Charity shops have lost the plot

[DancingonmyOwn88]

Had a bit of time to kill before work earlier so had a browse in a charity shop. Surrey town but more commuter belt than anything salubrious. Shop was a run of the mill one not one of the boutique type offerings.

Nice green and white maxi dress, casual summer type thing, the other dresses were priced around £8 pounds which isn’t really a bargain but as I liked it a lot I picked it up- only to see it was priced at £30. Yes it was ‘Max Studio’ but those dresses aren’t going for anything like that on Vinted etc.

I asked why it was priced so high and the lady said ‘it’s designer’.😐

Probably been sitting there for months!! Where’s the sense in it?! Why have charity shops become so far removed from what they’re supposed to be- a way to shop sustainably and feel like you’re getting a bargain because it’s not new? Yeah I know they want to raise money as well but surely they’d do that a damn sight quicker if they actually shifted stock and not stuck eye watering labels on things.

I’m still annoyed from last week from a different shop as well when my little boy picked up a toy dinosaur figure and the label said £6. We put it back and I told them why but they didn’t care obviously and it’s still sitting there as of yesterday. How greedy to price children’s toys so high. When I was little you could always find a pocket money toy for a couple of pounds and come away feeling chuffed.

Ive heard lots are going out of business and my sympathy is somewhat limited. Serves them right. They seem to be terrified of people grabbing bargains to resell but then they’ve forgotten that some people on lower incomes are using them to buy clothes etc too.

Bring back jumble sales (that dates me). They were always reasonably priced. My parents and I were clothed 85% in jumble sale buys when I was a nipper as we were bloody poor.

There are far too many charity shops on many high streets now. Where there was once one, there are now three, and prices increase because they aren't selling so much and they get into a vicious circle.

The charities will still have rents to pay even if they are reduced, in addition to running costs and most likely have to pay the salary for a shop manager. They will also have insurance to pay for the building, staff and third party liability.
In addition to all of this they need to make money for the charity.
When you compare the price of clothes on the high street in places like M&S, Next and White Stuff to the prices in the charity shops, in the main you're getting great bargains. I went into Joules and M&S the other day and their trousers were in the region of £60-£70! Dresses for £8 is a steal and it would be interesting to know what the retail price of that dinosaur toy was. Don't expect to get stuff for a couple of quid! That's totally unreasonable.

You didn’t wander into a “normal” charity shop - you wandered into the boutique‑style version, even if it didn’t have the candles and curated rails.
These shops price by brand, not by logic, and definitely not by Vinted. Max Studio isn’t high‑end designer, but it’s exactly the sort of label boutique charity shops stick a £30 tag on because they know their local customers will often pay it, they’re fundraising, not bargain‑hunting, they price based on experience of what sells in that area, they’re deliberately targeting commuter‑belt shoppers rather than low‑income families. It’s not greed, it’s strategy.

And yes, it means things sit on the rail for ages. Boutique charity shops aren’t trying to shift stock quickly; they’re trying to maximise margin per item. That’s why the other dresses were £8 and this one wasn’t, they price by label recognition, not by condition or resale value.

The dinosaur toy at £6 is the same issue. Charity shops now Google everything and price based on eBay listings, not on what a child with pocket money can afford. It’s annoying, but it’s become standard.

But the core point is this - The purpose of charity shops is to raise money for the charity. Not to provide bargains. Not to undercut Vinted. Not to guarantee pocket‑money toys. They price things at what their customers have historically paid. If it doesn’t sell, they’ll eventually reduce it but they start high because that’s how they fund the charity’s work.

Also a lot of people use charities as dumping ground for clothes that are not resaleable and then they have to pay to dispose of them, yes I know they can sell some, but not the majority. And just like household bills have been going up, so have the costs of running shops.

If you want proper bargains, you need the scruffier shops that don’t curate stock and don’t Google every label. The boutique‑leaning ones will always be pricier, even if they don’t look fancy.

This.

It’s not ‘this’ because I really didn’t 😂 I ‘wandered’ into st Catherine’s hospice in Redhill. They’re not in any way going for boutique. It’s just overpriced things on racks. Bobbly New Look tops nearly the same price as new sort of place.

Buy on the hight street instead if it's too pricy!

Whenever I look they are full of tat from Shein, Temu, supermarkets. I could buy that stuff new, I only buy secondhand if it’s higher quality than that. I appreciate it’s a good way of recycling it.

A lot of charity shops near me aren't accepting donations, probably because like you said a lot of the stock isn't moving as quickly due to the ridiculous prices.

I don't know why some people are blaming resellers, how is more customers a bad thing? The higher prices the shops are charging mean both average person & resellers won't purchase anything from them. The problem is, the charity shops have become greedy, and compare their prices with online rather than charity shop prices

That’s quite a weird take.

The people who photographed every piece of china, glassware, ornaments etc were a pain in the neck. They go home to check if it's a rare heirloom piece.

I guess it's the same with clothes.

Yes this is so true. There is just too much clothing circulating overall and a lot of it is awful quality.

I sometimes help at a shop, donations are usually poor quality now, a lot just goes into the bin..The manager does have a rail of nice bits out the back and friends pop in to browse the decent stuff before it goes onto the shop floor !

