Charity shops, I apologise

[thedevilinablackdress]

I've loved charity shopping for over 30 years, but like many I've long mixed it with online second hand shopping.
The stories in this Guardian article are not new to those of us who've read threads on here, work in the shops or know people who do.
I never sell online myself and am a very mindful donatter, but my own eBay addiction and Vinted dabbling is contributing to this in a way.
Shops won't want to discourage donations, but it seems more push back on the mountains of crap is needed.

www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/oct/13/people-sell-their-best-stuff-on-vinted-how-charity-shops-became-a-dumping-ground-for-unsellable-clothes

I love a charity shop, and use vinted. I lost lots of weight and needed everything so have spent a lot of time browsing.

In the last year it seems that the charity shops just don't have the top end high street brands any more (or they are getting cleared out before I get there) and what they do have is very expensive. When I can get Hobbs dresses on vinted for eight pounds I'm happy to pay a bit more in a charity shop but not over twenty! And half the rails are crap from Shein, or supermarket clothes which are all fine but I'm not really prepared to pay seven quid for a used t-shirt that I can get new for ten pounds in sainsburys.

I think people need to only donate the sort of stuff they would accept to be given from a friend, and ideally donate it in the right season - they aren't going to sell a bunch of summer dresses now but those jumpers that don't fit any more might go well.

The PP you replied to said: "Nothing wrong with that like nothing wrong with buying from Amazon. These online businesses destroy high street shops. Once they take over the market, then service declines."

I.e. you responded on a general point about the high street. So I don't think I was changing the topic of discussion.

I volunteer in a charity shop on a Saturday afternoon when it can get really busy. We do sell a lot of clothes, at the moment I have noticed winter coats, jumpers and sparkly tops for Christmas nights out.

So many parents come in at the weekends too to choose books with children or pick up new toys. I wished I had done it more with my kid when they were younger.

I have worked for a big charity before and done days work in the shops back in the 2000s, the low level donations have always been a problem and some of it is just gross. I'm not sure its anything new.

They were replying to me though, in my comment about Vinted. They introduced the topic of Amazon and I felt (and feel) it was a red herring. I only responded as they were talking specifically to me.

Charity shops often sell unwanted/unsellable clothing for rags or overseas export. My local Red Cross specifically asks for all clothing as they can profit from rag selling.

https://www.donatetoreduce.co.uk/blog/where-do-your-charity-clothing-donations-really-go/

'only 10–30% of donated clothing is sold in UK charity shops. The rest is often:

• Sold in bulk (by weight) to commercial textile merchants
• Exported to other countries, especially in Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa
• Processed as industrial rags or sent for textile recycling

Many charity clothing banks and bag collection schemes are actually run by private, for-profit companies under contract. The charity receives a set fee per tonne, which can be as little as £60–£100 per tonne.'

Yes, the shop I am involved with does that because we often have to wade through piles of absolute rubbish and we become overwhelmed. It would be great to have more volunteers to help out.

Yes, I agree.

I wanted a natural-fibre item recently and browsed several charity shops, but they were a sea of polyester.

If people didn’t donate piles of complete rubbish then we would be able to take more donations. Last week a lady donated three huge bags of clothes and paperback novels. Of course donations need to be sorted and we found tatty, dirty clothes and paperbacks printed in 1990, broken spines and pages yellow with age. I wonder who they think the target market is for this donation?
This is regular occurrence.

I get the impression that these days people buy cheap shit from China then "donate" it to a charity shop when it is good to them any more to get the warm feeling of "helping" a charity. In reality it costs the charity money to put the crap in landfill.

People can now filter out the good stuff using vinted so I think charity shops days are numbered.

Re pricing- I do the markdowns where I volunteer so am aware of the prices of most things in the shop.
jeans £4 per pair
levi jeans £10
t shirts from £1 up
knitwear £4 and up
dresses £4 and up
Given current retail prices I think our prices are fair and we continue to be a very busy and popular shop.

Indeed. The Shein and Temu products are hard to sell at nominal amounts.
We do get some very good donations where I volunteer, but understandably many people need to sell their items rather than donate.

