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.

I agree, its a shame but I think that the store rents are so high now they have to do it. The whole business model is screwed and the charity shops need to rethink. On the whole us brits are a charitable bunch, but I would not dream of paying the prices they charge

I agree. I love charity shops and understand why they want to make as much as they can, but if they outprice themselves people will just think what the hell, and buy new.

I have been looking for a jacket for ages in charity shops but they all seem rather expensive considering that they aren't new. In the end I found a lovely new one in TKMaxx for £18 which is roughly a charity shop price.

Some do seem more expensive than others though.

yanbu I'd rather go to the high street sales, car boot sale or ebay. For ethical reasons I'd rather shop for second hand clothes in a charity shop but on principal I refuse to spend more than they are worth.

I get so angry when they are trying to sell something which is faded and bobbly or even dirty, which came from Primark in the first place, and they slap a £5 price tag on it.

I do wear a lot of stuff from charity shops, as I hate wastage and have a more individual style than High Street fashion...

I look at the ones where I work but yes they are all well overpriced - guess they have to pay the rent, but I think if they lowered prices they would turn over more.

I do get bargain books at one of my locals - for DD & myself, so I pop in regularly to scan the shelves. Picture books 75p very reasonable. On the next shelf they are selling tatty crockery for more that it would be new. Goodness me - it's not an antique. Most of the stuff was cheap initially & more expensive now.

I know 3 'local charity' charity shops and they sell books for under £1 (One is around 20-50p) they seem to have a much higher turnover than the local Oxfam.

I think that charity shops have lost the plot and are putting people off with their overcharging.

They seem to have lost sight of the fact that they are in the unusual position where their customers are also their suppliers. As many have said, national charities (esp Oxfam) are the chief culprits and, because of this, I haven't donated to them in years. I give to little local charities instead.

"They seem to have lost sight of the fact that they are in the unusual position where their customers are also their suppliers"

That is a good point.

I think the best bargains at the moment are at Church hall jumble sales.

The sad thing is that charity shops should be encouraging us all to reuse and recycle clothes - rather than buying cheap clothes from the big chains which come from sweatshops and dodgy suppliers. They are cheap for a reason.

I'd still rather buy second hand clothes when I can for this reason - they're guilt-free! - but I do agree that the charity shops aren't exactly making this an easy choice for consumers. I think by pushing prices too high for the sake of 'charity' they risk doing more harm than good in the long run.

And there are so many people here in this country who need the cheap clothes...

I have given up all but one of the charity shops locally. They are in the main full of well worn supermarket clothes at prices comparable to the cost of them new. I wonder, are the volunteers that work there unable to see that no one will buy a secondhand t shirt from tesco for £4 that would have cost £5 new, or is this some 'initiative' by head office that they have to follow?

One shop is much more sensible in its pricing, is much busier and turns over a lot more stock. It is also run to make money for a small independent animal charity, so is not one of the national charity shop chains. I think its pricing policy earns it a lot of goodwill locally, which is hard to put a price on. All the same, I would be interested to see which shops makes the most profit for their charity.

My local charity shop is turning donations away because they have too much stock. Yet in store the same primark t-shirts languish at £4 odd for AGES. I see very ittle turnover...surely it doesn't take einstein to see how they could massively increase turnover by slashing prices? I saw books for £2.50/2.99 in oxfam, more than they cost with postage on amazon. I tried to donate some gorgeous designer stuff to my local shop last week and was turned away, this is stuff in great condition that I simply will never fit into again.

All the 'chains' have regional pricing guides. They are between a rock and a hard place especially in town centres competing with Primark et al. And before anyone says it - NO, you don't get a reduction on rents or rates because you are a charity If things are too pricey, they won't sell and the shop will close. If the shop is still going then they have obviously pitched them right.

Lol at paying more for a book that the original price! When I was a volunteer a woman refused to pay 25p for a book because the original price was 1/6d!

Our charity shop is near some antique and collector shops. Customers think nothing of paying over-inflated prices there but moaned if we put more than £2 on our own trinkets! The cheapest paperbacks in secondhand bookshops are way higher here than in the charity shops but for some reason people are ok with that and will gladly hand over £3.50 for an old Jeffery Archer there but will moan if the charity shop version is 99p. "Oh but you get them for FREE". Yes, that's why it's only 99p.

Here the turnover is too quick! Anything not sold in 2 weeks is sold to the ragman or rotated to another shop and fresh stock put out. Sometimes lack of space means they have to turn stock down unfortunately. Yours sounds bit like the 'Local Shop' walking football!

