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.

You're right that your ignorance is boring. Chairtiy shops are there to make money for the charity

Partly correct. They should probably have ragged the stock instead.
Putting loads of too cheap stock out takes time space and money.

Much of that comes down to management. I volunteer in a well-run one. We could do with more people as at this time of year, the volume of donations steps up, (and will peak by mid-January) and we can't process it quickly enough.

We have different departments, all headed up by volunteers: homewares, textiles, furniture, music, toys and clothing. Everything has to be sorted.

Damaged and broken goods are binned. We can't sell electrical as we don't have anyone who can PAT test but people still give us those..

Standard stuff from supermarkets
/Primark etc. is priced below their rate. Any more valuable items are researched and priced at between half and two thirds retail proce.

People regularly complain about the prices. I've taken to showing them the current retail price for the items. If they say they can buy it elsewhere cheaper, I wish them good luck.

Agree with you that people are unaware of how much the shops do, and their purpose. Wages for managers are shit too.

@Ragwort is right about the school uniform. I used to volunteer in Oxfam, who have a long-standing link with M&S. Every few months we'd get boxes of stock from one of the big local stores. Stuff which hadn't sold in the sales but also customer returns, or things like a pack which should have 4 pairs of socks and only had 3. We had lots of schoolwear around October/November one year, all brand new with tags - trousers, cardigans, single shirts, socks, gym shoes, the lot. I think we put the trousers and cardigans out at £3, the shirts were £1. We sold hardly any. Partly because the sizing was random, we didn't have the range of sizes you would expect in a "normal" shop, partly because in October/November people have bought their uniform for the year, partly because of weird attitudes about charity shops being either disgustingly unhygienic, or for the "poor people".

I think that Charity shops may be on their way out because the world has changed. Clothes used to be quality but expensive so if you could get them cheaper it was great; now clothes are too-cheap fast-fashion. Women used to be SAH and have time for volunteering; now most people work. Society used to operate on goodwill where people would donate their excess and shops would sell at discounted prices; now people either bin stuff or try to sell it on the internet, people won't volunteer, customers realise that chazzers aren't what they used to be (thanks Mary Portas) and so customers have become as hard-nosed as the charities (hence threads like these).
They've had their day. They might be having a current post-covid, Cost of Living bounceback in sales but when the good times return they will struggle massively.

I love a charity shop. I have a very good one that is managed so well and clothes are organised by colour and then size. Feels like a boutique
and prices reflect the brand .

You agree that low income people have been priced out of charity shops? That's what most critics of the OP on here are saying.

Yeah, they have been gentrified.

Charity shops could give out guidelines about what can be donated and the condition things must be in. They could have posters and leaflets with these in their shop, on the website, Facebook etc. I would happily buy school uniform from a charity shop if I knew about it; have you thought about advertising that you are having a uniform sale / considered storing uniform until June / July / August when people are most likely to buy it?

I hear what you're saying @ichundich but then you'd get people moaning that they were spending money on posters and flyers which isn't going to the cause. It's not really needed - all that is needed is for either people to use their words and ASK "can you take electricals" or "I have a bag of underwear/socks, can you take that" rather than just dumping and running. Or asking themselves whether they would be prepared to pass their donations on to a friend, neighbour, relative. If they wouldn't because it's too old, worn, broken, why would you expect other people to buy it?

Storage is a massive issue for many charity shops - we already store Christmas stuff to be sold in November/December and just don't have the space to store other stuff for different occasions or seasons. And if you pay for a storage unit, you're back to the criticisms that you are frittering away money.

But why do you think there was "an element of charity in the pricing"? Their aim has always been to raise money for that charity. Why else would they bother going to the trouble of setting up a chain of shops? If they were indeed more affordable 30 years ago, the obvious explanation would be that "pile them high, sell them cheap" was thought to be the most effective pricing strategy at the time. We can speculate all day about whether they would actually raise more money by selling cheap or not, but the fact remains that charities have always aimed to raise money for themselves, not to miss out on potential income by prioritising the welfare of the local poor.

Similarly, some charities ask for small donations ("just £2 can help..."), others go straight in with an ask for £50 knowing that fewer people can afford this. This has nothing to do with wanting to help the general public save money, it's purely to do with what they think will raise the most money. It's the individuals responsibility to manage their own finances.

@ichundich most shops do have that info on their websites. As for school uniform, its not standard necessarily that it's donated- many schools now have their own second hand shops run by parents associations, etc.
If the shop is lucky enough to have volunteers that can 'do' social media, they can use (for example) Instagram to show the sort of thing that they take.
All comes down to resources and management again.

I see what you are saying, but prices in charity shops have gone up a huge amount since covid, while the people buying from them have not had similar increases in their income. More people I know are turning to Vinted rather than charity shops now - and I'm sure this is having a knock on effect for charity shops where people are no longer donating their decent stuff as they know there will be people willing to pay them for it on vinted as charity shops are unaffordable for a lot of people now.

Actually charity shops are booming.

tfn.scot/news/shop-takings-continue-to-soar-as-charities-report-increasing-demand

www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/uk-charity-shops-generated-75bn-of-social-value-last-year-finds-report.html

Prices everywhere have gone up. Interested in why charity shops are immune from this.

One of the charity shops near me was giving out free coats last year and also had a special Xmas present evening - tickets for it were given out to kids by their school. There was juice and biscuits for the kids and colouring for them to do so the parents could sneak the toys they were buying (many brand new and in boxes) to the till and into big bags.

We had a rough year last year, that charity shop made Xmas feasible. We're not rich now, but can afford things that are cheap but new (such as "compatible with Lego, but not Lego" sets instead of actual Lego).

clothes are organised by colour and then size.

Clothes organised by colour are IMO off-putting. I'm far less likely to rummage through a rack of clothes if they're the same colour.
If they're sorted by type of garment, then by size, then by colour that's much better.

Not to me @KirstenBlest as I only look through the colours that suit me. I don’t do pink, yellow, purple so saves me time.

We do!

It's quite bizarre

I used to buy uniform 2nd hand for mine at times as did my dm for me and we were very mc.

This wasn't even second hand @greengreengrass25 ! It was brand new with all the labels and had literally just arrived from the same M&S store where people are prepared to pay £10+ for a pair of trousers and £15 for a pack of school shirts.

I got a few things of the right size for my kids, one of my sons was a super skinny boy so age 14 long length trousers fitted him until he was 16 or 17. Also we had an issue once that they sent us a lot of red school cardigans/jumpers and none of the local schools have that colour, they are all blue/black/grey/green. But I do think that there is a large number of people who wouldn't ever dream of buying anything in a charity shop, tagged or not, and others who think that they should leave clothing in case a "poor person" comes along.

have you thought about advertising that you are having a uniform sale / considered storing uniform until June / July / August when people are most likely to buy it?

Where are they supposed to store it?
When you have a clear out and donate to a charity shop, do you think about when they will sell it? I'd have thought that people clear out at the end of a season, so outgrown school uniform would be donated in June, not August.

Yep these posters complaining about charity shop prices - what they mean is they want a bargain, not that they can’t afford the prices.

if you want to buy a t shirt for £2, go to primark or the supermarket. No one on a low budget now needs to rely on charity shops anymore now we all have access to very cheap clothing.

so the “social function” of charity shops of the location to go to for super cheap clothing for those with a very limited budget has pretty much ended with the rise of the cheap supermarket/primark clothing option.

Charity shops are now a place if you go to if you want to get something unique, something good quality for fast fashion prices, something recycled if you care about environmental impact of fashion.