Are Charity Shops Becoming Greedy

[BettiG]

I love shopping in charity shops, well I did years ago. However why have they become so greedy and overpricing?

I went into one charity shop last weekend and they were selling all summer dresses for £2. I bought 5 dresses and spent £10. I saw that as an absolute bargain as I am going on holiday abroad in Sept and don’t want to spend too much on clothes that I will be putting away once I’m back off holiday.

I then went to another charity shop whose clothes were so overpriced for example a dress I picked up to look at from Primark was £7. I left empty handed from that charity shop so really I see that as that particular shop losing out.

So my question is are charity shops becoming greedy and taking the fun away from people shopping in them? I personally think before long they are going to fall flat on their faces as people will stop shopping with them which I think is so sad.

I find them either too expensive or too cheap. Primark T-shirts the same price as new, then designer stuff which would be £300 new for £3.

Why do you think some shops have to have a 2 bag limit? We have had to put a notice in the door saying similar recently. Our back shop area is tiny, the size of an average bedroom if that. Usually we can keep on top of the volume of donations coming in as we have a good system of getting waste/rags collected, and sending stock to another store after it's been on display in ours after 3 weeks.

At certain times of year though - school summer holidays and just post-Christmas - the volume of donations soars. It really doesn't take much for us to be totally swamped to the stage of not being able to move. So we have to limit donations to the equivalent of 2 bin bags. Most customers aren't donating that much at one time anyway, the issue is the house clearance folks, or those doing a massive clear out of all their kids toys who turn up with several very large boxes and we have to turn them away.

We are not being ungrateful, we are saying we can take the donations, but just please spread them out a bit. If you do have a whole car full of stuff, either ring ahead and be honest about how much you have to ask if it's OK, or bring a couple of bags a week, or spread the donations out among a range of shops.

Before I saw how much the bosses get paid I would have agreed. The way some of them operate doesn't really say it's all for the cause they've raised money for either.

Can anyone actually afford to shop in BHF? Ours is always empty because of the prices. If charity shops target market is the rich then maybe they should lose the privileges of a charity. Like the free rent for the units. Canny little con that is.

The giant piles of landfill in developing countries will take it then. After the poor scavenge over the pile to look for the few bits that are any good. Which in turn destroys the local textiles sector.

It would be better sold cheap in the UK to those who need it.

The BHF branch where I volunteer isn’t in an affluent area, but it’s pretty busy, and there are several other charity shops nearby, some national, some smaller local charities. One is extremely cheap, and will have ‘Everything £1’ days. They all serve a purpose, to raise money for their charity. And they all provide employment for paid staff. Many volunteers, who for whatever reason, don’t have paid work, enjoy having something to do, in the company of others. Free coffee, tea and snack, in a warm environment.

Free rent? Certainly not in our case.

To be honest, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys so I do think the bosses need to be paid well. Having done a few volunteering things, the people are well intentioned but usually pretty ineffective and sadly, quite lazy. It was very disheartening to witness

I think the problem stems from major charities high up management or accountants, not the people running the shop who know exactly how to price items for their area, so that they sell. Unfortunately the individual shop managers are stuck with the guidance from bean-counters sitting in offices in far away places telling them they need to increase their income per item, apparently oblivious to the fact that this reduces volume of sales. The manager of the charity shop I volunteer in told me this. The lack of understanding of the high ups is incredible. The charities will lose in the end because people simply won't buy the stuff.

My sister used to volunteer in a charity shop in 2012/13. It was a small one, but had a paid manager, so £8-9p/h used to take the good stuff for her grandkids. She used to get volunteers to open and lock up...some independent charity shops are ok, genuinely trying to raise money. They get cheaper rents, business rates, energy prices, free merchandise, volunteer staff so lower staffing costs ect but some are absolutely milking it, and it's run like a business for pure profit with very to little going to charity

Managing a nationwide organisation with numerous branches and staff takes expertise, and although the top roles are well paid, most senior staff would be paid more outside the charitable sector.

The shop managers don’t get fabulous wages, the retail assistants are paid around the National minimum wage. They work hard in our shop, I’ve been there through several managers, it was too physical a job for one, she lasted less than a month. It is physically tough, especially when premises are on several levels and everything has to be carried up and down stairs.

On my local high road there are quite a few charity shops. Two are very good and price most things £2-£10 and have great brands. For example today I found some Sergio Rossi Godiva stilettos for £8 in good condition - £575 on the website!

Then there are others who have a lot of Primark, Shein etc for the same price you can buy from new.

Most of these shops only periodically take new donations as they have so much stock. If this is the case then they need to price low to turn over or they won't have space for new donations

Stopped shopping second hand and we donate stuff on FB for free instead.

Second hand way too expensive.

