To be shocked at the price of used clothes on the Oxfam online shop

[pigletmania]

I was browsing on the Oxfam online shop and was at the prices of the used clothes, £29 for a pair of tatty Miss Sixty jeans, and £17 for a used Miss Sixty top. Even the non branded clothes are a lot, you might as well buy them new from the shop. I used to love hunting in charity shops and finding bargains in days of yor, but now no way. I used to work with adults with LD, and this man with Autism used to like gettig cds from the charity shop, at £3 per used cd (some crappy 90's bands not recent chart music) you might as well go on Amazon and get them new. More often than not he could not afford it on is daily allowance at the day centre.

The manager at an Oxfam shop I worked in was sacked because she really felt strongly that it was unethical to sell clothes for so much money, especially since we were in a very poor area of the country. The man who came in after her kept mocking the way she'd done things, saying it was obvious the only function of the charity was to make the largest amount of money possible for 'developing countries' since 'that was the original point of Oxfam' (Oxfam was originally famine relief, it has diversified quite a bit since the beginning).

I think it is a real shame that charity shops can't also be good sources of clothing etc. for those who can't afford the same quality new.

I was in one the other day (British Heart Foundation I think) looking through the kids clothes. They had a short sleeve baby vest of the type that comes in a set of clothes - with matching sleepsuit, bib etc, sort of thing you can pick up from ASDA/Tescos for about £10 for the set. The (well worn) vest by itself was priced at £1.95 . I very nearly took it up to the counter and explained why that price was so wrong, then I decided that if anyone was daft enough to buy at that price then at least the money was going to a good cause!!

I do find the pricing of clothing to be rather inconsistent. Some bargains to be had, and some travesties. Often get some good book bargains though.

Exactly! Yes they have to make money for the cuase, but at the same time they also bite the hand that feeds it. People go to charity shops to also find a bargain or they might not have a lot of money. My work collegue saw some lovely New Look trousers in a charity shop, they were £7 used, she did not buy them obviously as you can get them for roughly the same price new.

yanbu @ all, i always think this

Its really sad, I used to live in them when i was younger and would come out with bags full of bargains, now you dont get much change out of £10

I was in a charity shop the other day and thought the same thing. There are no bargains anymore. I was never out of them as a student but they are completely uneconomical now for me. However, you can still get the odd bargain book wise.

It seems like all the charity shops are smartening up their image lately (literally I mean) and charging more as a result. I used to get most of my paperbacks from the charity shops (I get through a lot) because at £1 or £2 a copy it was worth it and I'd donate them back once finished. Now they're £3 or £4 each I use the library. It does seem like a false economy. I'm currently looking for fancy picture frames, went into 'Age' today (formerly Age Concern - what was wrong with the old name?) and there was an AWFUL picture with a gilt frame - and they wanted £28 for it!!

Age Concern have merged with Help the Aged, which is why they have a new name.

I worked in Oxfam about 15 years ago, and even way back then was told by the manager "we're competing against M&S not other charity shops"
(everything was way over-priced in comparison to other charity shops in the area)

US £28 for a picture frame, thats taking the OOOOh ever since that Mary Portas tried to smarten the Charity shops up.

I am shocked oxfam had an online store, i am so behind . i like to look for old books in the charity shops but would never use oxfam as i refuse to pay them prices.

i remember seeing mcdonalds happy meal toys priced at £4, thats more than the meal, which no sense

which makes no sense - oops

Competing with m&s how ridiculous! People who can afford to pay well over the realistic price for used clothes and items will be better off just making a donation, and keep it realistic cheap prices for people in this country who may be not well off and do need these items at a good price to help them out in life. That way two parties benefit.. sometimes you wander if they are idiots running the place if they can't work out that basic logic.

cheaper to got to m&s in the sales

Depends where you go I suppose. I love charity shop browsing, and almost my entire "office" working wardrobe comes out of them. In the last couple of months I've picked up two brand new pairs of Jasper Conran (for Debenhams) jeans at £5 each, a LK Bennet very smart jacket that is perfect for £5, a John Richmond formal shift dress, immaculate for £10, brand new M+S shoes with the labels still in for £5 and £7...
I run an annual charity ball and for the last three years my dresses have come from charity shops. They've all been much nicer than I could normally afford, but a fraction of the price, for example £15 for a full length raw silk Monsoon dress.
I live near the shop that was featured in the "Queen of Charity Shops" programme, and was in there yesterday. That is what I'd call top-end for charity shop prices, and I do think some of the stuff is over-priced. However, they have a lot of unusual clothes, lovely new shoes and bags, and they can be very good value. I had my eye on a gold LK Bennet cashmere mix winter jacket, absolutely stunning, and I think well worth £40. But summer is coming, so it's still hanging there!
Vote with your feet, I think it's worth it. Oh,and recycle old clothes back into charity, they can even make money on bags of rags.

