oldsu I am not being Snide

Simply stating that charity shops DO prove themselves out of areas , why else would they be ragging things ? There is absolutely no need to be ragging jumpers just because they are out of season and do not fit the fancy “ in season “ window displays .
That is “ snide “[/quote]
Sorry this is a snide comment in my book

'You sound so snobby
“ I know the customers I attract “

So hike up the prices for the posho’s then leave the scrappy dirty books for the peasants

@Ragwort

Oldsu thank you for your comments, I have read about your DH before, he sounds like a great manager too.

I don't worry about some of the comments on this thread, I am confident that I run a good shop and make money for the charity I represent, I attract fantastic, hard working volunteers and have no problem retaining them .

I would honestly love some of the 'experts' on this thread to spend a week with me running a charity shop - I would genuinely welcome constructive ideas that would make my shop even more profitable.

He is, he was actually a graphic designer, and then got to pension age and retired, took a job as volunteer, then 2 days paid then asst manager, then manager now cluster manager 2 shops - he is 72

[quote JackRabbitSlimsTwistContest]@Oldsu I am not being Snide

Simply stating that charity shops DO prove themselves out of areas , why else would they be ragging things ? There is absolutely no need to be ragging jumpers just because they are out of season and do not fit the fancy “ in season “ window displays .
That is “ snide “[/quote]
Actually there IS, as I said my DH runs 2 shops one of his shops has a very small back area if he had only that shop he would have no choice but to rag out of season stock as there is no where to store it, people obviously donate goods they want to get rid of, but when you donate a bag of heavy winter coats on the hottest day of the year or a bag of strappy tops and bikini's when there is snow on the ground what do you think is actually going to happen to your donation if the shop back area is too small?, the pandemic has actually made it worse for these shops. having to quarantine donations for 72/28 hours, (although shops no longer have to do this if they don't want to) social distancing has to be adhered to so they cant store anything in corridors or on the floor, if my DH didn't have another larger shop to move things to he would either have to refuse obvious out of season donations (and get a mouth full of abuse) or rag them

@Egghead68

You can’t get anything in my local Shelter charity shop for under £30

Perhaps they are making a subversive point about house price inflation vs people’s salaries 😁

‘If an IKEA plate had increased as much as a house over the last 25 years, it’d cost £30’

I don't see how charity shops can avoid that sort of thing though because even with a head office imposed strict pricing structure there's no inventory for what comes into the shop in donations. Just have to hope the majority of staff are motivated by the charity aspect rather than a material gain one.

Most charity shops will have some sort of system for recording purchases by paid staff and volunteers. A friend volunteers for one chain where the rule is that they are not allowed to pruchase anything unless it has been on sale in the shop for however many days first. The rules where I volunteer are that you don't ever price something you're thinking of buying, and that everything gets written up in a book. When the auditor arrives for a spot check, they look in the book.

It's not infallible and won't stop a determined thief, but there is no system which can be absolutely water-tight. Volunteers in our shop are our best customers, most shifts I'll buy something and often more than one thing...

[quote JackRabbitSlimsTwistContest]@Oldsu I am not being Snide

Simply stating that charity shops DO prove themselves out of areas , why else would they be ragging things ? There is absolutely no need to be ragging jumpers just because they are out of season and do not fit the fancy “ in season “ window displays .
That is “ snide “[/quote]
Have you ever volunteered, @JackRabbitSlimsTwistContest?

I talked about the "out of season" thing upthread. We have such limited storage space in the shop that we can't keep out of season and the expense of hiring a van to take it to storage, paying for storage, hiring a van to bring it back isn't worth it.

And as @Ragwort has said, you can price things very low and they still don't sell. All those things we are given which are bobbly, stretched, stained, buttons missing - what do we do with them? I had a whole bag of those "cold shoulder" tops this week which were the height of fashion in about 2018, nobody wants them now.

It does amuse me that people who have clearly never set foot behind in a sorting room or back shop of a charity shop are such experts.

Also on the "sell everything for £1 and it'll fly out the door" - apart from the fact that it's not maximising income by selling expensive things dirt cheap, that model requires a constant stream of volunteers to sort, price and sell. Volunteer recruitment and retention is a massive issue. And unlike a regular shop people can pick and choose what they do - we have several volunteers who won't work on the till because they don't like it, or won't sort. And of course if a volunteer decides they're cutting their hours, or leaving early, or just not coming that week at all, there's nothing the manager can do.

Exactly @RaspberryCoulis - trying to run a shop when you have little control of the stock or staff is no easy task!

Why can they not see that their way of thinking regarding pricing is not working

Unless they are letting you look at their till receipts and books then you can't know whether their pricing structure is working or not.

The local sue ryder here had a huge advert in the window saying pre loved kids toys summer bonanza type thing.

I went in. Not a single toy so why have that in the window? Looked at a load of kids books and they wanted £24.99 for a set of diary of a wimpy kid that wasn't a complete set and was quite tattered looking. You can buy it in good condition online for an extra £1.

I find sue Ryder and British heart foundation the most expensive charity shops.

@RaisinFlapjack

Exactly *@RaspberryCoulis* - trying to run a shop when you have little control of the stock or staff is no easy task!

And on top of that sales targets to achieve.