There's a chain of 'charity' shops near me that have no charity attached. The aim is zero waste. Everything is really cheap and the shops get huge turnover. I can't help thinking other charity shops would raise more money with lower prices and so faster turnover. They always seem to have absolutely mountains of stuff in stock rooms and bursting rails.

The best one near me is an out of town, rhe carpark is always full. They sell cheap and have a steady flow of donations at the back all day. They also have a busy cafe and have become a place to visit.

Theres a town near me where there’s little but charity shops now, they are a fortune and overpriced, I don’t think they have much turnover at all because of it.

My experience was the opposite,I found the paid staff lazy and some aloof and happy to sit on their arse and watch volunteers run themselves ragged to get jobs done.This was at a National food bank.

Also the CEOs wages piss me off. And make me want to NOT donate items or money to them.
CEOs of cancer research, Macmillan and Barnados are on over 200k a year.

How much should they be paid then @Morporkia ? Minimum wage? 🙄 Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Cancer research as a charity has an annual income of over £700 million, Macmillan over £200million, Barnardos over £300 million. Hundreds of staff. Charities owe it to the people who donate their money to manage themselves properly and that means paying market rate for someone qualified/experienced to run a multi-million pound business.

People have this really weird idea that charity would be "better" if it was all done on goodwill and fresh air.

Absolutely @Misthios. I dare say that the CEO of Cancer Research could earn more as a CEO of a £719 million turnover organisation in the corporate sector.

It’s just too inefficient now we have online markets.
I have lost weight and have a pile of quality clothes in my old size. Baukjen, Hobbs type stuff. I don’t want to hand it in to a place which might just rag it all if they’re full or the volunteers aren’t aware of brands. I will give it to a friend’s teen to sell on Vinted and let her keep the money. At least the items will be going to someone who can use it and someone makes a bit of cash.

Fine, you could support a local charity run totally by volunteers that raises a few quid. We all make our choices. I volunteer and donate to BHF, because of the research into heart disease, something that affects my family. I’m not sure how any nationwide business would manage to raise the millions of ££ it does without skilled people at the helm.

Charity shops near me do well. Always busy. I haven’t bought a new item of clothing in over seven years. I only buy from those shops.

I don’t recognize the descriptions on this thread at all.

My nearest charity shop is based inside a large Tesco store so it is ideally placed for easy pop ins yet it is rarely busy. When it was first here people would take a look and often buy before doing a shop. Now it is nearly always empty. Ridiculous prices for sad looking old fashioned clothes. Rarely anything from decent brands. I don't mean really expensive, just mid range stuff hanging around unused in many people's houses. I expect the current trend of selling on eBay etc has had an effect, but like a previous poster upthread not everyone can be bothered with doing that and still sending good things to charity shops. I haven't found anything of decent quality to buy in a charity shop for years.

Yeah but the way to raise as much as possible is to sell large volumes at cheap prices. Which has the added side effects of recycling and helping those in poverty.

Selling at high prices probably earns them less money in the long run because not as much stuff gets sold. More stuff goes to landfill and it doesn’t help the poor.

Yeah but the way to raise as much as possible is to sell large volumes at cheap prices. Which has the added side effects of recycling and helping those in poverty.

This is so patronising to everyone who works/volunteers in the sector. All those CEOs of Cancer Research and the rest of them who don't have a clue about retailing, and are just waiting for some randomer from mumsnet to tell them how to do their job better.

It's all been said a billion times but I'll go through it again for the hard of thinking at the back.

1. To sell "large volumes" you need large volumes of stock fit for sale. Stuff people are prepared to buy. Not mugs with no handles, VHS cassettes, ripped clothing, coloured in colouring books and toys with their heads missing. I'd say 60% of what we get in bags is not fit for selling.
2. Even if you DO have a large quantity of sellable stock, you need a similarly large quantity of volunteers willing to sort it, price it, steam it, stock the shelves.
3. It is doing a massive disservice to people who make generous donations to sell things cheap. Yesterday I had a bag full of new with tags Seasalt, Joules, Fat Face. I am not doing my job properly if I don't stick a decent amount on those items - original selling price £50, went out for £20.
4. Charity shops are not a recycling or "helping those in poverty" service. If you are a cancer research shop, you are raising money for cancer research. End of story.
5. If the "pile it high and sell it cheap" model was really the best way of maximising revenue then we'd be doing it. Because people running charities have endless sales information and are not stupid.

Don’t agree with you at all, charity shops are bumping their prices up because they know resellers are coming in to buy stuff they know they can make money on. The charity shops spend time looking up prices on eBay before pricing stock up. If they continue to do that they are going to suffer and some already are. My local charity shop is always dead now and it’s not surprising with their prices. Does it really matter if a reseller buys the stock as long as money is coming in?
charity shops have taken all the fun out of shopping in them and they will suffer for it.
We do have a brilliant charity shop close by and the manger keeps her prices low, the shop is always packed out and customers buy several items at a time. It’s the likes of those charity shops that will do well.