Lightbulb moment re charity shop prices!

shammyjack

Oxfam and BHF are grossly overpriced .

BHF must have a Dwarf in charge of sizing policy ! They measure mens by under arm seam to seam so items that would only fit a 40 chest comfortably are marked as 48 or XXL . £8 for a Primark shirt is taking the urine !

adonis

cjez wrote: »

Igood buys- not too cheap, not too pricey. One thing bothers me a tad about charity shops though- which is that they often give things away to friends or people who help out. My in-laws get tons of stuff held back and given to them for doing work there which is fine as my father in law doesn't charge but they give him lots and top notch stuff that they could get a bit for. Not such a big deal as he does work for them for free but think they get a bit carried away.
We donated a ton of stuff last month and then my OH saw some whisky glasses he liked and asked how much- she said £2 for the lot and he told her that was way under priced and tried to offer more but she wouldn't take it because we'd donated. That makes them lovely kind people but you've got to get what you can when it's a charity- that's how I see it. I think there needs to be more of a balance.

In the CS where I work we always expect to and pay for anything we want, the bonus is we see it before it goes on the shop floor.

I have had a couple of people who when they can't see anything they want make a point of putting some money in the collection tin before they leave, good karma I suppose.:)

cannyscot_2

Oxfam has defo gone a bit OTT. I bought dresses for a £1 in the littlewood catalogue shop and then didnt wear 2 of them and put them into Oxfam-they priced them at £19.99 . They were reasonabley nice dresses but didnt still have tags on them and noone is ever going to pay that kind of money.

GreyQueen

I know of at least two chazzers here which are the end-of-the-line for small regional chains (with about 5-6 stores each) and stuff that hasn't sold in the other stores comes to them for 50p a pop for a last hurrah before going for ragging or pulping.

You'd think with a remit like that, the stuff on offer would be absolute dross but you'd be surprised. In the past couple of months I've bought the following from there; pair mens jammies, never used (for my brother), a J Lewis handbag, brand new with tags, several books published as recently as 2012 and 2013 by bestselling authors and in excellent condition, an unworn cotton blouse and a fleece waistcoat. Yes, it's very much hit-and-miss and I sometimes make several visits and come away empty-handed, but you do find some very useful stuff.

The reason why Provincial City is on the end of their lines is that their other stores are in more affluent market towns where they don't experience the levels of poverty we have in the city, esp that part of the city. Chazzers need to know their demographics.

I'm off out shortly and will pop into a couple of suburban small-chain chazzers on the way to the lottie. I may or may not buy something, but I shall enjoy the looking.

Ultimately, it's the thrill of the chase, eh?

[Deleted User]

I think charity shops are suffering these days from the same malaise as boot fairs, people are no longer able to part with thier posessions and buy in new ones quite as readily due to the cash strapped times we all live in. That said my pet charity hate is the unceasing plastic bags that fall through the letter box to fill with 'unwanted' donations. We're getting 3 or 4 a week most weeks, and lots of them are from 'charities' that we've never heard of, usually with very small print saying that this is a private company and that a percentage of the takings will be paid to charity. People just don't have the excesses to dispose of and I have in the past always put the bag out, unfilled for them to collect as is requested, only they never do collect, just pop a new one through the door the next week!!! I use them as bin bags now so at least some use is made of them - how much must that cost charities each year? that must come out of the donated monies or CS profits. Prices are something else, I am staggered by the attitude that it doesn't matter what they deign to charge because people want to donate to the charity, so ripping off the general public is perfectly acceptable and shouldn't be questioned! I will NOT pay £4.99 for a used paperback that cost only slightly more brand new, or £20 for an, albeit new, carved wooden wall plaque, no matter how much I support the aims of the charity, if I want something specifically I'll save up and buy a new one not pay over the odds for a second hand one at exorbitant prices in a charity shop!!!

-taff

I've been collecting those bags for years, and have a binfull of them now. I used to use them to collect the plastic in but now it's collected by the council, so they now line the bin or get waste green stuff put in them for the tip.
They're very handy for protecting your car/van from dirt too

I give the charity shops rag too, and label it as rag, so they aren't surprised to get a load of offcut and tatty bits together.

