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 also think part of it is the shift we have seen locally in bin collections. Pre-pandemic, we had our black general waste bin collected weekly. Then it went to fortnightly, it's now three-weekly. We manage OK with that but we are a family of 4 and the "kids" are young adults, we don't have wee ones in nappies or similar. After Christmas, or if we miss a collection because we're on holiday, the bin is overflowing.

Similarly with the local tip, pre-pandemic it was turn up and dump your stuff, now it's prebook online, take ID, have to answer lots of questions about what you've got. Many of the supermarkets round here have removed their recycling bins for card, glass or textiles.

We used to see lots of things in the charity shop bags which should have gone in the bin. Food encrusted pans, mugs without handles, headless dolls, DVD boxes with no DVDs in them, dried up felt tip pens, clothing with very dubious stains. And that sort of rubbish costs the charity commercial rates for disposal.

Great, I’ll call ahead to be sure when is best to take them to someone. There are some lovely winter coats in there that would sell well at this time of the year!

That would get you instantly told to leave if that happened in our shop. We are not allowed to buy till something has been on the shop floor for a full day. If we are found to have an Ebay account and are selling then that is a firing offence as well . Although quite how they could monitor that Im not sure and as we are all unpaid 'fired' is not quite the right word but we are made to leave.
Our shop is very very busy with customers often waiting outside for us to open. The re-sellers are a huge problem though, they come in pairs and have a technique whereby the cover the rails between them and grab all the best stuff making it unfair for other customers. We repeatedly fill up the rails through the day but they are in every hour or so to see what has been put out.

It’s no different to the mountains of poor quality clothing waste sent over to Africa. As one documentary put it, even the poorest people in the world don’t want your cheap fast fashion items.

Most of the blame lies with the companies who produce and sell this shit. However, lots of people will claim that they can’t afford to spend more on clothing, when the reality is that they are choosing quantity over quality. They buy something, wear it a handful of times, and then dump it. They try to alleviate the guilt by dumping it on charity instead of in the bin.

People who genuinely can’t afford clothes probably don’t donate much to charity as they can’t afford to be wasteful.

I agree councils have tried as much as they can to reduce their obligations to take waste - and made it more difficult to get rid of it. I do think tips should be open longer and allow people from outside the area to use them - surely the councils can work together? I don't mind having to book if it means no queue when I get there but having to take (photo) ID and/or register you car is a bit silly.

Then they complain about fly-tipping. Well doh. Yes, some people are just lazy toerags. But some would dispose of their waste properly if it was easier to do so.

Of course that doesn't get around the issue that we buy too much and waste it.

Most of the blame lies with the companies who produce and sell this shit.

Hard disagree. Most of the blame lies with the people who buy it. The people who do "hauls", buy new wardrobes for each holiday, who wear things once and chuck them, who would not buy second hand, who think they "need" 30 pairs of jeans, 30 dresses and 50 t-shirts.

I don't really see what's wrong with staff/volunteers selling items if they've paid the going rate for it in the shop. The charity is no worse off than they would be if a customer (or indeed a reseller) had bought the item.

There is (or was - haven't been up this year) a very good charity shop in Ballater.

The owner of a local boutique at one point was buying goods from there to sell in the vintage section of her store.

Dont agree, I give really good clothes (and other stuff) to charity shops and some of it is new

No but if they're in bad condition nobody will want them unless it's something very special and then it will probably find its way to a dealer anyway.

Agree, but most charity shops do not allow this as it provides an incentive to price artificially low. I had to sign something at Oxfam saying I was not a trader. Both major charities I volunteered with allowed us to buy whatever we liked, without waiting, but at the same price anyone else would.

Also define "good stuff". My "best stuff/good stuff" is 100% natural fibres knitting yarn, quirky 70s pottery, history books.

Near me though this isn’t the case. I go into our local charity shops almost daily and I see the same overpriced stuff sitting there for MONTHS.

Just out of interest I’m keeping an eye on a particular dress from Whistles which they want £60 for. It’s not a current style and has been there since this spring. If they’d priced it for a tenner it would probably have sold. I have no idea how long they intend to let it sit there before it sells. This is also a charity shop that is selling bags of mixed clothes to resellers for £5 a bin bag as they say they can’t get through their donations quick enough.

Just a thought but price everything at £2/3 and let it go. That £60 isn’t £60 if nobody buys it.

They also have Primark, Pep and Co etc all for nearing on new prices. Again, some of these items are years old and out of fashion. If that’s what they’re charging, rather than go in and take my chances with whatever is in stock, if I need an e.g blue T-shirt I’ll find one in another shop/ online and buy one rather than just hoping the charity shop gods will be kind.

