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?

Of course it's not difficult, but it requires staff time to do it and it isn't always worth it, depending on the business model.

@NonPlayerCharacter
In what kind of business model is it not worth it?

Let’s do the math: let’s say an item is sold for £30 instead of £1. If it’s Gift Aided, which is not unlikely if the donor can afford an expensive item, that’s worth £37.50 to the shop. That means you’d have to sort, price and sell at least 36 £1 items - to make the same revenue as selling one higher price item.

Let’s assume the shop only has one paid member of staff, a charity shop manager paid £11.20 an hour (the national average apparently), and assume (optimistically) that it takes her two hours to sort, price and sell 36 £1 items. The profit is a paltry £13.60 (37%), which has to cover employers NI, rent, utilities, insurance, a share of head office costs and hopefully leave something for the charitable purpose.

Instead let’s say the manager spends ten minutes listing the item worth £37.50 on EBay, and another ten minutes packing it up when it’s sold. The profit from that is now £34.14 (91%), AND she still has another hour and forty minutes to do other things (sell more items, do paperwork, sort donations, recruit volunteers).

@Windowboxgardener , the item would need to be stored until it sold.

And the eBay fees. There is a monthly charge to have an eBay trading account.

And while the manager is listing the £37 item, who is running the till, handling donations, sorting rag, supporting volunteers, pricing items for listing and display etc.?

@KirstenBlest Easy - store it on the shelves/racks in the shop - at full asking price. If it sells in the shop, take it off eBay.

@gazelda Seriously? Well, either volunteers (most charity shops I know have at least one around at some point during the day) could step in to man the till for ten minutes while a couple of items are being listed. Or the manager could do it herself/himself on her/his phone when the shop is quiet. Or failing all of that (no volunteers, no phone, no quiet time ever), it would be economically worthwhile to shorten the opening hours by ten minutes to allow her/him to list items.

I realise people like bargains but please remember - these are businesses which exist to raise money for charitable causes, not so you can score a Prada handbag for a fiver.

Obviously if the choice is retail for £1 or eBay for £50 it’s worth putting stuff online.

But in many shops it’s not like that. We could maybe get £10 for something in the shop or £20 online. So the difference is a tenner. If we listed online for that extra tenner, the time taken to do that would mean 4 or 5 bags wouldn’t get sorted. How is a volunteers time best spent? It’s not always clear cut.

the stuff we put online is the weird and quirky - a very niche book on Scottish property law would be unlikely to sell in the shop, but we got £80 for it online. Putting M&S jumpers or Zara Jeans just isn’t worth it.

I'm in the US and donate a fair bit to Goodwill, which has a uniform pricing model. I can find both a Walmart sweater and one that was originally far pricier and far better quality for $5.99.

My local shop is usually heaving. I regularly see people filling trollies with merchandise and paying hundreds of dollars at the checkout. Families buy an entire season of clothing. Resellers comb the racks.

The thing that attracts people and keeps them returning is the uniform prices and the hope of a fantastic bargain. I've found several.

They are maximising profit by keeping prices uniform. It means the merchandise never stays on the racks for long (anything not sold in four weeks is removed and sent on to their discount warehouse where stuff is sold by weight) and people are incentivised to buy an item they like the day they see it. Choosing to buy is relatively painless thanks to the prices. It also means the pricing process in the backroom doesn't take long. There are only a few brands the pricers look for that cost a fraction more than the general prices.

I must admit that I haven't been in the shops much lately as have been trying to stop buying unnecessary stuff. However, I happened to be in town today, and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a Zara shirt in the charity shop window, certainly didn't look brand new, priced at £29.95! I couldn't believe my eyes! If I remember correctly that was BHF, so rather proves what others have been saying.

I used to work in this sector dealing with performance management.

Like any other retailer, shop managers are under pressure to meet sales targets. If they don't meet targets then ( in the charity I worked for) best case they would lose paid resource ( shop assistants/ deputies) worst case they'd lose their job.

No wonder they charge the absolute max they can get away with!

Sounds like a good model!

Goodwill isn't a charity shop though, it's a not for profit which isn't the same thing at all. And their shops are cavernous, out of town retail warehouse size rather than UK high street charity shop sized. Like comparing apples with oranges.

For those of you stating that Primark is cheaper - well yes it may be, but at what price; child labour, transport costs, import costs etc. Just so you can have a cheap piece of tat that you'll probably throw out after a couple of wears
Not very environmentally friendly, not ethically sound
And they are CHARITY shops - they don't exist to give the buyer a bargain, they exist to get money for the people they support

Agree
However there still are some good ones left. We went to Moffat in Scotland and they have one where any funds raised went straight back into community . Things like Clubs for Oaps , advice for families , playgroup etc - the things donated like coats etc were really cheap.
It was a real community enterprise

I worked for a big charity (hundreds of shops) and our shops were all tiered based on the quality of shop and high streets. Good items would be moved to the “good”’shops and stock was left in each shop for two weeks before being cycled down to the next shop in the chain.

yes people in the shop would mark up the price -but tops would always be within that shops range. If it didn’t sell at that price it wouldn’t go cheaper in that shop- but move on to the next.

yes you can go round lots of shops- but you need to identify which ones are at the bottom tiers in your area. They will be getting new stock daily so you’re probably better off hitting them more often rather than touring round and spending time in the top level ones.

