Charity shops seem to be unrealistic with their prices and I can't afford them anymore!

[AutumnFairy01]

Firstly, this isn't to do with not giving to charity. I give to charity separately and donate items to local homeless charities, food banks, etc but I've always loved supporting charity shops too. They're great (or were great) for grabbing a bargain and reusing an unwanted item. I love secondhand wherever possible.

However, I've now come to the conclusion that charity shops are largely unaffordable for me now. I browse round charity shops weekly I would say (in more than one town) and the prices are just crazy! I always buy secondhand clothing for myself, dh and children but quite often the charity shop prices seem more expensive than buying new or at best, very little difference. For instance, in Chelmsford the other day, I went into the BHF shop and I saw a very simple baby's top, not designer or anything and it was £4! And then for adult clothing, I couldn't see anything below £6/7.

Boots sales and Facebook marketplace are my go to places more and more now. Sometimes freebay too.

I can understand charity shops putting their prices up a little with rising costs of everything but there has to be a balance surely?

AIBU to think charity shop prices are unrealistic for secondhand items?

Are they becoming unaffordable for anyone else?

I give loads to charities.

i make standing monthly donations (direct debits) to charities including
my local Hospice,
Women for Refugee Women,
Reprieve,
sponsoring two Maasai children to go to school (have done this since our kids were born, not naming the charity here as it is small and potentially outing),
Centre for the study of antisemitism,
Trussell Trust,
and St Mungos homeless charity.

As well as responding to individual appeals e.g. from the DEC or Medecins sans frontiers.

I also do at least one sponsored walk or run per year with my family.

Your accusation that i am using Oxfam's disgusting, repugnant, institutional abuse of children and women and its misuse of funds in the worst possible way, as an excuse not to donate to charity is not only totally wrong, it is personally insulting and upsetting.

Calling out one specific charity with a history of fraud, abuse and rape does not make it ok for you to make false claims about my attitude to charitable giving in general.

It would be the decent thing for you to apologise for that and retract it.

Hear hear.

It would also be the "decent thing" for you to retract your statement that "oxfam spends its money paying pimps" but just as you're not going to retract that, I'm not up for apologising.

Soz.

Furious posts on Mumsnet as bookshop doesn't stock a range of power tools to buy.

'Local people deserve to have access to a range of power tools on the local high street', said one poster, 'It is completely wrong for the book shop not to have a stock of power tools. Even though they never intended to stock power tools, and have no interest in stocking power tools.'

Off topic but Oxfam will not be getting anything from me again. We took items in to them and were accosted by one particular staff member who repeatedly asked my if I paid tax, why hadn't I got a sticker and if stuff had holes in it. We ended up with 4 members of staff questioning us. I have donated regularly to this shop and normally just give my postcode and house number as they have my details.

I will donate to other charity shops in the town - there are plenty of them. (anything with holes in I put into a separate bag)

I would say that use of sex workers by staff is paying pimps... That was Oxfam's money.
They also did not act when allegations of their staff sexually exploiting venerable people and children came to them.
There is a reason the charity had funding suspended. And not just for one instance.

9 February
Oxfam is accused of covering up an investigation into the hiring of sex workers for orgies by staff working in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, which killed thousands. After the investigation the charity allowed three men, including the country director, Roland van Hauwermeiren, to resign, and sacked four for gross misconduct, according to an internal 2011 report seen by the Times.

11 February
Penny Mordaunt, the international development secretary, threatens to cut government funding to Oxfam unless the charity hands over all information on its workers’ use of sex workers in Haiti. Meanwhile, Oxfam is hit with allegations that employees used sex workers in Chad in 2006, when Van Hauwermeiren was running operations there.

[...]

14 June
Haiti announces it is withdrawing Oxfam GB’s right to operate in the country “for violation of Haitian law and serious violation of the principle of the dignity of the human beings”.

This is what you're defending.

Thanks for confirming that you're also happy to tell outright lies about me and refuse to retract them.

how do you know that these shops selling items for a £1 are raking it in?
what are their running costs？
Daily takings？
some weekdays I will take £400/£500 on my 3.5 hour shift. If we sold items at £1 per item we would not be able to process the sheer volume of stock.

