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.

Someone with the experience of a handful of charity shops applying it across the country...

If that were the case how are they still open? No shop can survive without selling its stock. there may be a few items where they are holding out on the price but they must be turning over a lot of other items.
Its just not logical to think they can sit with the same stock on the shop floor week after week.

The ones near me don’t seem to have succumbed to the price inflation yet which is nice. A quid for a paperback, £3 for a top sort of thing.
My local hospice shop always has a £1 rail and I’ve got some great things off that. They also have a boutique shop and they do price a bit more there but tend to be more selective about the brands in there (Hobbs, Phase Eight etc) and it is a gorgeous shop (always with excellent music too, I swear the only time I Shazam anything is in there but that’s a massive aside…) so I don’t mind paying it for the nice atmosphere. Have got some lovely bits there for weddings and parties.
The local Sally Army shop has also had a free school uniform rail all summer which I think is great.
What really grinds my gears is finding so much Shein shite. I’m there because I want good quality for my money, not polyester tat and it just reminds me how much of that tat is out there now and that depresses me.

charity shops have gone really expensive,I tend to look and sell on vinted these days

The huge CEO salaries for the larger charities have put me off giving to charities. I now am only will to donate to the smaller charities , and even then I am really careful about the charities aim and actions, as sometimes it isn't always clear and I want to donate to a charity I believe in.

Resellers keep the shops in business, don't knock them. The shops are there to raise money and keep stock moving, not select worthy customers. Resellers keep it all flowing and there's nothing wrong with them making a profit for doing the work of finding, selling and sending. It's totally legitimate.

The shops do need to look at their prices though.

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

So an outlier then? £8 for a dress is a total bargain if you are getting something which was originally £75 plus. Mistakes happen.

You have NO IDEA if it will be "sitting around for months" as you have no idea how that particular shop rotates its stock. When I was an Oxfam volunteer we had week numbers, week 1 was sometime in April. So if we were in week 9, we would go round and remove anything which was week 6 or earlier. At the other charity shop I volunteered in, we would write a date 3 weeks in the future onto an item when putting it out (so today I'd be writing 16/9) so that it's easy to go round and see what's expired.

But that doesn't fit with the perception that charity shops are staffed by volunteers who are too thick and too socially awkward to get a "proper job", or only there to steal the "good stuff".

In our town charity shops get a range of business rate reliefs. It's a tourist town and regular businesses are priced out to the point that charity shops form a fairly solid part of the high street because they may break even whereas many other shops just don't.

Our most successful charity shop has a head office that employs professional 'pricers' (although that may not be what they are called). I have bought a trenchcoat there for £90 and an original print for £150. Both which were fairly fully priced compared to online auctions. I drew the line at a babygro from Primark with tags that said £4 and the shop was trying to sell for £5.

I have also sent things to the shop that were lightly used and they then sold them on for more than new. A lace dress comes to mind that I bought for £30 and never wore and they sold for £40.

Agreed! Some towns have a large cancer research in a retail park with everything at £3. I got really lucky in a couple this summer

I was in a charity shop today and they had a rail of second hand school uniform - labelled at £3 per polo shirt! They weren't even nearly new, they were ones you'd be inclined to leave in rotation if the end of term was coming up, and then throw in the recycling. Definitely not of a quality worth donating for resale imo. I got packs of two for less than £3 brand new in lidl etc, Asda do multipacks for similar.

I just don't see how having a whole rail of uniform in that condition is helping the charity meet any of its targets. It's not helping the community, it's not saving from landfill, it's blocking other donations as they are 'full' and it's not making money. What's the point then?

I sell stuff on Vinted because the charity shop doesn’t want any donations! I can’t understand it.

Max Studio is a diffusion line of Max Mara - younger and cheaper

To the OP’s point I was in a charity shop in a Spanish city yesterday and their pricing made no sense - the books I was looking at were incredibly expensive and not even special ones, I was going to buy a guitar magazine for DS who is doing Spanish A level but they were €3 each which I thought was expensive for a used magazine, and there was a lovely mirrored bowl and matching tray for €5 on the other hand, which I wish I’d bought!