They are space limited , dependent on people volunteering their time and boxes of home stuff takes as much time as clothing.
Home stuff may comprise of broken electricals, cracked stuff, dirty saucepans etc, not all volunteers can lift it into the bin as often older. The charity then pays for the waste removal.
People often use them as alternative to the tip.

Books don't go out of date!

but if the charity has limited shelf space, they'll get better turnover from recent books in good condition.

Part of the problem is the difficulty of being able to recycle textiles. We bought a lot of bedding when we moved to our house 25 years ago and that is now starting to wear thin. There is literally nowhere in my vicinity to recycle textiles. As I sew I was able to cut out the better bits to use but the rest had to go in the bin and that isn't ideal.

I’ve volunteered in a charity shop for 4 years now and the quality of donations has reduced. We used to get high end high street , like Hobbs and Whistles . Now it’s supermarket clothes , Primark or Shein . it’s obvious people are selling better quality stuff on Vinted .
Our shop takes donations anytime . Often the shop floor and back office are heaving with donations, which is a trip hazard, so I understand why some shops have to put a stop to donations.
And yes we do get a lot of stuff which is dirty , torn , worn , bobbly and with bric or toys , items are broken or have parts missing .
I really wish the public would think before donating. Often it’s obvious that the contents of a cupboard or drawer have been dumped in a bag . We are used as personal tip by some people . I use gloves when going through donations as some stuff is gross .

They take up the space that a higher value item could be in. Yellow damaged paperbacks won't sell and if it did it would be for pennies.
Boxes of dated books are heavy and unwieldy for vols to manage, there are often stairs.
It's complicated but yes in itself a book doesn't date but it also doesn't sell.

I have recently stopped volunteering in a nice shop in a decent area. We still got OK clothing donations as not everyone can be bothered with Vinted/Ebay. But yes, over the past 10 years the quantity of clothing donated has not declined but the quality definitely has. Nobody wants shit from SHein or Temu second hand.

The bottom has also collapsed from the rag market - remember 10 years ago there were all those "cash for clothes" portakabins everywhere? You don't see them any more because the rag market is absolutely flooded with cheap shite and there is no profit in it any more. Charities get around 75p per black bag full of textiles, if that. Rising fuel costs makes it even harder to get rag picked up as it's costing the collectors a packet to fuel their vans.

It's very simple. STOP BUYING SO MUCH STUFF in the first place. Seriously. It needs to stop. Not just for charity shops, but fast fashion rubbish is killing the planet. And if you do decide to donate to charity, take a long look at what you are buying and consider whether you would pass it to your mum, sister, friend. If not, don't give it to the charity either!

Finally, charity shops are not just about clothes. The last place I volunteered took more on bric-a-brac, toys and games as we did on clothing.

Our local charity shops are more expensive than vinted... which is why people no longer shop there... which is why they have too much stock... which is why they have a 'no donations' sign up.

Wonder what they could do?

Limited appetite for someone's 25 year old bedding, animal rescue sometimes take blankets etc.
It can be ragged but only for pennies

And then people will stop going into charity shops because the only clothes for sale are the dross. If you know you've got no chance of finding something nice because it's all already been creamed off, you just won't bother shopping there.

I think its quite possible that people are just skint.

I don’t have the spare time or energy to sell clothes so I do want to donate. I have a high bar for what I donate, only things that look as good as new, otherwise they go in a sack to the recycling centre.

Interesting. I’ve been walking past bags of stuff in my spare room that I keep meaning to take in to a charity shop.

A lot of it is BNWT/brand new with tags or literally only worn once or twice (DS and I lost 6 stones over a few years ad needed prom gear, party outfits etc… and then there were those sale bargains for ‘when I was slim’ which, when I got there realised were just not me LOL). Also lots of stuff from my daughter - also emotional/hormone driven purchases by an autie teen. So all of it is pretty good stuff.

I really cannot face ebay/vinted but been trying to psych myself up to driving over and being given the bum’s rush.

Am thinking that rather than black bags, I might look for boxes and carefully fold it all so that it ‘looks’ posher and is not dismissed as just a load of bags of tat.