No one can know but I’m my local shopping centre the ONLY chazza that’s been open for ten years plus is the high volume/cheap price Barnardos (which is one that receives unsold goods from the higher priced Barnardos elsewhere).

All the others open and close after a couple of years trading (in recent years that’s been a YMCA, a local Carers Fund a BHF and an Oxfam).

The Barnardos may well have a special deal on rent but rates are stupidly high for the whole of the shopping centre. They deffo have community service ‘volunteers’.

Last time I went in I bought 8 items @ £1 each.

A Previous Poster said it, not me. They said they worked in a shop where this happened and they reckoned stuff would still sell at £2 each but bosses said no. I'll see if I can't find it.

YANBU. I went into a BHF shop recently and they had a Fatface top which was identical to one I own, and bought more than 20 years ago - priced at £19.99!! Yes, it was in good condition, as is my own as I only ever wear it on holidays. It probably only cost that when I bought it. The same shop had mens (second hand) chinos at £35!

@ShanghaiDiva Here's the post. Admittedly I read it slightly wrong and I'm not in retail, but £3k or £5k a week seems good to me for a charity shop. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@AutumnFairy01 you are defo nbu I'm in london and they are obscene in their pricing I looked at a skirt in a charity shop the other day bnwt from m&s and on the actual m and s tag it stated £25 but the charity shop had it up for wait for it........£45 I was shocked and thought the price was wrong maybe 4.50 instead so i asked and they said no its correct!!😱 I left abruptly to say the least

Not a fan of charity shops.

When you look at the executive salaries and the cars and other perks behind the scenes, i can’t help but feel that most charities are just ripping people off.

Btw, used to work for a charity and the excesses i saw were disgusting.

The other day I bought a hand knitted jacket for a 12-18 month baby at a charity shop in the Cotswolds for £2 !!! As a former keen knitter I know the wool alone must have cost at least £5 !
My friend also bought there 2 gorgeous sweaters for herself at £5 each. This was in Chipping Campden, one of the ‘ poshest ‘ places in the Cotswolds !!!

Yes that is crazy

Sometimes the items aren't exactly the height of fashion E.g. knee length skirt when midi is more current but still want a lot for it

I largely agree. The BHF shop ended up closing down in the city I live in because people they were just too expensive. Some items were priced ridiculously high, the furniture especially. It was cheaper to go to dfs for a sofa. Given that items are donated, I do feel charity shops take the pee in their pricing.

Went to a charity shop in Salisbury at the weekend. It certainly was a high end charity shop: they were selling a Joules coat for £50!

The prices in the big charity shops are ridiculous. What boils my p**s is that they pay little or no business rates, no salary except the shop manager, they don't pay for stock, because we give it to them for nothing. I always thought that the quid pro quo for this is that they sold things really cheaply and less well off people could get a bargain. That seems to have gone out the window some years back. Tbh, there's something scammy about the whole thing.

It's great that so many experts will be applying for the job whenever a charity shop near them needs a manager 😂they will all have their profits doubled within a week.

The shops themselves can’t necessarily absorb that all themselves 😔
Sadly the big bosses will still get be getting paid their 6 figure salaries while the shops have to put prices up.

I volunteer in a charity shop and we are given guidelines by the higher ups for prices to charge and also a budget that has to be met every week . If it’s not met we get into trouble!!!!! I personally think price it cheap and get rid of it rather than hang about for weeks

The prices you have quoted in your op don't sound unreasonably high.

On the flip side, I know someone who won't donate her items to charity shops because she feels they don't ask enough for them 🤷

People may not have as much disposable income this year so maybe the charities will have to rethink their pricing otherwise they won't have as many paying customers

I always used to think of charity shops serving a dual purpose; make money for charity and offer people affordable goods. Certainly I used to buy stuff from charity because I couldn’t afford new.

Now they are run more like a business, fair enough if that makes them more money but it’s easier/ cheaper buying from eBay / vinted now.

Maybe it makes business sense that selling one tshirt for a fiver makes more than five for a quid. Less to steam and process but you’ve alienated a proportion of your customer base. I don’t know who can afford charity shops these days.