Charity shop prices

[Worryworms]

Went to a local charity shop today and the prices were ridiculous. £16 for a jacket that wasn’t in good condition, £8 for a worn bobbly primark jumper, £6 for a kids jumper that was very worn. Kids white school polos that were discoloured, £3 each. I recently bought a pack of 2 brand new ones for £3 at a supermarket. has any one else noticed this in their local charity shops?

Most of the ones round here are reasonable. But you have to hunt for the good stuff and leave the dross.

Some charities have mandatory pricing which puts the local staff in a bind. I avoid those.

They are priced at the level that sells and makes most money for the charity. That is their purpose

Yes. I agree OP

There are lots of charity shops in my town. Some are stocked with very worn items overpriced. These tend to be the bigger chain charity shops. Then I find the same items are there for weeks on end and they won't take donations because they don't have space.

The ones we have that benefit local charities like a local cat rescue and the local scout group are much more reasonably priced and because of that there is lots of turnover of stock and always nice new stuff to discover.
I buy almost all my clothes and clothes for my son in charity shops. I love it for toys and books too.

There's alot of crap. I think they used to be better years ago.

YANBU. I actually disagree that they're "priced at the price that sells" because what is really happening is the charity shop has such a huge amount of donations that they can price absolute tat at ridiculous prices and when it doesn't sell, bin it and put something else on the shelves whenever that arrives. They don't actually need those things to sell, just to fill the shelves on the offchance someone goes for it.

I've found an amazing charity shop recently. Everything is SO cheap - never paid more than £2 for anything and kids' clothes are 50p an item. I've bought loads of stuff thinking if it's no good I'll just donate it back. The stock seems to shift really fast.

I was in one the other day that wanted £4 for a jigsaw puzzle. I pick up puzzles all the time for my kid and have never paid more than about £1.50!

I don’t mind paying for quality. I do mind paying expensive prices for cheap shit. I know the shops to go to.

Yes almost all are extortionate near me and the quality of the stock is really poor. It’s actually cheaper to buy new in many cases. Thankfully there are still quite a few jumbles sales which are 50p an item.

Not all aren't.

I love charity shopping and buy virtually all my clothes from charity shops and have done for decades.

In my local high street there are 7 charity shops. 1 is nearly always empty. The prices are much higher than the others. Yes, they will 'make' more on a sale than the others, but they sell a fraction of the number of items as the other shops, so overall their income has to be a lot lower.

I’m finding this too.

The one I volunteer at has very fair pricing. There's the occasional time I will highlight to the manager that it's available new for less (eg sale item at supermarket) but most things are good quality, branded, and less than 25% of sake price originally eg bought a seasalt dress for £7.99 recently when they are £45 in the sale new

A charity shop near me seems to go through phases of items being reasonably priced and then, for unknown reasons, ridiculously overpriced.

Last week they had a small tatty teapot with no lid priced at £5! The clothing was just as overpriced… a T-shirt fabric jumpsuit at £25.

When the stock doesn’t sell it all becomes stale and even more off putting.

I was looking for a waterproof anorak yesterday, they were £15-20! Far cheaper on vinted so I will get one there.

We have about 8 charity shops in our town and it’s the big ones that have the ridiculous pricing - BHF and Oxfam. Absolute tat gets such high prices - in one I did actually politely point out that their price was higher than what the original retailers label that was still was on it was.

Most charity shops price according to the area they are in, I live near some which are based in less well off areas and they are always busy because they keep their prices low and understand their target market, those in central Manchester and London seem to price according to the higher earners and this puts a lot of potential customers, I have had some brilliant bargains and love a good charity shop day out

Must be at least a week since we've had a charity shop bashing thread ....

Get ready with your bingo card!

We have about 8 charity shops in our town and it’s the big ones that have the ridiculous pricing - BHF and Oxfam.

Yes, it is BHF that I find over priced. We don't have an Oxfam.

I used to live in charity shops but the prices are ridiculous now. Most of them near me are bursting full of stuff and overpriced. I walk in and walk straight out now mostly. Prefer Vinted.

Genuine question which I always ask on these threads and is never answered ..

'If you feel that charity shops are over priced and too expensive why are so many charities opening more shops?'

In our small town there are sixteen (yes, sixteen!) charity shops with two new ones opened in the last few weeks .. they are obviously performing well otherwise they would not choose to open new shops and charity shops would be closed down. .

They are not run by amateurs! They know what they are doing - if they were not making the optimum profit they would change what they were doing- of course they are making a profit

@Effervescent999 What I suspect happens, is that the people who make the decisions, make a 'corporate' decision. "This is what we will do in all our shops" rather than looking at more local circumstances. So, their policy makes sense in some High Streets, no doubt, but not so much in others.

Agree @Worryworms