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

My job as a volunteer is to strike a balance between getting the most I can for my charity, and keeping stock moving.
If it sells quickly then it's obviously not too expensive. I choose not to donate to shops where I see the same stock week after week though because I want my donation to actually get to someone who will use it.

I live in a place with the country's most expensive charity shops. I cannot tell you how much it winds me up!

I don't mind paying for decent quality in charity shops. I bought a Hobbs dress for £18 in Oxfam recently. But round my way it tends to be lots of knackered old Primark - which is faded, stretched, bobbly. And there's no way I'm paying £15 a skirt for something that looks cheap and crap.

Some are fine & some are crazy prices. We have 2 BHF furniture shops nearby. Both have an ikea poang chair & both have priced the chair at £65. They are only about £80 in ikea ( and there are dozens of them on marketplace for about a tenner)
Both chairs have been sat in the shops since before Covid - while I understand the requirement to make as much money as possible, having items priced so high doesn’t achieve that because they don’t sell at all.

@TheVolturi

One in our town is like this (scope) but another one (cancer research) is ridiculously cheap and is also much cleaner! I got a giant beanbag chair for my ds who has autism last week, it was from dunelm and still had the labels on, I googled it and it is currently £69.99, I paid £2! Ds absolutely loves it and uses it to chill in the evenings, it really calms him!

Great find! I have a DS with autism too and he would be chuffed to bits with that

@RaspberryCoulis

Well done OP, you managed to get the "bobbled Primark jumper which cost less new" into the first post. Usually takes a few posts to come up with that one.

I will make the same points I always make on these threads as a charity shop volunteer.

1. Charities are there to raise money not provide you with cheap stuff.
2. Charity shop managers should know their market and adjust prices accordingly.
3. No charity shop manager is happy with stock not selling.
4. Charity shop volunteers can make mistakes.
5. Charity shops are crying out for volunteers - feel free to step forward to show them that you know better.
6. We would be doing a disservice to people who donate designer or top quality high street by pricing it super-cheap.
7. Most people shopping in charity shops aren't there because they can't afford new.

Think that's about covered it but I'm sure @Ragwort will be along shortly to say her piece too.

Good list, especially relevant just now is No.5. Where are all the volunteers? I've been a volunteer in a local charity shop for several years, the numbers have reduced a lot. Retired people like me seem not to want the hassle, but I really enjoy it.

Brand new mid range skirt today, tags and labels still on £30. We priced it at £8.99. I thought that reasonable. We rarely sell Primark, only if something is in excellent condition. We have to compete with several other charity shops, and ours isn't the cheapest, but we do well. Our manager knows brands, we don't put out bobbly sweaters or broken shoes. Lots of our customers are regulars, who wouldn't buy if we didn't offer value for money.

@mayblossominapril

One near to us has put its prices up and frequently says no donations atm. Surely the point is just accept good stuff and sell it through.

My Husband runs 2 charity shops and he frequently has to stop donations in one of his shops, it has absolutely nothing to do with his pricing but due to the size of his store room, he is still having to work to covid rules and this applies to his back area, social distancing means he can only have one person in the back tagging and steaming, he has to keep the floor area clear, again to ensure social distancing in the back area, and he cant store anything by a door or window as there has to be free flowing movement of air, he has lost about 1/3 of his storage area and two people who can prepare stock and until the rules change again there is nothing he can do, some of the smaller charities are still practising 72/48 hour quarantine which diminishes their storage space even more even though the larger ones stopped doing this before Christmas, it really is not as simple as you make out.

I go to a Charity shop to try and bag a bargain.

But when I go everything seems so expensive instead. I might as well buy new

@RickJames

I think chain Charity shops in the UK are very expensive - hospice shops tend to be more reasonable.

I collect ceramics and found that last time I was in the UK there had been some sort of realization about a certain type of ceramic that it was worth a lot of money. Well sure, rare or handmade items are but I had to laugh at some of the prices being applied to some of the most ugly or mundane examples. £50 for a chipped, brown monstrosity - ridiculous. I think they'd be much better served by preserving the 'Aladdin's Cave' type fun, that you never know if you'll find a fantastic vintage teapot for £2 or a lovely designer wool coat for a fiver. That was always my motivation when chazzer raiding as a teen. There's so much horrible crap in them, there needs to be a reward!

This is true - I also collect a certain ornamental item/brand and it seems that as soon as someone realises the value in the rarer bits they apply the same pricing to everything. It just doesn't work - many of the less desirable but similar items will never reach the same prices but they don't differentiate and just pop higher end price on everything.