@Windowboxgardener
Easy - store it on the shelves/racks in the shop - at full asking price. If it sells in the shop, take it off eBay.
Then you'd run the risk of it being sold or moved and needing to cancel the order or look for it.
It wouldn't be practical.

In an ideal world! Have you ever worked in a charity shop? If you’re lucky enough to have a volunteer in every day, morning and afternoon you’re very lucky, most are either having to work for longer or on granny duty! Volunteers are scarce snd they are not multi functional and many older volunteers are scared to work the till and prefer to be out back, doing their preferred duties. I’ve been a charity shop manager, now retired, for over twelve years. I left because I didn’t even get to go to the loo in peace and never took a lunch break as it would mean closing the shop. I’d run to do the banking in ten minutes and possibly grab a sandwich. You appear to have no idea the pressure managers are under. I’ve worked for several charities and they are all the same! No support! So having time to do what you may like to do is just a pipe dream. I ran my shops to a very high standard but it’s a killer.

There’s a brilliant thrift store in Aberfeldy, Scotland too. Different community groups/ local charities take it over for a week. Prices are reasonable. Always lots of fresh stock and nice initiatives. Free kids coats and wellies. Free school uniform rail . I do wonder if we will see a move back to “grass roots” initiatives as people seem to be tiring of corporate charity shops.

A lot of the clothes sold in charity shops will have the same issue though. From what I’ve seen half is primark/ supermarket. The other half is high street possibly the odd designer or ethically produced item

Went past a charity shop today and glanced in the window....saw a pair of Gabor shoes. Nice brand to be fair but the shoes were just ordinary flats, nothing particularly special. £49.95 😮

It's a not for profit that makes the money that funds its mission through its thrift shops (charity shops of various stripes). Its mission is training people who mightn't otherwise be able to get a toehold in the job market.

The retail operation employs these people and sends them on with a reference and something solid on their CVs. Goodwill also offers CV-building services for people looking for work, and some locations have job centres where people can use computers and printers, do interview training/ mock interviews, and attend small hiring events they host. There is a small partitiined-off area at the rear of my local Goodwill where people can go to get help with applications and where there are often small hiring events for local larger retailers/ supermarkets, and other unskilled labour employers like warehouses and light industry.

The shops are not all 'cavernous' by any means, and they're found in downmarket suburban strip malls where rents are low and there's sometimes parking available, and also in downtown areas of cities as well as more recognisable 'high street' locations in residential parts of cities.

The one I donate at is in a suburban strip mall location right beside a major city, situated beside an Aldi, an auto parts shop, and a nail/ spa place. The donation door is at the side of the building. You can drive up with your bags and boxes and just about turn around to get back out again. The one closest to one of my DDs, in an eastern seaboard city, is in a high street location with a residential neighbourhood behind the shops, the sort of commercial street that would be very recognisable to British people. There are other small shops on either side - a small cafe, a nail place, a dentist's office, and another charity shop benefiting an animal shelter is further along the street. There's a bus stop a few doors down. The donation door there is the main entrance - an employee takes all bags, boxes, etc. to the back room.

They do have some larger facilities for regular retail (all clothing on racks, different types of merchandise displayed on shelves, etc) and also 'last call' warehouse-sized places known as 'the bins' where rolling shallow bins of mixed up goods sent on from their normal shops are available for rummaging, and your haul is weighed and priced by the pound, not individually priced.

I saw a dress marked up at £15 recently with visible stains on the front. 😲

Some volunteers may miss things, the paid staff can’t look at every item before they are displayed. Perhaps point out the stains to a staff member or volunteer? Occasionally a customer will notice something wrong that may have been missed, we would be happy for them to tell us.

@mathanxiety I have lived in the US and am familiar with Goodwill. As @FamilyTreeBuilder says, Goodwill is a poor comparison with UK charity shops. I can’t think of any good UK equivalent to Goodwill stores - they are a cross between a village jumble sale, where the organisers want to clear everything by the end of the day, and a social enterprise like Dress for Success.

Unlike UK charity shops, Goodwill stores do NOT aim to maximise profits, because they aren’t there to raise money for charity - their purpose is to train people in basic work skills (turning up on time, looking presentable, carrying out instructions, using a till). The best way to do that is have a high turnover of items and not worry about how they are priced. Their units are nearly always outside town centres in locations where space is plentiful and rent is very cheap, so that’s not a concern like it is for UK charity shops on the High Street.

Having said all that, this is America we are talking about, and unlike all the pearl-clutchers on this thread, Goodwill is certainly not squeamish about separating out good stuff and selling it for high prices ($100+) online. I just saw a very nice pair of boots (not my size unfortunately) going for $180 - brand new they would have been at least $500.

@moira1951 No shortage of volunteers where we are. I can always tell which ones are the volunteers because they say thank you when you hand over donations.

If I were a manager under pressure to meet sales targets I would be thinking more creatively about how to use my time, given the alternative low cost sales channels that have emerged since you retired.

Profit is very much a factor in management decisions in Goodwill. Hence the closure of a good few stores in NYC. No profit, no way to fund the mission.

They pay rent and overheads, and they pay their staff. The way to keep the money rolling in is to offer the hope of finding hidden treasure for $6.99, and a good deal of new merchandise every week. The uniform pricing model keeps the enterprise ticking over.

If a charity is happy to sit on overpriced merchandise for weeks in case someone somehow manages to be looking for the exact £150 handbag they're selling in mint condition, they're missing a trick. Keeping prices high to suppress the cottage industry of reselling or rehabbing just keeps people poor.