Thinking Vinted will see Charity Shops out of business?

[Monty27]

If you're a chazza fan like me have you noticed how they're not busy?
Vinted is new in the great scheme of things and fantastic. It's a new discovery] for me.
I'm not sure how sympathetic I am towards chazzas losing business because the profits aren't shared

It’s all down to respective managers & practice etc .
As funnily enough I was just thing the same about CS selling on Vinted earlier today .
The fact is before I retired I worked in retail charity & they did sell on eBay but it was such a faff !!
You had to send the item off to a central location first & never knew when it would get on the site !
But with Vinted you could do so in-house as it were & have a dedicated person ( volunteer maybe ) to oversee it .

I don't know what a character is. But I do use Vinted and charity shops too. Both donations and purchases from the charity shops.

My inlaws used to run a charity shop and they did use to sell the nicer stuff on ebay - this was back in the Noughties. I am sure other charity shops do as well - or send it to the "naicer" locations where they can charge more.

And "chazza". Ugh. Just stop.

They're household goods are too expensive. Was looking for a lasagne dish recently and the cheapest one I could find was £7. I eventually bought one in ASDA for £9.

I used to really enjoy a rummage through a charity shop but I do think they are expensive now. We have a thrift store which is great value but is more to encourage reuse. It’s manned by community groups so every week is fresh stock and a new bunch of volunteers. The local charity shop is expensive, I sometimes get woolly jumpers from there but it’s £15-20. Got a lovely cashmere one for £40 once.

I think charity shops are facing a triple whammy personally.

1. Like all shops they are facing increasing overheads- gas, electric, wage costs etc
2. At the bottom end of the market a lot of stuff just doesn't have enough of a resale value to make it worth selling. A lot of high street fashion is very cheap to begin with, so why buy second hand? Same for a lot of supermarket or similar homewares, battered IKEA flat pack furniture etc.
3. If people have stuff that does have value it's never been easier to sell on Vinted or Marketplace, reducing the quality of donations.

In my area the trend seems to be towards large out of town charity shops in secondary retail parks- probably taking advantage of lower costs per square foot of selling space. Also. In affluent/ high footfall parts of the city more specialist charity shops- bookshops, or shops that only sell vintage/antique furniture or vintage clothing shops. The furniture and clothing ones are not cheap, and I think they have a different intended customer to the traditional charity shopper.

I think the traditional style shops will continue, but with fewer of them, and with some charities probably ditching them altogether. Sadly, the most likely sites to close will be those in poorer and lower footfall areas, which already struggle to attract retailers.

I don’t know - I like browsing in person discovering stuff. I wouldn’t buy big purchase items on Vinted as I can’t see it in persons. I find the cost of delivery a bit high on Vinted too. It’s also easier to return things to charity shops. Lots of positives still.

If vinted was going to kill off charity shops it would have done so by now. Vinted peaked a few years ago, it's horseshit now, full of scammers, shite customer service, the sizing was the final straw.

Used to work in the charity shop field and the shops would be run on an absolute shoe string and this was in the days when NMW was less than £8 per hour. If the shop didn't make enough money then we would have to make the sales assistants redundant (unless they opted to reduce their hours). Of course most of the staffing is volunteers so there was a skeleton staff of paid staff to begin with. Maybe one shop manager on ft hours on min wage with a couple of paid assistants on 2-3 days. I can only imagine how much more squeezed they are now with min wage and NI increases.

Charity shops will close because of their ridiculous prices. People used to love going in, getting a little dopamine hit because they felt like they had found a bargain. Now all they're finding is an overpriced shirt that was cheaper when it was brand new in New Look!

Not at all i love both. I’m very lucky to live a 5 min walk from 3 charity shops and they’re always heaving at the weekend.

I don’t know if Vinted/eBay etc will kill off charity shops but they’ve made them much less interesting to visit.
Ive bought furniture items from eBay that were being sold by charity shops directly and I know from a volunteer that our local charity shop googles the prices of everything, meaning that a faded Ralph Lauren tee is priced as a new-ish one would be on Vinted.

Huge Chazza fan here. There are many of them in my town and I have noticed the prices creeping up over the last 4/5 years.
I know they have targets to achieve but surely keeping the prices low means more sales. Just last week I went into one of my favourite ones and behind the counters they had huge piles of clothing waiting to be sorted and put on sale. They had a 50 pence clothing rail which was crammed with items,
I went in a day later and it was empty, while all the other rails were still full.
That speaks volumes to me, cheap stuff is what folk want and it sells!!

I prefer Vinted. I can get stuff for a fiver off there. The last time I bought something in a charity shop I paid £14 for a jumper! I stupidly didn't look at the tag. I wouldn't pay that much for a jumper on Vinted, charity shops are overpriced where I live and there's much more choice on Vinted too.

A (welcome) trend I am seeing is young people coming in with phones, taking selfies and saying things like "that's giving disco.'

It's an area where influencers can do some good in encouraging sustainable shopping.

I bought something from Vinted the other day and it turned out it was from a hospice shop

I like a bargain

I have never used Vinted

I like to browse a real charity shop, with real items & real people. The shops are like a treasure box & you never know what you will find.
Some charity shops also sell brand new donated items with tags.

I recently found a charity shop that had a cafe in it selling hot drinks & cakes. I told the cashier how lovely it was & that I would return again.

There are also lots of car boot sales in my local area too. Great for a bargain.

I look for mid range brands like cos and arket on vinted. I don't and have never seen these in a charity shop where I live. I think a lot of the charity shop clothes where I live generally are for a much older or younger market and cheaper brands.

Don't use either.. some charity shops are dusty & smelly, some like boutiques. All charge too much. I liked looking at the furniture (really good condition) our hospice shop used to sell, but that seems to have disappeared now to make room for more teeny sized clothes. I do donate lots there though. The ladies always look like I'm donating a bag of dog poo.. it's decent stuff! Cheer up!

Never used Vinted, hated the idea, & comments I've read on here haven't changed my mind.

Prices are up because fixed costs are up - salaries, rents, utilities, rates. For many charities the takings from shops is their core funding each year (mine is in a small chain supporting a local hospice). There is a real need to maximise takings. Pricing is a fine art and often depends on the location - some stores in the same chain have very different pricing because the local market can take it, other locations might be better off with your 50p rail. It’s not necessarily the cheapest stuff that sells. It’s the high value brands that would otherwise be unaffordable that are popular - a £90 Boden dress for £15 for example.

Why?

The independent charity shop I work in is as busy as ever . We keep prices very low and everything goes to the animal rescue except for 3 paid staff for 3 shops. The problem is , I think , that other shops over price. I've bought 2 items from Vinted and both have not been good ie short length trousers stated as regular and a shabby jumper . Maybe I've just been unlucky.

sone do!