Yes that is obviously the case now, but I am old, and back in the day when charity shops were attached to hospitals and Red Cross centres and Salvation Army offices; they did serve as a means of supplying very reasonable clothing for struggling men who were on their uppers and trying to find a job and get back on their feet, and families on very low incomes with many dc. This is going back many years though.

For me it’s the price point of second hand furniture. Quite often it’s really not good quality and insanely old fashioned - great for an up-cycle project, but otherwise, it’s astronomically priced. I got a really nice old 60’s style unit and upcycled it from British Heart Foundation. I only paid £30. I’ve had it years now, love it. I like to keep an eye out but it’s all so expensive.

I sold all my son’s clothes on Facebook on a local group. “All items £1 each” - in a giant tub. Had a handful of woman come and cleared the lot out in a few days. They were happy (gap, boots etc) and so was I. Charity shops need to make money but they probably also need to be more choosy in the items they accept at times if they want to charge the prices they do for some of the tat.

Yes it’s bad business. Cheap sells lots. They know people with not much money shop there

The prices are shocking and I've had several tell me they've not got the space/full. It's completely bizarre. The types of donations I've been wanting to give are good quality baby clothes (Next, JoJo's, and a few supermarket bits). All washed, no stains, and probably only worn a few times, some bits never worn.

I initially offered to the local baby bank who told me to come back in 3 months as they were too full, hence me then going to charity shops.

The phrase beggars can't be choosers feels very appropriate.

I think they forget they haven't bought the items they're selling and most of the workers are volunteers, so their costs are extremely low.

On a personal level find it insulting when you've taken the time to sort through bits and gone down to the shop for them to turn their nose up. I don't bother selling anything on Vinted as I'm not hard up and I'd much rather they go to a family in need but surely they're pricing them out?!

I have been a volunteer in a well known charity shop for over a decade. The quantity of donations has gone up, in the opposite direction to the quality, which has gone down. We only have so much space to store donations. The price for rags has gone down, but the cost of rubbish removal has increased, and do we get some rubbish! If you wouldn’t buy it, bin it. Please don’t donate it to us to put in our bin. @GoldenSandy we don’t ‘turn our nose up’, we must miss some good donations, we just physically don’t have space as we have mountains of bags already in our stock room which is up a flight of stairs. We are inspected for Health and Safety standards, they’d not be happy if we were having to climb over piles of donations. Some regular donors ring up before they bring items to ensure we can accept them.

Our manager is inventive, she’s caring and supportive to volunteers, some of whome are pretty vulnerable. We have regular customers, and regular donors; the stock is changed often, but the turnover is going down. We have pocket money toys for £1 or £2, and we reduce prices regularly. There are five other charity shops within a couple of minutes of ours, and we’re all pretty busy. Lots of our branches are due to close, fortunately not our shop. Vinted and Ebay have definitely affected sales, now we sell online too.

This 100%. You'd be amazed at what we find in some bags - used knickers, shoes with the sole falling off, books with torn pages. Some people see charity shops as somewhere to drop all their elderly aunt's aged wardrobe - we have to sort it and end up ragging a lot. We never turn away a donation though as sometimes there's a bag full of Next, M&S Autograph or Monsoon there. We want a quick turnaround so the shelves look interesting - unsold clothes are reduced 3 weeks later, then the £1 rail and finally ragged please don't tar us all with the same brush, we have only 5 shops and our charity needs us!

I used to get some nice stuff from charity shops, but let's be honest, it isn't a nice shopping experience compared to a normal shop. I wouldn't buy something from there that almost the same price, it would need to be a quarter of the original price to be worth it.

I think it is really quite grabby to sell toys and books at an inflated price. When I didn't have a lot of money and the kids were very little, some Christmas presents, kids clothes and books came from charity shops. They've been donated for free for fuck sake. If you're so hellbent on doing good, let low income families be able to afford toys and books for their kids. Says it all about the charity really.

I barely shop in these places anymore. It's cheaper to go to a supermarket and buy clothes in the sale.

The shops are there to raise money for the charity, not provide cheap stuff. The model may usually be based on cheap stuff selling fast but that's the means, not the purpose. And the stock might be donated but the time and resources it still takes to sort it, get rid of all the shit, store it and display it is considerable. Most of the stuff they get is absolute rubbish, often smelly and unhygienic!

By all means don't shop there if you don't like it but it's absurd to take offence about it because you don't understand what it's there for or how it works.

I went to drop things off at a charity shop a while back and was basically shouted at that they weren’t taking anything at the moment, fair enough but I won’t be going back. I used to go in sometimes to buy things as well as drop off things as I think it is good for the environment both ways. I don’t anymore, if there are things I want to get rid of I put it in a bag and then hope there is a jumble sale or something like that locally, or sometimes sell on vinted as I think I can then choose what to do with the money and that includes giving some to charity.

These snooty while also giving a hard-headed 80s capitalist vibes replies get on my f*ing wick.

It's a chazza shop, not a City bank.

Nobody gives a f* about what its stated 'purpose' is, it's actual purpose is for people to pick up bargains.

It's nice if a charity I like get money, but to be honest it's a side effect.

I take my unwanted stuff to the clothing bank, its easier, that or it gose in the black bin.