prices in charity shops

Evren

Nah, Im reckoning it's the tattoos and the piercings that scare the old dears.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

Watching with cup of coffee.
Oxfam is expensive mainly because they know their clothes and one can nab Designer Clothes at dirt cheap prices as I have done many a time gaining a reputation for nabbing the bargains.
Charity Shops work best if they sell stuff you want to buy, but preferably one should be able to buy stuff dirt cheap but at the same time blindingly high qaulity!!!

heppleam

I really agree with at the comments on this board, twice now I have been in oxfam and they put a price on an item at more than the price of the item brand new .I pointed it out to them .one was an ikea wine rack,they asked £12 for when it only retails at £10 and the other was on a wordsworth book , that retails new at 99p they were asking £ 2 for .Is it fair to call a Charity like Oxfam greedy? with the news reports talking of financial irregularities in the flooded areas accounting for a 2 % fraud of oxfams budget, why are we donating to this charity that mismanages its funds ?

Azari

heppleam wrote: »

Is it fair to call a Charity like Oxfam greedy?

It's not really greed (even if you find that concept meaningful under the circumstances), it's just that they sometimes don't get the pricing right.

When you consider that it's probably just one or two people doing the pricing in each shop they can hardly be expected to know the original retail price of every item that comes their way.

Having the overall pricing of clothes too high does seem to be a problem nowadays.

There's a Traid that I pass that seems empty most of the time - their prices are very high - and every few weeks they have 'sales' where they sell everything at knock down prices - and then they are full. I would have thought they would have done better if they priced items more realistically and so sold more at a higher, non sale, price.

Britneys_Firefly

I agree with everyone who has said that Charity Shops are expensive...

Went into one a few weeks ago, and a simple chids vest was £1.99!, you can get a brand new pack of 5 in asda for £5!

Also the BHF make me laugh, one of the many in my town recently had a fire in their basement....the fire didnt spread any further than the basement, and there was NO damage to the rest of the shop, however they were in the paper saying that they had to 'dump' all stock as it was 'unfit' for sale, and could the kind people of my town please donate to re-stock the shop!....

Being that its a major charity shop chain, i bet half of any donated stock doesnt even get to the shop its given too, and seeming as we have about 6 in a small radius area why on earth couldnt the others have a bit of a whip round for a re-stock..

Evren

Has anyone here used the Oxfam website?
How do the prices compare to normal?

Ben84

Pupnik wrote: »

I agree that charity shops can be overpriced. For example, the Oxfam Bookshop seems to price all paperbacks as at least £1.99 no matter the size or quality. A thick, mint condition book is priced the same as a ratty looking book with bent spine, yellowing pages and torn cover. Ridiculous! I quite enjoy 60s sci fi pulp novels but they tend to be in bad condition- £1.99 from Oxfam, 50p from the monthly flea market. Asda or Tesco clothes should not be in the same price bracket of brands like Monsoon, it is crazy.

One charity shop which I always find a bargain in is the RSPCA shop- in fact I would go so far as to say they are too cheap! Good quality hardback books for 50p! When I buy something that I think is priced too low I like to pay a bit extra.

I've regularly worked as a volunteer in a charity book shop. While I don't doubt that there are good books and bargains to be found in other charity shops that don't specialise in books or at car boots, these are not really our competitors. We're competing with shops like Waterstones (who we're generally a lot cheaper than), because we're also in the business of matching up customers with books they want. This specialisation is reflected in the prices when contrasted to general charity stores that dedicate far less resources to books, but when compared to other book shops we're good value for money with our paperbacks averaging £1.29-2.99.

Number one reason people visit has to be the range. We specialise in books, so we attract a lot of books which leads to a far greater selection for customers. We also have the resources to store them and display them in an orderly manner and can help people locate specific items. The shop also has a higher turn over rate, someone who visits every week or two will find the stock refreshing often in popular sections. Also, because we can create specific sections on subjects and generally fill them with relevant books we're able to attract customers who want to buy in very specific areas, so books that would languish or just be discarded in other shops (anything academic for example) we can sell. Someone who wants to buy books on maths or Japan or a specific Agatha Christie for example can visit our shop and stand a much higher chance of finding it, while to find these very specific books in another non-specialist shop or car boot sale would take far longer or even be entirely unsuccessful. When we save our customers time and match them up with books they want in greater numbers and more frequently, we're providing something of genuine value.

We also have a lot of specialised services, from the knowledge of all the volunteers on authors, books and bindings to a book finding service.

So, I feel a fair bit of the price of the books is in the service as a whole, but the market we're in competition with is because of this other book sellers, not so much general stock charity shops or car boots who cannot offer the range or specialised services we do. We provide a lot more and it's comparative to other book sellers, so take £10 to a typical chain book shop or our shop and see how many books you get at the end to decide if the prices are fair or not

shammyjack

Most charity shops now have an over rated opinion on an items worth,. Take CDs for example , they all seem to be by TEX P!SS ( country and western artist ) !


shammy

steph2901

I've noticed that charity shops are more expensive than they used to be too. You can buy books and clothes cheaper in the supermarkets like Asda and Tesco!

coldstar

Im a volunteer in a charity shop and work their one day a week. I am often responsible for pricing items.

We give items a price that we know the item will sell for within a few days. If it doesnt sell we reduce the price.

There is no point in any charity shop asking a higer price for an item than someone is prepared to pay! In effect the prices in the shop are set by the local market.

I often get customers complaining that prices are too high, usually things like "its not worth that!" or "you can buy it cheaper in Tescos". However the items DO sell and usually quite quickly so the pricing policy usually works.

We recently had some old and quite rare Dinky toys on sale priced at quite a high price, one customer got very angry at the price we charged, he said "your a charity shop, not a xxxxx antique shop, how dare you charge such a high price for these toys!" I tried to explain that the toys were priced at a good market price and in fact would probably cost more in an antique shop but he refused to listen and stormed out muttering about rip offs etc. The toys sold for the full price to someone else by the end of the day.

The term "Charity Shop" means we are raising money for a charity, it doesnt mean we are providing charity for our customers with cheap products!