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 really hate Vinted. Half the stuff I've bought doesn't fit or looks crap and I've only ever sold a couple of things on there. Even the decent stuff I bought didn't sell when I put it back on. And returns are non-existent.

I have shopped in charity shops for years and my DDs (now in their 20s) are keen charity shop buyers. One of them set herself the challenge one year to only buy preloved clothes. There are brands which I would never buy new but which I love to pick up in charity shops (I work in one of the most affluent council areas of Scotland and love to wander the local charity shops in my lunch hour).
I hate fast fashion and it appalls me to see Primark items on eBay for more than they would have been in store. A charity shop near us has a vintage section and I was amused to see a Primark Disney sweatshirt in it last week for £20.
One of our local charity shops sells all clothing at £2 an item. One of my DDs bought the other a dress in there for Christmas 2022 for £2. When she brought it home she Googled the brand out of curiosity and found that similar dresses were retailing at £800.

Any type of retail is batshit at the moment.

I am just winding up my bricks and mortar shop after 7 years as I'm now in close to 10 grand in debt trying to keep going after I was widowed two years ago. As a sole trader in a niche market I sell a mix of curated (yes I hate that word) pre-loved clothing and new items relative to the "lifestyle" that my shop caters to (and no, it's not a sex shop).

I have friends in the charity shop sector reporting turnover in the region if 400 - 500 a day. I only need 200 a day to survive but can I achieve it? Can I feck .

My clothing is priced between 5.00 up to 100.00 depending on brand - remember, niche lifestyle garments, not mainstream.

My new items range in the same pricing bracket with plenty of things under 10.00.

What grinds my gears is that charity shops in my locale (South coast) also sell new goods from wholesalers that I use.

I haven't had the time or brainpower to create a proper online presence - i have good following on social media but footfall has dropped so much I reduced my opening hours because waiting for customers 6 days a week and being lucky if I get 2 in a day was driving me slowly round the bend.

My "loyal customers " have turned up since I announced my closing down sale - within an hour of putting the post up i had offers to take the stock off my hands at wholesale prices from three people keen to start their own "exciting new ventures". Bloody vultures.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to bitterly make is that being a sole trader in retail these days is grim.

I have had people photograph items in my shop and find them cheaper on the Internet from online businesses with lower overheads in front of my face. I have been told I'm more expensive than charity shoos - well yes, because I have to buy my stock. The deciding factor to give up was seeing the same items I sell cheaper on online platforms like Temu and Shein than I can buy them from my wholesalers.

Where charity shoos fit into my rant is that they are "businesses" with special concessions, unpaid volunteers, and free stock.

I went to a small affluent area of my town recently and there were about 8 charity shops in total with four in a straight row. Prices were out of my range and I would be naked without charity shops, ebay, and back in the day, car boot sales.

I'm trying to make a point but not doing it very well. I'm all in favour of charities making money for good causes, but when a High Street is dominated by charity shops, coffee shops, barbers and nail bars, and independent shops are closing handvover fist, WTF is going on ?

I'm old, I'm tired, and God knows what my future is going to be. I was passionate about my little brand, and the modern world has killed that stone dead.

Ah well. Que sera sera.

Most of my local charity shops closed their changing rooms during covid times and funnily enough they are still closed to customers - now no reason given. I assume not enough staff/volunteers to supervise.

For those who say that if things were priced cheaper more would sell and the shop can be replenished faster may be interested in this.

My DH used to run a charity shop and I would volunteer on a Saturday, he asked me to go and look at one of the other Charity shops who were selling everything for £1 so he could make a report to his AM, when I went in it was the first Saturday for the new price and they were heaving they actually had some rather nice clothes I bought 2 dresses myself, the next Saturday I went in again this time they were busy but there were huge gaps on the rails and shelves, later that day in DH shop we had a new donor really nice clothes think Country Casuals and Alexon really classic stuff, this new donor told me she used to donate to the other shop but she thought £1 was too cheap and wanted her clothes to make more money for a charity, DH told me she was the 5th Donor that week who said the same, the next week I went in this time there was hardly any customers and not much stock at all, they closed down a couple of months later, in the meantime DH was getting more and more good quality clothing from that shops old donors that he could put a realistic price on.

So yes selling stuff for a quid may help sales but if it puts donors off the shop will soon sell out of things to sell unless they rotate from another branch

if you cant try it on in the charity shop, you can in that case, take it home, try it on, and then bring it back for a refund

I volunteer in a charity shop. No, you can't return for a refund but you can exchange or get a credit note and we have a changing room that makes choosing easier. There are reasonably priced items, a £1 rail for bobbly/primark tops etc and some high-end bags and coats that sell for decent money. The trick is to get the punters in and to mark up accurately - yes, sometimes we do get it wrong but have been known to reprice items!

My charity shop does do refunds with a receipt and also has an open dressing room which is well used.

Mine too

we'd happily refund too, as long as you have the receipt and the item is still tagged. We had an issue with some people coming in and taking a more expensive item off the rails (say a phase eight dress or something) paying a tenner for it, taking it home and bringing back a cheap primark/asda dress and asking for a refund. So now we have to write "red phase eight dress" or "blue hollister hoodie" or whatever on the tag.