I've managed to get some pretty good bargains from charity shops but our BHF furniture shop takes the piss. Honestly the shite they sell for the money. £900 for a really skanky looking leather 3 piece suite

I agree. on holiday last year at our new (very old, but new to us) caravan for the first time. no shoe shop in town only oxfam.only had £7 on me. could have gone and drawn out more money admittedly. offered her £7 for the £8 shoes. they were old and tatty. but the ones i had on had broken. left on principal. borrowed some sellotape from the caravan shop and sellotaped my shoes for the 2 remaining days.

makes me cross. charity ? begins at home ?

a couple of charity shops near me have had to shut down because they couldnt pay the rent when it went up.. they do have over heads as well...

i bought a fold up baby seat that you put onto a normal chair for £2 in a charity shop... £20/£30 every where ive seen them new

I think the function of charity shops is to raise money for their cause, not to provide cheap goods for the locals. However, I do agree that stuff is often far too expensive, and has been for years. Surely they can't sell things at these prices, and therefore are not making money for their causes! (Tried to get an old man's shirt or other tat to give birth in years ago, ended up cheaper buying a new nightie from a cheapie shop...).

I rarely buy charity shop clothes because I'm no good at sniffing out the bargains, but I love hunting for books there.

I find charity shop prices very variable, but even Oxfam near me has most of its books between £2 and £3. For me, I prefer everything to be cheap or to have a sensible pricing which takes account of appeal/condition of what they're selling. I think the latter is the best option for the shop, and also to keep it organised, it's no good having brilliant stock in a total mess.

One shop near me has nearly all the books at 50p, and I've found some great stuff there, including books I've been looking for for ages and would have bought new but I was always wanting something else more.

There are some books I'm happy to pay £2.50/£3 for - for current bestsellers I wouldn't pay more than £2 because if it's in Sainsbury's/W H Smiths/half price on Amazon, then I'll do that. I'd prefer to get a book in good condition whether or not I'm going to keep it, as even if I pass it on it will still be better for someone else that way.

I keep asking people to go to the library for books rather than Oxfam.

That way the author will receive a small amount for each loan. If you buy a secondhand book, the author gets nothing.

I used to take most of my donations to BHF because it was nearest and you could park outside, but having read a similar thread a few months ago, which also described how much stuff that particular chain bins instead of selling I now take everything to the local hospice shop, and actually see my stuff go on sale, I never ever saw any of my stuff in BHF and I walk past it most days, and used to go in at least once a week.

There is a BHF furniture shop quite nearby. Went in there and was disgusted at the prices of the stuff. Disgusting 80s MFI type stuff for more than you would pay new in IKEA. Worst thing is, this is in quite a poor area.

I must be lucky in my area then. I can think of a couple that are a bit pricey, including Oxfam, but they are the exception. I do see a lot of chain store clothes in the shop, but also some really good cheaply priced clothes.
(I think I might have to go back for that LK Bennet cashmere coat, it will be really handy next winter!).

I borrow from the library and buy new and secondhand books - both the first two benefit authors. As well as the PLR which is a tiny amount, libraries actually buy the books and one council library section may buy 3/4 copies of many novels and 10+ of the more popular ones. Some hardback publishers rely on and/or target library customers rather than those who buy in bookshops.

i agree that oxfam take the piss.

in our town, we have age concern, scope, save the children and BHF (a normal one and a furniture one)

BHF normal is overpriced, but they do sell soem new stuff, too.
all the other shops are very well priced- and save the children regularly does £1 clothes to clear it out.
they have the best ethic - you can really get some bargains and they sell loads (which is the point)

i have never bought anything in oxfam because it just costs too much, it's the charity equivalent of profiteering.

I volunteered in a local hospice shop for a summer and we had pricing guidelines for clothes, but we also "weeded out" anything obviously old and bobbly, stained or very, very out of fashion that just wouldn't sell. If you follow the pricing guides too ridigly you probably would get situations where bargain Tesco Value jeans were priced for the same or more than they sell for new, just because the standard shop price for jeans was £X, and some people either don't realise the difference or just don't think about it.

It takes the shop manager or a clued-up volunteer to use a common sense approach and say hey - actually we could put those out for only £1 rather than the usual price. Equally although it's great to get a bargain, ideally you recognise the super expensive designer names and give them a reasonable but slightly higher than standard price too so the charity is getting the best possible deal but the buyer still gets good value.