Annoyed at people ranting about charity shops

[Dowhadiddydiddydum]

This is one those threads that’s a release of frustration. So apologies for it being so boring.

AIBU for getting pissed off at seeing people moaning constantly about charity shops and their pricing? It’s driving me insane.

Most people’s objections seem to be based on….

• Charity shops should be cheap…because they’re a charity ain’t they
• I could buy that stuff cheaper elsewhere.
• people give them things for free then they make loads of money from it.

Now am I loosing my god damn mind or do people not understand the point of charity shops is to FUCKING RAISE MONEY. So of course they want to raise as much money as possible. Of course people donate stuff for free….because they donate it so the charity can make money from it!! If you think you can get it cheaper elsewhere then bloody do it….if the shop is that over priced it’ll close down won’t it.

Been tipped over the edge by a shitty TikTok video someone made slating a local
hospice charity shop for selling their items for “too much”. The video has so many shitty comments under it….all apparently oblivious to the fact the shop exists to raise as much money as possible to support those with life limiting illnesses not so Barbara and Jeff can get a cheap table.

A lot of posters are talking about the purpose of a charity shop. Each charity has a stated purpose - unless that includes selling affordable items to those in need, there is no obligation on the charity shop to price things cheaply.

Charity shops also have to pay to dispose of a lot of tat that people donate which isn't sellable & really ought to be recycled or binned instead.

I think you are being unreasonable, yes.

Charity shops have become elitist and that's ugly. What about poor people needing to buy 2nd hand clothes? Only someone completely out of touch could imagine that this is OK. God the ignorant are boring.

The last paragraph demonstrates the common but fundamental misunderstanding of the aims of charity shops- their sole aim is to raise as much money for the charity, not providing for people who can't afford things.

Lots of our charity shops now have pricing strategies and it makes some many so expensive! Too expensive.

So people don't buy the stuff.

And now lots of charity shops aren't accepting donations because they're too full. Because... people havent bought stuff. DUH!

So YABU. They should be priced sensibly. A Primark tshirt that cost £3 new should not be £3 in a charity shop!

Our local independent charity shop is amazing!

Do people also think Primark has a moral responsibility to clothe the British poor?

Or do people understand that this is a business model designed to make maximum money?

Charitable objectives are laid out in law. If a charity exists to save the whales, then they must raise money to save the whales. If they can best achieve that by selling "overpriced" clothes to people willing to pay for them, then that is what they must do. They can't write in their annual report "Well, in 2022-3 we basically broke even on our charity shops, so no money for the whales, but on the plus side Pauline from Peckham found a lovely cheap outfit to wear to work!". The Charity Commission would not be impressed, for one.

Well no. That's assuming you have no cost of sales which isn't true. There are so many other costs - heating, light, waste disposal, rent, licence to play music in the shop, cost of labels and other consumables like the wee plastic bits for the pricing gun, telephone line, window cleaning etc etc.

I have posted the link to the charity job board so all the experts who could do it SO much better and make SO much money can apply and show the rest of us dimwitted and thieving volunteers how it's done.

Of course it isn’t!
salaries, rent, utilities, equipment, rubbish disposal, cleaning supplies…how do you think all this paid for?

It’s not 100% profit. The stock may be free but there are overheads both directly attributable to the shop and those attributable to head office.

For a charity shop to run efficiently, you need people. You need people to sort through the donations, price and steam the good clothing, research the bric a brac online so you're not putting out a gold bangle for £2, stock the shelves, operate the till, go through every item on the shop floor weekly to remove anything that's been there more than 2/3 weeks according to policy. And that's before all the other jobs in running a shop like cashing up, banking, recruiting new volunteers, training them, window displays, reporting figures to head office, dealing with emails, phone calls, social media and so on.

Volunteers are there by choice and in my experience some will pick and choose what they want to do. You've got Joan who only does the books and won't sort other donations, Mary who does the till on a Friday morning and won't ever switch days, and Bill who refuses to go on the till at all. Sue who can't lift anything heavy, Ann who doesn't like using the steamer, Peter who is only interested in cleaning the jewellery. It's not like a normal business where you just draw up a rota and tell people what they're doing. If they don't want to turn up, they don't. There is this perception that we're all standing around twiddling our thumbs doing very little whereas we are snowed under with stuff and not enough people to get it all done. Not enough RELIABLE, adult people who are prepared to come in week in, week out and get stuck in. Well intentioned 14 year olds doing their D of E who want to come 1 hour a week for 12 weeks are a total waste of time. And the manager wastes so much time training people on the till or giving them the health and safety briefing, then they leave.

Most charity shops have one paid member of staff. Many like the one I am currently helping in have nobody paid at all. The one paid member of staff is paid for 35 hours a week - or less if it's a smaller shop. Shop is open 9-5 Monday to Saturday, and maybe 4 hours on a Sunday. That's 52 hours a week. Because of lone working policies most charity shops will insist on 2 able bodied over 18s in the shop at any time.

Like i said, all the experts feel free to come and show us all how they could do it so much better. With limited resources, variable quality/quantity of stock and a volunteer "workforce".

Charity sector sales are way up on last year. Which kind of says people are finding things they are prepared to buy, at a price they are prepared to pay. Despite what some moaners on MN say.