YANBU
the ones round here are wild with the pricing and the stuff is cheaper on vinted.
People go, aswell as to support charities and to be environmentally friendly by up cycling - but to bag a bargain.
Nobody wants to be ripped off. I
noticed that over the summer tho a lot of them haven’t been taking donations as they are “full” - full to the brim with stuff sat there for months at a guess!
If they weren’t so greedy then they’d have a better flow of stuff!

I agree. I went into a charity shop on Monday. There was a well worn M&S jersey dress for £20. I was a bit shocked. Checked on M&S website. Yes current season same style dress £20, brand new full price. They had White Stuff at £20 upwards. I buy brand new White Stuff dresses for around £15 in the outlet store. I get they are making money for the charity but charging the same or more for well worn clothes is not going to raise money - who buys things second hand at or over retail???

I think that's a classic case of a slightly doddery volunteer mixing up Max Studio and Max Mara, 30 quid for a great condition Max Mara dress is a bargain. Max studio are mid range/budget ish and sell on Amazon. Max Mara also have a "studio" line, so their labels say Max Mara Studio - which probably hasn't helped matters!

I think with the rise of Vinted etx, they are really wary of people buying actual designer stuff and then it all being re sold for a big profit, when the charity shop have not recognised the brand and sold it for a few quid. As a result, it's gone the opposite way. You did see stories of professionals trawling charity shops for re sale, and it's not really the spirit of the thing. It's a shame though, you definitely can't get a bargain any more. Running a shop is expensive though, and they need to cover that plus make money. I don't really bother with then anymore, round here we have some lovely 2nd hand clothing shops that have lovely, actual designer clothes in - its not cheap but it is great value and much more satisfying than Vinted

Used to be able to go to charity shops if you needed something for fancy-dress or a school dress-up days, but its cheaper to buy off Amazon, Ebay etc. I still donate to charity shops - massively over the past few years having to clear out my deceased Aunt's house and my Mum started death decluttering - and its still good for finding 'unique' household pieces, but often its cheaper to buy new (like vases etc) from the high street.

The overheads of running a small staffed shop will always be more than an online operation. The fact the clothes are donated doesn't make much difference - the manufacture cost of cheap t shirts is probably pennies. I expect charity shops have to make £3 or £4 average on every sale to cover overheads and deliver a surplus to the supported charity (which is the point of them). You do two good things, re use a garment and support a charity. Perhaps just think of it as a charity donation with a bonus t shirt?

I thought the Oxfam bookshop was bad enough - paperbacks at. £2.50-£3, when most charity shops ask £1 or £1.50.

Reminds me of when I worked at the library and a colleague insisted on pricing our ‘weeded out’ (old) stock for sale, at double the price for hardbacks, compared to the paperbacks.
As I pointed out more than once, most people didn’t want hardbacks.
She wouldn’t have it - they were more expensive in the first place!

So what, if nobody was going to buy them? They mostly sat there unsold until they just had to be binned. 🙁

I find now I tend to skip the clothes section and go straight to the bric a brac. Though even there is price inflation...

I think that's a classic case of a slightly doddery volunteer mixing up Max Studio and Max Mara,

So much casual ageism. Old people can't use the internet. Old people don't understand brands. Old people are basically incompetent. Not all charity shop volunteers are 70+. And even people who are 70+ are not by default doddery.

There's lots of news articles on how charity shops are closing, Cancer Research is closing up to 200 stores, British Heart Foundation also closing 150. They rely on free goods and free volunteers (apart from managers), but the business rates are high, people prefer the increased choice on Vinted and they aren't able to price in a way that entices the customer.

Apparently, Cancer Research is also pulling out of their online operation there as well, so it's not that. I guess it's time intensive to do that type of selling, how many people make a full wage off it, and they then have to store the stock and deliver it even though it's scattered everywhere.

I think it’s hit and miss. I’ve had some lovely clothes from charity shops but I’ve seen some jeans and blouses for prices I’d expect to pay for new. It’s also about the demographics of the area the shop is located too. You get far better quality clothing in areas where there’s more wealth. People can afford to give away more expensive clothing to charity.

Much the same in the Glasgow area. In my local one they had a pair of nice Puma trainers in my size at £16. Now, they'd have got them as a donation so that's just profiteering as far as I'm concerned.