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.

I’m fairly rural too.

Our local thrift/ charity shop is slso the heart of the community. It is cheap and cheerful, essentially all the local charities / special interest groups take it over for a week or two per year. They pay rent of £180 per week the stock stays but you need to make a solid dent ( ideally 25%) to make way for next group.

I’ve volunteered there and we always make at least £1k a week generally closer to £2k. There are free rails for school uniform, kids wellies, kids coats.

I think because there is a lot of community goodwill and because everyone knows everyone the donations are never rubbish or (the horror) wet. Clothes arrive clean and ironed. Folk bring in ( new) unwanted gifts to donate to the raffle. I do think places thst are reliant on locals donating their stock for free need to ingratiate themselves by slso benefitting locals.

But they have loads more information than you do. Total sales, sales by department, sales by square foot, sales compared with last week, last month, same week last year, compared with other stores in the region etc etc etc.

Our local charity hospice has shut some shops. Their central warehouse sells items too. Whoever is pricing up in there thinks they're an antique dealer the prices are mad. On the other hand the shop local to me I noticed this week is very reasonable. They have an eBay shop that's gone silly too.

How do you know all this? You don't, you're just guessing. If you really want that dress so much, just buy it.

I volunteered in a charity shop and they have lists of all the designer brands and prices for each style of clothing. They would apply this whether the garment was 10 years old or 2 years old. All over priced.

I have noticed that as well.

They seem to have lost all sense of how to price items correctly.

It makes no sense to have items staying on the shelves and not selling.

It’s all very well saying just sell it cheap so you can keep taking donations but have you thought about the amount of work that goes into processing donations.? Sorting bags of peoples manky socks etc to find sellable items, hanging, tagging, steaming … We do not have the volunteers to keep up with it all. I am a full-time manager and I only have a 15 hour sales assistant. ( who covers my day off so in fact we only work together 1 day!). The rest of the time I rely on volunteers, many of whom are adults with learning disabilities or health conditions which mean they are not in employment. If you all know so much about how it should be done then I challenge you to volunteer!!

I went in to my local charity shop and there was a T-shirt from primark priced at £6 it’s in primark now for £1.80 I told the man at the till he didn’t care and that’s the last time I visited them. I won’t donate to them either now

I volunteer in a charity shop, and used to work for a bigger charity that had even more shops. Just because you won't spend £30 doesn't someone else won't. We have so many regulars and so many people who spend time going around charity shops at the weekend, I don't think they have to change there prices.

I don’t, not at that price. The price point of a dress that is absolutely not worth that was the discussion point of the thread.

If I had £30 to spare on a dress, I’d want it either new (unlikely because the stuff that’s new in the shops isn’t very nice quality at that price most of the time) or a decent brand that’s not high-street. For an occasion, not a casual dress that I might wear out and about.

The point of things being cheaper secondhand is that you accept you haven’t chosen them new from a shop with a returns policy and someone’s had use of it before you, so it’s not perfect quality. There’s absolutely no way you should be paying more than what it cost in the first place (vintage and one off pieces aside of course)

I've volunteered in the past and I understand it's a lot of work. Yes sorting donations takes time, and perhaps our local shop is lucky as they have a lot of willing voluteers. Although they also open until 7pm some nights, which means volunteers come to helps after they have finished work. They don't steam clothes and set price means they don't need to tag them as t shirts are £1, childrens clothes are 3 for £1 etc. So this definitely cuts down on some of the more laborious jobs.

We popped into British Heart Foundation the other day and we were astounded at the prices they wete charging. Ridiculously high.

We have that issue here. I’d love to get Alan Sugars take on it or Mary what’s her name! Stock turnover is key IMO.

But the point is, it will either sell at that price or be discounted in the sale, so you can look to it then, they don't have anything to lose by doing that. But honestly, from my voluntary work, lots of people take it or leave it. They don't argue the toss over it.

My local salvation army charity shop is 50p or £1 per item. I don't bother with any of the others now as no one else does
The local children society is now closing and another is half price on anything. Meanwhile the salvation army one has a huge turn over of stuff...my dd was given a £1 and spent it wisely there...

Oxfam are closing shops and considering closing three warehouse. They say shops are not making enough money. That it was the first to charge high prices is, I am sure, just a coincidence.

In a rack of £8 dresses from Zara, Mango, New Look and the like the price tag stuck out, because it was no better than those brands yet had been priced at £30. Even if they slashed the price by half in a sale, £15 is still way too high, so I don’t think I was wrong to question it at all.

Some of the prices are delusional.

Just because someone listed on vinted/eBay for a particular price doesn't mean it will sell for that. You've also got to take on to account the original/new price, condition, scarcity/desirability when pricing, especially if pricing highly. Sad fact is, most people donate supermarket, shein and Primark.

Also noticed that there is absolutely sod all on the kids rails last time I went charity shopping

A lot of our local ones price too high and are often closed to donations. Off putting at both ends

But that is there problem. And if everything else is correctly priced then at £8 there is nothing to worry about for them as it will go in the sale. They have guidance in the form of tablet where they put in the brand, size and condition.

Completely agree, I don’t bother going in them anymore. I HATE that anything decent gets swiped and put online - so those of us who bother to come out to the shops, miss out on all the decent bargains? Nah, that’s not right in my book, though I know not everyone will agree. Besides, if you always clear the shops of anything even remotely decent then people will decide that that particular charity shop is perpetually shit and stop shopping there!

Yes and as op pointed out, it defeats the object of buying something affordable if you are on a very tight budget, which these shops originally stood for.

I do think that charity shops can strike a balance between raising funds for their charity and being somewhere where people can find inexpensive clothes, books, toys etc. I donate stuff to charity shops in the hopes that both things can happen. I think they can price things realistically, without putting their wares out of people’s reach.

They have totally lost the plot and have been ruined by a number of things - Vinted being the main one - but also resellers and flippers - extracting the good stuff themselves to sell on vinted/ebay - saving good stuff to take to festivals (Oxfam) - siphoning off the good books for their specialist bookshops (Pilgrims) - the money they get for old textiles falling through the floor - people donating dirty and worn items and basically using them as a bin - people not donating good stuff as they can sell it on vinted - thinking they are dealing in vintage clothing when its mostly primark rubbish.

It's honestly not worth trailing around them any more. Saw a great pair of DMs in a shop recently and they wanted £60! They are out of their minds!!

They are though.
People shop in charity shops for a bargain, not to help a cause.
They should have a totally different pricing strategy to normal shops as the stock is so arbitrary.
I will buy any old crap on the same rail for a pound but think twice before spending £8 on something.- that's the price supermarkets charge for clothes brand new.

I did recently get a fantastic Radley ponyskin bag for £30. Probably what it goes for on Vinted but without the hassle of postage and straight to charity.Thanks to whoever donated that.

My Gran volunteers for a local one.
There isn't a single paid member of staff and all items are sold at £3 or less (unless it's genuine designer at which point one of the volunteers will eBay/vinted it).
They do get people in to do vinted resales but they don't mind.
As such the stock is always fresh and they periodically clear the whole shop out and anything that's been unsold since the last clear out goes for rag recycling or to the tip.
She did say they get people just leaving broken junk with them and they have to pay for its disposal, which isn't good.