200 charity shops closing (cancer research)

[lebopbop]

AIBU to be sad about this as a charity-shop lover?

I don’t have a nearby cancer research shop but lots of other charity shops and I’m worried this is signalling a general trend :(

I do like Vinted etc for pre-loved clothes but it’s so much better to see things in person, be able to try on and not pay postage. It’s also just fun to go and rummage.

The ones near me are cheap and cheerful. I love going in them.

The problem is the volume of clothes sold these days are cheap fast fashion - eg the supermarket/primark effect. Yes the items might be ok to wear for a bit longer, but when the new cost of a T-shirt in primark is £2.80 (for a kids t shirt) yet a charity wants at least £2.50 for a second hand shirt it’s easy to see why people aren’t going there anymore.

as someone else said, things like crockery are so cheap at the range/home bargains that it makes sense to buy something you actually WANT rather than making do for the same pricing.

in our village we have a thriving freecycle fb page which is where I get rid of nearly all unneeded clothing, books, furniture etc.

This^

Yes I’d never put stuff in the bin

People always talk about how if charity shops sold everything for 50p or £1 then they would make so much more. That might work for some places but there are two key reasons we don't.

In order to keep stock flowing very quickly off the shelves you need LOADS of volunteers to accept donations, sort donations, put on hangers, price, steam if its clothing, remove the stuff which has been there too long, operate the till. We really struggle for reliable volunteers, so much so that we can't open on a Monday morning as there are no volunteers.

Also, if people are generous enough to donate us a sealed in its box Lego set, a Hobbs wool coat still tagged, or a brand new John Lewis duvet cover set, we would be failing in our charitable aims to maximise income by letting it go for pennies.

Pricing is an art not a science. Our store is reasonable - £5 or £6 for a top, £7 or £8 for a dress - but sometimes you go in and find someone's gone rogue and priced a Tu or George top for a tenner. Who knows why, we're not perfect and it happens. We have no paid staff in our shop, just volunteers. Similarly, I've spotted other things which are very much underpriced - I am a knitter and know that 500g of pure merino yarn is worth a lot more than £2. And like I said, we get weekly figures showing what is selling so if something's on the slide we can take action in some way.

Ours are hard to get to for the most part, spread out so you can’t just try the next one, and don’t always want donations.

Sometimes I take things to family members who live in areas with more excepting charity shops. But most of the time now, I just leave clothes out for the rug man. Jigsaws, brick back, and the like are stored up and donated to whichever local school is running a fate and need something for the tombola.

Their business model is all wrong. I regularly will put £10 in my purse to spend in a charity shop. This morning I took two grandchildren with me. First shop was an independent and we bought four side plates and a pretty spotless brand new fox plush toy all for £1. Fantastic. Talked to the main volunteer who seems to be in there quite often and she said they often take £6000 a week. All good.
Cross the road to a Break shop and totally empty. Grandson wanted a toy turntable at £5.50. I said no as it took 6 AA batteries and no guarantee it would work. He picked out a tiny car priced at £.75p. I gave him 50p and told him to offer that. The server reluctantly let him have it as he’d asked nicely.
It’s not rocked science: better to sell 100 things at a £1 than one thing for £5.00.
The ceos dictate the prices and I hope they are soon out of a job. They deserve to be fired.

Local charity shops charge way too much I was looking for a Navy jacket some charity shops wanted,£40 + for a second hand h&m suit jacket that are £20 new !? So I no longer shop in them,the only charity shop that takes donations is one supporting
local domestic violence.

Another issue that faces the shop I volunteer in is that the company that is contracted to collected our culled and unsellable stock, frequently does not show up when it's supposed to. They're supposed to come every week, but frequently four or five weeks go by where they don't show up.

As a result, the amount of scrap continues to accumulate and we can literally have had 60-70 crates of uncollected books taking up space. It gets to the point where. at the instigation of our Sunday shift leader, we volunteers who work Sundays refuse to go in when it gets really bad - which, since the managers don't work on the Sunday, means the shop is closed.