There is an excellent Age UK shop near me where I don’t think I’ve ever seen an item for more than £4. The place is rammed, the staff are constantly putting new stock out and yes they have Shein/ Primark but it’s out at a pound. I’ve found pure wool coats in there, lovely labels like Monsoon, Karen Millen , Ted Baker, Reiss etc. Fabulous place and I wish more were like that.

Instead, Charity shops have hiked their prices against what they perceive as resellers buying to go on Vinted. Does that happen? Of course, I’ve done it myself!

But as a PP said, the likelihood of the charity shop you’re in having a size 14 purple hoody that day is slim. Vinted will have several. And do I care? Not really, someone has done the legwork of buying it, washing it, ironing it, photographing it and putting it up for sale for arguably a couple more quid than the charity shop itself.

Last time I went to drop off a load of coffee table art books - untouched, amazing condition, I was told rather snottily that they weren’t taking any more donations of books. She didn’t even look at them. And on the shelves were racks and racks of Richard Osman and Lee Child going for a pound each. Their loss, I sold them all on Vinted.

Yes, Charity shops are drowning in plastic tat and Shein clothes. But I also believe that terrible management and questionable decisions made by charities in order to ‘maximise profit’ are also to blame.

In our local town lots of the old retail units have been converted into housing.

Yes it's called ReTuna in Sweden. Sounds brilliant.

They could try it in the Whitgift Centre in Croydon which is all but empty now.

The place is rammed, the staff are constantly putting new stock out

This model is dependent on having a large pool of volunteers who are constantly sorting, steaming, pricing, stocking shelves, serving customers. Both large charities I volunteered for struggled hugely with volunteers, rules were two adults at all times in the shop. Under 18s, adults with significant disabilities / additional needs did not count towards that ratio. The last place I volunteered could not open on a Monday morning or Wednesday afternoon because there were no volunteers.

Tbh this is why I sell on vinted. The thought of my £120 Levis being thrown away when I know there's a huge market for them is heartbreaking
. .

I think it's poor behaviour. Going through the stuff based on what you'll get good price for before it ever gets on the shop floor in some cases, to make a profit yourself... it's not really in the spirit, is it?

I work in the used textile sector in Europe.
Personally I don’t really understand why this is the way this arguement has played out. Why have our used textiles been considered charity shop fodder? Because we’ve allowed cheap Chinese manufacturing to reduce the perceived value of clothing. When something costs £5 new, we think it’s rubbish. The truth is, that should never be the cost of something new. And it doesn’t take in to consideration the actual real cost that cheap production and global shipping has on the world.
Now wages in the west have stagnated, people can’t afford to donate their old stuff for free. Charity organizations have long profited from peoples’ generosity and haven’t handled this transitional situation well at all- this article is also massively misleading as charity shops also sell wholesale into the rag trade- this then gets re-cycled back into the used textile sector in other ways; not sold in their shops because they are not always particularly skilled at sorting items well based on current consumer trends and what is valuable textile and what isn’t.

The charity shop concept also doesn’t really exist in Europe anywhere near as strongly as it does in the UK; and the EU also protects the price of goods far better meaning people have less tendancy to throw away and they feel goods hold on to their value more. I think the charity shops have had it good for a long time and things are changing as life becomes a struggle for people they can’t afford to give things away for free.. it seems a bit grabby to complain about it to me and assume people will always give them things for free. Maybe charities should consider changing the way they function with donations to continue making money; it’s what all businesses have to do to survive really.

I also notice the opposite of ‘tat’ being sold with a couple of local ‘nice’ towns and an area of Glasgow having quite upmarket charity shops. Hard to tell when in them if they are a boutique or not.
These shops sell really decent labels and quality fabrics.

They also sell new, I assume directly from shops/suppliers and manufacturers.

In one of the towns my DP bought two new, Hugo Boss, merino wool jumpers and a corded Gant jacket, for just less than £130. In Glasgow my DC bought a new Trespass coat for £30. The Trespass headquarter are nearby.

@AnotherGood have had some great bargains at the charity shops in Kirkintilloch.

Who can blame them, I wouldn't be working for free unless they were some big perks.

@AnotherGood we sometimes get corporate donations. We received lots of Charles Tyrwhitt shirts - really nice quality and a bargain price.

I went passed a charity shop the other day. Stock prices start a £3. Don’t tell me the price on the window, that makes me walk on by, which I did.

Yes, that is what I assume. Maybe tax relief for companies?

The shops I mentioned I had to think hard about whether I was in a charity shop or not! I think the ‘high end’ approach means better profits rather than filling a store (with the same overheads) with cheaper items.

Charity shops sell the unsuitable stuff fo rag. I used to work in this industry and we were always grateful for rag, although even more grateful when it was bundled separately and identified as such.

I picked up a nice wool hobbs coat in a charity shop today with plenty of life left in it, for £12, so there are still some bargains to be found.