It puts me in mind of the later Harry Potter 'first editions' you sometimes see in charity shops. There were about a bazillion Order of the Phoenix 1st eds - they're not worth £50!

The purpose of a charity shop is to raise money for the charity.

There costs will have gone up and most charities are in dire financial straits due to the pandemic so they need to charge more in order to raise the money for the charity.

A few of our local ones have sky rocketed, a few others prices have fallen loads, I bought a brand new Calvin Klein going out style dress, it was £2 but I felt bad so I gave them £5, and another one has almost all items for sale at £1 so I got 3 new tops and a skirt for £4, all hardly worn by the looks it.

The prices at mine have gone up, but from around the 50p - £3 Mark for clothes to £1 - £7 So I can't really complain!

@Seymour5 we've lost loads of volunteers. This has been the first week we have been able to open our shop 9-5 every day except Sunday as until now we've just not had enough people.

Some of the older volunteers had been talking about retiring for ages and the pandemic was the break that they needed to call it a day. Our oldest volunteer pre-pandemic was 86.

Others are still worried about Covid and do not feel safe coming back to volunteer. I personally think they are over anxious but they are volunteers and can't be forced in if they don't want to be there.

Schools aren't doing D of E due to the pandemic so a shortage of teenagers wanting to help.

People's circumstances change - they have partners now working at home , they have got a new pet, a new grandchild, have started a new hobby in lockdown which has taken up a load of time.

All sorts of reasons. The hardcore volunteers are back but there are lots who just haven't returned and might not ever. And recruiting good people is so, so hard. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get decent volunteers who are prepared to do 4 hours a week, every week.

A few years ago I bought a cookery book from a charity shop 2nd hand but still good condition for £5.
The following day I saw the same cookery book for sale brand new in Asdafor £2.99
I was fuming.
I haven't been in a charity shop since then

I'm a big charity shop shopper and some of them are stuffed full of Primark and supermarket brand clothes at the same prices in the original shop. Who on earth would buy this stuff at these prices? Surely you would just go to Primark itself. I tend to go to smaller less well known local charity second hand shops, they're often quite disorganised but bargains are found!

Independant charity shops are the best places- I avoid chains like Oxfam, CRC etc.

I have two local indies- permanantly low prices.
T shirts, tops etc £1. Coats and bigger items £2-£3.
One is in a very affluent area, so the stuff is top notch.

@Soubriquet

Charity shops used to be havens for bargains

Not anymore. They are priced at almost the same it would cost to buy it brand new. Only they are bobbled and stained instead

Have you actually been in one lately? Nothing is bobbled or stained and I got two pairs of pretty much new Pure velvet trousers ( rrp about £40) for 4 pounds each.

Independant charity shops are the best places- I avoid chains like Oxfam, CRC etc.

^^seconded. I don't know how cats protection shops are still going. There's a donation sorting charity shop near me where everything is £1.50.

I went in a few days after reopening. Prices were the same as before.
I will go in tomorrow and see where they are at now.

It's funny one, isn't it?
From everyone's perspective it us different

The shop only wants to raise money

The buyers want a bargain/ raise money/ recycle

The donors want to recycle / offer good items to people who might not be able to afford new / raise money/ fly tip

But aside from fly tipping, if nothing's sold, nobody wins.

I must admit, I've sold things myself and donated to charity recently. Or donated good quality clothing directly to refuges locally. Our charity shop has been closed obviously.

But, volunteers are precious things. Most charity shops do their best.

Ours is a small town, with several charity shops. Perhaps competition keeps prices down?

I only buy high end or new stuff with tags from good brands from charity shops so I don't mind paying accordingly. I hate Primark and Per una etc so ignore all of that anyway.
I have had some brilliant stuff over the years. I have not bought lately as I haven't found anything yet. Not noticed any daft prices and I am happy to pay a bit extra tbh as long as it is not too ott.

@RaspberryCoulis
My 60 year old DM volunteers, but she chose a shop that fits with her beliefs. They price reasonably, the volunteers have a say in pricing, the shop is popular in the community and things sell quickly. My DM knows the brands and what they would cost new, and if that shop has constant sales so in that case you need to price accordingly. She has been a keen charity shop shopper and donated as well for years, but she wouldn't volunteer at just any charity shop.

I haven’t been to one since before covid but I always thought British heart foundation and Sue Ryder overcharged for furniture. They sell really old fashioned tables and chairs or sofas for £100+ and there’s just no way anyone would want to pay that. You can get table and chairs for free sometimes on Facebook or at least for quite cheap and modern ones at that, not ones from the 1960s.