Then head office should surely review their policies, with the shameful rise of fast fashion, some of the items donated may have cost that little in the first place! It would make sense to be far less rigid and have a "bargain bin" of 50p items etc or if books have been there for donkeys years put them down dramatically. Its not rocket science- but it does look like greed.

I really enjoy using charity shops and the ones in my small seaside town are always busy and have some decent stock.

But I do notice that their pricing is all over the place with many items completely over-priced.

My town's Oxfam shop just closed. It had been here since the days when charity shops were not that common. I was surprised to see it go but it was tiny.

@Wavescrashingonthebeach

The specific shop I volunteer in is a bookshop, so the fast fashion issue doesn't apply to it. Minimum price may be different in other Oxfam shops that sell clothing, but I wouldn't know for certain.

The chain I volunteer with has a minimum price of £3 for adult clothing too. It really doesn't cause any issues. We have a small shop and a large volume of donations. Things which would be priced lower than £3 would be primark t-shirts, George at Asda camisole/vests, Tesco shorts. Unless BNWT, those items go straight into the recycling. Because when you have limited space, you want to put out a dress for £10, not a vest for £2 or £1.

Also on the stuff hanging around for "donkey's years" - most of the large chains will have some sort of code for marking when things go out. When I volunteered at Oxfam they used week numbers (not starting from 1 Jan), you knew by looking at the label how long something had been out. At my present shop, we write a date three weeks hence when something goes out - so for something going out tomorrow, the label would say 27/10. If it hasn't sold by 27th October, it's taken off and either sent to another store, or recycled.

People expect alot for second hand on Vinted.

Personally, I cba with vinted. I love a good rummage in a charity shop. And id rather they got my cast offs instead of me making a few quid but losing time.

The bin? It can be recycled and shouldn’t go to landfill.

@RandomGeocache

Oxfam still uses week numbers for identifying how long something has been out. When I first started I was told that general practice was to leave stuff out for about five weeks, and if it hadn't sold by then, it probably wasn't going to.

Yes I would imagine the time something stays on the shelves before culling varies by shop. We also sometimes half-price something and give it another week if we think it's worth it.

The point is that most places will have some sort of a system to let staff/volunteers see how long something has been out for sale. But as a customer, you wouldn't realise what Wk 29, or AJ or some other code meant.

Things are priced up too expensive. I mean when you visit and they’re pricing up second hand Primark teeshirts for more than what they actually cost at Primark there’s something going wrong somewhere….

always surprises me on these threads that posters don’t realise that we receive a huge amount of data on what’s selling, contribution per metre, turnover of new goods etc and are very quick to tweak the layout, give more space to certain lines etc. both to maximise sales and give customers what they want.
I volunteer with one of the chains and we generally mark down 50% after two weeks. Exceptions: we don’t have any more of that type of stock eg men’s shirts then we would leave it a bit longer or if the season has just changed.
The quality of clothing has definitely deteriorated with Shein et al. We price it accordingly, but still hard to sell.
we would have a lot more time to sort and take donations if people didn’t donate items which are broken, smell of nicotine or are dirty! We still have to sort through the bag and pay for our rubbish to be collected.

Add to what everyone has said the fact that there are professional thrifters who bulk buy up items they think can turn a profit online so there’s fewer ‘bargains’ to be had in certain areas and what there is can be bought cheaper elsewhere as PP said. Some charities will also sell more quality items via online bidding platforms only so again less chance of stumbling across second hand gems. All combines to make them less enticing places to go to.

this type of comment always appears on charity shop threads. Mistakes do happen with pricing (I repriced some Riedel glasses that had been put on display at £1 each! ) but ime the low value brands tend to be priced accordingly.

We sell online too.It’s a judgement call in terms of shop demographic, shop range and the type of item. Sometimes we will try to sell the item on the shop floor then online rather than marking it down.

And you really think that is shop/chain policy? Rather than a mistake or an over-exuberant volunteer going rogue?