I think it depends, I find women's clothes here are always pricey, but men's clothes (even branded) and children's stuff is cheap. Not sure if it's because trends show that's where the £££ is, or because they have a surplus of the other stuff and just want a quick turnover. I guess there's so much that could in theory be donated they can't have finger on the pulse for reasonable price points. I am really into board games, and many people trawl charity shops looking for a bargain; I have found some for £2 that would sell for £80 online even secondhand, and some unopened ones that sell for around £40 new. I did tell them the first time but they said prices are set, so I don't feel as guilty buying them now, hah. Also find brands like TU and atmosphere can be more expensive than Moschino...

RaspberryCoulis
There's a middle ground though isn't there between everything £1, and unrealistic pricing.

At the good ones I go to everything is priced to this middle ground, there's good stock turnover, the shop is well organised, and it's always busy.

At the rubbish ones, they're either trying to be a boutique (looking at you Oxfam with your colour codes rails rather then by item, plus lots of their own new stock, plus ridiculous prices), or they hugely misjudge supermarket, primark and low end high street pricing and price used items almost identically to or higher than new items.

When I was a student, I volunteered at a good shop and the managers knew their stuff, which reflected in the prices charged. At some others I've visited they label Warehouse as a designer, stick it on the pricey rail and hoik the price tag up.

I'm much more careful about where I donate these days.

looking at you Oxfam with your colour codes rails rather then by item
Is it all Oxfam's then? I can't be bothered looking in my local one anymore because of the mixed up sizes. I don't think it's at all appropriate with Covid either, it's quicker if you can just find what you are looking for by category and size, see if there is anything you might like, then leave.

@Charityshops21 try vinted.co.uk for clothes. I got a great unisex baby bundle on there recently (I'm pregnant as well and don't know the sex) for 10 pounds. There were about 25 items in total, all in perfect condition. I've also got some maternity jeans on there which were about 5 pounds each. The postage and buyer protection fee does bump up the cost but it can still work out to be good value when you buy bundles. Also I'm in NI so don't know if that means postage is more expensive. I paid about 7 pounds for two brand new nighties for my 3 year old DD but she'll get thissummer and next out of them so great bargain.

I don't mind colour blocking. It makes the shop look much more attractive and less like a jumble sake. It encourages people in. Most of the big chains colour block - and you can be sure that if it made more money to have arranged in a different way, that's what they'd be doing.

The other issue is sizing - if we arranged by size you can bet we'd get complaints that stuff didn't fit because a size 12 from M&S isn't the same as a New Look 12 or a vintage 12 or a French Connection 12.

I haven't noticed that much new product in any shop - we have more than we would do usually at this time of year as we were closed for 4 months after Christmas and had no opportunity to shift the calendars, books and decorations which would usually sell in January. Oxfam has always sold things like fair trade coffee and toiletries, cancer research always has had branded t-shirts and similar, and all shops sell greetings cards.

The other issue is sizing - if we arranged by size you can bet we'd get complaints that stuff didn't fit because a size 12 from M&S isn't the same as a New Look 12 or a vintage 12 or a French Connection 12.
I don't see how it's any different to having a size on the hanger, you are just arranging by the size on the garment. I just find it easier to look through a couple of sizes that are likely to fit. Sizes vary but all my tops are an 8/10/S so it's a waste of my time to look through all the other sizes.

Ours ( Yorkshire cat rescue) we find that we get a million Christmas decorations and kids toys in January , Easter stuff in May, Halloween donations in November luckily we have a large storage area upstairs so we can store stuff like this for almost 12 months so we can then sell it at the right time of year, we rotate stock between shops too, paperbacks are 50p and we do a good turnover of them, i am the person who runs the ebay page and we mainly put items on ebay that we wouldnt get the price for them in the shop, this week i have a good make 61 piece china dinner service on ebay at £50 start price we wouldnt get £20 for it in the shop and between 4 shops we put around 30 - 40 items a week so not all the good stuff ends up on ebay and sometimes even on ebay items dont get the price they should or sell so they go back to the shops at less than ebay price

@isseys4xmastinselcats

Ours ( Yorkshire cat rescue) we find that we get a million Christmas decorations and kids toys in January , Easter stuff in May, Halloween donations in November luckily we have a large storage area upstairs so we can store stuff like this for almost 12 months so we can then sell it at the right time of year, we rotate stock between shops too, paperbacks are 50p and we do a good turnover of them, i am the person who runs the ebay page and we mainly put items on ebay that we wouldnt get the price for them in the shop, this week i have a good make 61 piece china dinner service on ebay at £50 start price we wouldnt get £20 for it in the shop and between 4 shops we put around 30 - 40 items a week so not all the good stuff ends up on ebay and sometimes even on ebay items dont get the price they should or sell so they go back to the shops at less than ebay price

Our YCR is by far the best charity shop in town - you do a great job.

My lovely girl cat was from YCR .

@Arbadacarba awww how lovely three of mine are YCR cats the disadvantage of working for a cat charity you collect rescue cats and thank you our managers do a good job

@kowari

The other issue is sizing - if we arranged by size you can bet we'd get complaints that stuff didn't fit because a size 12 from M&S isn't the same as a New Look 12 or a vintage 12 or a French Connection 12. I don't see how it's any different to having a size on the hanger, you are just arranging by the size on the garment. I just find it easier to look through a couple of sizes that are likely to fit. Sizes vary but all my tops are an 8/10/S so it's a waste of my time to look through all the other sizes.

I agree, you can then look through, for example 12 and 14 but ignore 8 and 20. When arranged by colour it takes longer to look through for your possible sizes.