Thanks to the most recent posters who have knowledge and experience about the actual working of charity shops. I think many people don’t understand how much goes in to running a charity shop and how much income they can make for their charities. I can’t remember the exact amount but I remember hearing that during covid, because of shop closures, Barnardo’s income was a lot less than predicted (by millions I think).

I think a previous poster mentioned a model in another country where they have more charity shops whose explicit aim is reduction of waste, reusing of items and providing affordable items. I do think there is space for more of that type of charity shops, maybe run by charities or social groups whose aims are linked to reducing waste and/or providing affordable items especially for people in need. local to me with have some free “repair shops” and I guess it’s similar to that:

I do think that is a very different and separate thing to a charity shops aimed soley at raising as much profit as possible for their own charity. As someone else has said charities have to show they are actually raising money towards their stated aims.

Agree waste reduction centres, repair shops etc are a great concept. But that's a different sort of model from the charity shop at the moment.

Any volunteer will know that a high percentage of what we're given is just not sellable AT ALL. Chipped mugs, empty DVD boxes, VHS cassettes, single socks, shoes with the soles hanging off. And obsolete things like photo albums, cassette tapes are dififcult to shift, CDs and DVDs rapidly going the same way. Not everything CAN be recycled or has a value as a second-hand item. Lots of things are only fit for the bin.

The fact that these threads come up so often shows that the current pricing strategy is pissing off (and driving away) customers. Charity shop sales might be up on last year, but we also have a CoL crisis at the moment. Aldi and Primark sales are also up. Charity ratepayers are granted a mandatory 80 per cent relief from non-domestic rates where the property is wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes by that charity or by that charity and other charities.

I feel like a broken record commenting on these threads ... and it's interesting how much so many mumsnetters seem to know about the organisation and running of charity shops yet proclaim they 'never' shop in them.
Of course there are some badly run charity shops ... but plenty are making money for the charity they support.
Its been shown over and over again that price is not the only factor why goods don't sell ... on the back of this thread (which repeats itself at least every month) I have done £1 rails, 'name your own price days' and even offered stuff for free just to get rid of it ... lots of stuff still just won't move. We get brand new generic school uniform from a well known High Street retailer .. it doesn't even sell at £1 for a brand new pair of grey/black school trousers or skirt.
In our town we run regular 'free cycle events' ... nothing to do with charity shops but open to everyone .. take what you want ... no money is asked for and no questions .... we still end up with more 'stock' than we start with ...
The problem is that we are now a throw away society.

I must have missed the people at the door of the charity shop forcing me to buy that £3 bobbly Primark t shirt. Generally if it’s too expensive or poor condition, I just …move on.

When I go into Jigsaw, pick up a £125 jumper that I can’t afford, I just put it back and walk out. That is surely the retail experience? And yet those stores are only making money for their shareholders, they don’t have the excuse of maximising profit for a charity. Where’s the outrage they aren’t cheaper to allow poorer folks to buy?

And out of interest, I have a friend who has a nice sideline in scouring charity shops for designer and reselling on ebay/vinted. If you price lower there’s no guarantee you are helping the right people.

Saying 'sales are up in charity shops proves that their pricing strategy is a success!' is like saying 'food banks are more popular than ever proving how delicious and nutritious the food is'.

Why is that @FKATondelayo ? Are you labouring under the misconception that nobody would ever choose to shop in a charity shop if they can afford to shop elsewhere? That they are for the "poor" or "misfortunate" people? 🙄

Exactly. What is so bad about people using charity shops to buy stock that they are selling on more expensively? Like no one has ever made money from house clearances or flea markets or unwanted gifts. If the sole aim of charity shops is indeed to raise money they shouldn't care who buys from them, whether they are 'poor' or not.

Now am I loosing my god damn mind or do people not understand the point of charity shops is to FUCKING RAISE MONEY. So of course they want to raise as much money as possible This is a change from 30 years or so ago. At one time, they did raise money, but they did so by selling stuff to people who couldn't afford to buy new. So there was an element of charity in the pricing too. Then it became chic to hunt for bargains in charity shops, and people shopped there who could perfectly afford to buy elsewhere, and so we have the current model. But lots of people can remember when they were deliberately cheap so that the less well off could afford stuff.

So upon any criticise anything if you're not prepared to work in that area? Too funny.

Don't like club cards? Go and be Tesco's CEO.

Don't like how the police handle certain aspects of policing? Well here you go, they're hiring.

Just be an MP if you disagree with them so much!

None of use say we buy overpriced bobbly jumpers, it's just an observation. Life would be pretty boring if we weren't allowed to talk about anything.

It's not the criticism that bothers us volunteers, people criticise all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons.

It's the general feeling that the charity sector runs on the goodwill of well-meaning but a bit thick volunteers, who can't recognise decent brands, think it's reasonable to price "bobbled Primark" for £20, and who wouldn't know what stock rotation meant if it came up and slapped them. And that everyone on Mumsnet, even if they have never shopped in a charity shop let alone volunteered, could do it all SO much better.

Interesting post😀

Why doesn't the uniform sell?

Where on this thread are people saying that charity shop workers don't have a clue about brands?