Charity shops

zippychick

Tiff Ive merged this with your previous thread on buying second hand & charity shops

Zip

tiff

That original thread is 6 years old! Not happy about merging but we've been there before.

Rummer

I was very shocked the other day when I went into some charity shops a bit further away from the usual ones I frequent. They were charging more money than the cost the items were new! It was really disappointing as they could earn a lot more money by making the prices reasonable. Our local charity shop is very reasonable and has a great turn over of stock which encourages us to go in a few times a week.

rhiwfield

Rummer wrote: »

I was very shocked the other day when I went into some charity shops a bit further away from the usual ones I frequent. They were charging more money than the cost the items were new! It was really disappointing as they could earn a lot more money by making the prices reasonable.

Hearing more and more people making remarks like this. Not sure whether it was Mary Portas who started it, turning CSs into trendy boutiques, but the role that CSs filled in providing affordable second hand clothes and bric a brac seems ever more under threat.

Rummer

It does seem to vary greatly depending on the location of the CS.

Starstream

I find the more affluent rural areas are the best for finding more independent CS's,certainly the biggies,are going the wrong way about it,by making them up Market.
I chat to the ladies regularly,and they notice a marked downturn in takings during car boot season.
Which is understandable to a degree,but as a previous poster has mentioned,lots of retailers can sell clothes at ridiculoulsly cheap prices.....so CS's are going to lose out.

I have been known,to check out online where the charity shops are,if I am visiting an unknown area...sad eh?
I also find,if I donate,I always give to the indie ones.....I think it's important not to lose that originality .

Does it annoy anyone else that lots of the BIG CS's sell new stock,and almost make the donations second fiddle?

saharapop

This past year I have been very lucky to find unworn Ugg boots in three separate charity shops. I have paid £25, £15 and best of all only £3!
I do as much secondhand shopping as possible, but what annoys me is when I buy something from a charity shop/car boot sale only to find that it doesn't work or is broken. Why do people donate it instead of throwing it away?

Floatie_Light

I love shopping at Charity Shops; it's my guilty pleasure. I don't think it's really the 'done thing' around here, but I love it. I find the cheapest bargains are mostly in the non-chain Charity shops. There's a PDSA one in my local town that's got great bargains, particularly on books. The British Heart Foundation shop just round the corner from that is about 5 times the price! Posh local villages are usually quite good ones too - posh clothes with cheap price tags. Shop around is the tip really and get to know which ones are well priced.

chrisinessex01

I have been a user of charity shops for years, but now I find they are so expensive (for secondhand stuff that is) that I find better bargains at boot sales. I know charity shops are for good causes, but hey we use them because we have little money not because we are well off?? I got several items at a great boot sale the other day for 50p each, in great condition etc. If i had got them in a charity shop they would have been at least £4 each...Sorry but I rarely go in them these days....
I do however regularly donate as I find when buying cheap I can therefore change my wardrobe much more frequently so I am supplying if not buying!

Seraphim

I sometimes think charity shops are greedy - if the prices were more reasonable, they'd make a lot more money out of me. Case in point is the Oxfam book shop near me. I read a LOT of books but I refuse to go in there now because they charge £6/£7 a book. Why would I buy a dog-eared copy when I could get it new for £8? If they sold their books for about £2, I'd be in there every week plus they'd probably get all the books back after a couple of weeks anyway!

My local village shop has just setup a small corner dedicated to books for charity. She has quite a lot now but the turnover of the books is pretty high because it's only £1/book. Plus everything tends to reappear after a few weeks as people give them back after they've been read, so really each book is making much more than £1