The prices vary wildly in this town (we have a LOT of charity shops!) BHF still have good prices, as do Scope and PDSA. BHF also have a second hand homeware shop which is brilliant for furniture if you are in a pinch. I am currently looking for a small sofa for the DDs and missed the boat on one a few weeks ago in BHF at £45. One the same size up the road at YMCA is £80. Yet the BHF store is good quality, well stocked, very professional.

Oh I hate Oxfam, they are obviously over priced, I have found books in my used book Oxfam shop that are more expensive than what the first owner paid for them.

They were also charging a fortune for out of date medical books in the Oxfam Books shop at my local hospital.

I don't like either the way they deal with the volunteers. When I was working for them I spent weeks giving them professional specialised advice on a new venture they were about to embark on, then one day while they were taking the rubbish /rejected donations out, I saw a single by a singer I liked at the top of the pile. So I asked why they were binning it, manager told me they didn't sell singles so all were sent to the tip. I asked that given he was going to bin it, if I would be allowed to keep it, he say, if you are prepared to pay for it, then took it from my hand and placed it back in the bin. I never went back.

But before that happened, there was this boy who was always harrasing women volunteers even if we could be as old as his mother, his remarks were so rude and of such sexual nature that we all complained to the manager, who said he couldn't do much about it as the shop was receiving some money from the job centre for having him around. So he rather had this tug harrassing volunteers than do anything about it.

that should have read working with them as a volunteer

I do give a lot of my clothes to charity, when the charity bags come like BHF, Salvo Army,etc I put my clothes in there. I dont drive so its much easier than lugging them on the bus plus the very extortionate bus fares in Milton Keynes.

I have noticed on several occassions that Oxfams Boden stuff was dearer in their online shop than in the Boden sale.

This isn't new: as a student in the mid-nineties, I used to go into the first ever Oxfam Shop on Broad St,Oxford, and they were selling tatty washed-out t-shirts for slightly more than the cost of the brand new equivalent, plue the free CDs from magazines for more than the original cover price of the magazine, etc. They did a good line in used designer eveningwear by 80s designers like Bruce Oldfield for £30-£40, but I don't think many people would have dared to wear flamboyant Dynasty-style gowns ten years after they were fashionable. I used to occasionally go in and laugh at the prices, then go and spend my grant (those were the days) on the £1 rail at the hospice shop on Little Clarendon St. I think the trouble now is that most of the charity shops have gone down the Oxfam route and are ludicrously overpriced. ebay/ car boots are the new charity shops IMHO, and ebay allow the seller to direct a percentage of the profit to charity if they choose.

Oxfam are often a political front organisation before they are a charity these days.

It is a shame given their proud history, but there are better, more morally sound charities out there, with more bargains too.

You can't argue with charity, but Oxfam does take the piss. The likes of George at Asda sell clothes new and cheaper, I'd never even entertain bothering with it at it's prices!

It also amazes me the amount of charity shops which sell broken toys.

The oxfam in my town sells old paper back books for £2.50

The PDSA sells a lot of furniture and once had a 3 seater sofa and arm chair in there for £250.00. It was clean but very old.

I bought my wardrobe from there for £80 (don't ask) but when they delivered it, it fell apart in my hall way. The men just left it there and to get in and out you had to climb in it as it was on it's back with the doors hanging off and one back panel in 2 bits.

I marched down there to speak to the manager and demand she get someone to take it back and she was very rude and gave me a refund in the end and said someone would be up in a minute to collect it.

4 years later I'm still waiting!

After 2 weeks I got my ex to help me move it to my bedroom then went to a hardware store to get proper nails and screws and we re- built it ourselves and now it looks great

In the next town to me the charity shops are really cheap and I once picked up a wrought iron head board for £2.00, now that's a real bargain !!

My local library sells used books for 2 for 50p. Oxfam and others are far more expensive. I would rather give a donation to them, than buy some overpriced tat on principle, that it is not worth the extortionate prices they charge.