Our changing room is open too - during the pandemic the guidance was that changing rooms had to be fully wiped down after each customer and we didn't have the people to do that, so had to keep them closed.

Oldsu makes another very valid point, many people wish to support their favourite charity shop by donating goods and hoping that a decent amount is raised. The charity shop I volunteer in is well known for pricing books slightly higher other charity shops on the High street but many donors say they much to prefer to donate to us as they know we respect the donations, present them nicely etc and raise a decent amount of money. They don't want their much cherished books being sold at 2 for a £1.

I appreciate not everyone thinks like that and some people just want to get rid of their unwanted stuff at the nearest charity shop but there are a lot of loyal donors ... and customers. As a charity we owe it to our donors to raise as much as we can from their donations (obviously I am not talking about Primark tops .... ).

I don't think charity shop staff and volunteers are being defensive, there are a number of us who appear on these threads (you get to recognise the names 🙂) who clearly have a very professional attitude to their work and have worked in successful charity shops for a long time and it is tedious to constantly read that we are thieves, not very bright and have no clue how to run a charity shop .... there are plenty of opportunities to volunteer/work in charity shops if anyone else would like to.

I'm so sorry to hear of all the trouble you've had.

It sounds terrible. So the charity shops are selling this niche stuff too and competing with you? And while Temu etc will inevitably undercut your prices, people aren't put off by the fact that the quality is shit? Niche customers are often more discerning about that sort of thing...I guess the negative effects of fast fashion are reaching further than I realised. Do you think people are getting worse at recognising when something is shoddily made, or do you think the impossibly low prices are just too hard to resist?

@MistressoftheDarkSide sorry to hear you've closed your shop 💐.
I thought it was only in Wales that we were suffering the charity shop/barber/coffee shop/nail bar deterioration of towns.
I own a vintage/antique shop. Another area where the charity shops are trying to put us out of business.

Don't know if it's true but one of the massive charity shops in my town is rumoured to be turning over 1k per day! It's like a bloody superstore.

I wish the charity volunteers posting on here would acknowledge the detrimental effect that their shops are having on towns. Charities are ruthless big businesses these days with overpaid executives. Some of the stores in retail parks are huge! About time councils regulated the number of charity shops in towns.

Probably a silly question have you set up an Instagram page, as ecommerce sites are very popular for many now.

Interestingly I stay rurally and in my closest two towns there are no chain charity shops. Each has an independent charity shop which supports local causes but it’s generally felt that chain charity shops take from the community to it’s general detriment.

We are quite lucky in that our women's aid charity shop is pretty good on the whole, clothes wise at the least. Most are 3 quid for trousers, skirts or tops and a fiver for dresses and coats etc. The other stuff seems to depend who prices it as to how reasonable it is but it's usually not too bad.

We have a clearance hospice shop too where everything is a pound (and usually needs going over with a debobbler but that's no problem, especially at that price.

On the other hand I now find our scope shop quite high and our heart foundation is ridiculously priced for a lot of things. So much so that one has closed in the main town center with a massive footfall because it didn't sell enough and the furniture store in the next town (essentially 2 small towns which are like one big one) has also closed. Our oxfam has also gone.

The 2nd town also has a red cross store which is also silly money. Even things like books, Cds and dvds are silly priced. Old 5 or more year old craft magazines without their "free" gifts are a pound each in it!

@PandoraRocks I think it’s unfair to claim that charity shops are trying to put you out of business. It’s better that high street units are filled rather than staying empty as this attracts more shoppers. Shops in the small town were I volunteer have gone out of business, but these are national chains not small independents.
We also have a large number of barbers (money laundering operations imo), vape shops and cafes but also a good number of independent shops and about 14 charity shops. The independents seem to be busy and we have an indoor market too. We direct customers to the market or independents when we don’t have what they are looking for so more of a symbiotic relationship ime.

I have a feeling that I know where @PandoraRocks 's shop is. If it is where I think it is, the charity warehouse is on a trading estate about half a mile away.
If is somewhere you'd get in the car, drive to Aldi and Home Bargains and have a browse round the huge charity shop then drive back.

There's a hospice shop in the town centre and that wouldn't be competition because it's not particularly cheap, and people wanting to browse a vintage shop would probably also want to browse other shops.

Probably. For me that is a 12 mile round trip plus parking. And sometimes charity shops can be very funny about refunds.

The ones near me are outrageous - old smelly Zara and H&M priced at £10 and £15. Long stopped being cheaper to shop there so I haven't bothered for years.

I love your user name!

I was in a charity shop two days ago and looking at various objects on a shelf, a lady next to me pointed out at a mug that was in an (opened) box and told me ''They left the original £5 price on the box and they are selling it for £4.99. I don't want to be mean but this isn't right''.

I think that is a good illustration of their pricing process being incredibly daft. Nobody is going to pay £4.99 in a charity shop for something that retailed at £5 in a regular shop.

You could also get a brand new mug for less than that amount in a supermarket.

If somethings worth £4.99, then why does it matter where you buy it from?

Having said that, maybe you or the other shopper could have mentioned it to one of the people working there? Mistakes happen and they'd have appreciated it being pointed out to them so it could be rectified.

@Gazelda

Missing the point entirely.

Also I am not employed by the charity shop and it is not my responsibility to help them rectify their prices.

Also I am not employed by the charity shop

neither are the volunteers.