All in all though, I really like charity shops and it does give you a staple cheap market to shop in. Shame though that now there aren't the amount of things from bygone eras you used to find. I volunteered in charity shops in the 80's, and you used to get some fantastic WW2 and before stuff in there and I used ot get a 20% discount as a Saturday girl

hobbitfancier

-taff wrote: »

All in all though, I really like charity shops and it does give you a staple cheap market to shop in. Shame though that now there aren't the amount of things from bygone eras you used to find. I volunteered in charity shops in the 80's, and you used to get some fantastic WW2 and before stuff in there and I used ot get a 20% discount as a Saturday girl

I envy those days! A lot of American vintage bloggers I follow seem to find 1930s treasures in thrift stores. I live in Ireland and haven't seen anything pre 1970s.

FairyPrincessk

I was very baffled by charity shops when I first moved to the UK. In the us, many thrift shops with a charity remit see their charity as two fold--first, making a bit of cash for their charity and second by providing a source for used goods for those on low incomes. So when i came to the UK, Socksfam in particular shocked me! However, I have since found a few local places who price more in line with what I can or will pay. In the past few years, however I've really seen prices rise. I often think it is a side effect of vintage becoming fashionable. This makes me particularly sad as I've been wearing "vintage" for years because I like having quality clothing and am interested in the history of clothing. While I do like that a lot of young people are stepping away from disposable fashion, towards vintage, I'm disappointed when I see what passes for vintage in many shops these days. Instead of it being a way to reuse nice, quality clothing, it seems to be people taking old polyester bedsheets and putting some elastic in the waist and charging more than fast fashion. The charity shops have gotten in on the act and now seem to devote whole sections to dresses from the 1970s and 80s, charging exorbitant amounts for things that no one will want two years from now when "vintage" is no longer the thing. It is frustrating, but then I empathise with charity shops who want to make some profit for their cause and think..finally, we're trendy!

I do, however, regularly have rants about this. Socksfam is my personal pet peeve. Books priced higher than they were originally etc. just irritates me to no end. I refuse to go in most of them these days.

I must find some of those end of the line shops, GQ! One of my favourite days out is to go to a very posh suburb around here and poke round their charity shops. They always have nice things, lots of older ladies with pretty doilies and embroidered table cloths they don't want any more!

thriftwizard

FairyPrincessk, I'm a "vintage" trader & have been for years. I'll stay one when it's not so fashionable any more, too. The definition we work by is that "vintage" is to the best of our knowledge & belief, over 25 years old, hence mid-to-late 80s things do qualify now, and certainly fascinate the young fashion students, to whom it's out of the Ark. But there's also the element of style, which is what's missing from so much of what the charity shops put on their vintage rails. Just being old doesn't automatically make stuff interesting or worthwhile, any more than it makes a person wise!

We actually pride ourselves on keeping it affordable, too. Many of our customers are students, single Mums or new divorcees carving out a more "real" identity for themselves & their homes on a tiny budget. There are good reasons why "vintage" will carry on in the background when fashion leaves us behind, though, the first being that they're not making any more of it; stuff from the 90s onwards has mostly been a) identikit suits-nobody grunge made of fabric that stains instantly or thin cotton that goes out of shape after a couple of washes and b) built-in obsolescence. Not to mention the general prevalence of white & light colours - you don't see a lot of white in vintage, except in wedding dresses which generally only get worn once! If you want quality & you're not a millionaire, you have to either make it yourself or buy vintage.

Anyway, that's why I did know what the item in the first post would really fetch, in the real world rather than in some hopeful Ebay trader's wishlist. But I would add that they should fetch more; useful tools, built to last a lifetime and more if well-looked-after. So in a way, it'd be nice if the tide never did turn, and people began to recognise the real value (not necessarily just in money terms) of things that were made to last & give faithful service, and used them & looked after them, rather than just using them as decorative items.

-taff

What she said ^
And everything seems ot be made of that hideous polyester derivative, that feels nasty and cheap too. And who is designing the fabric patterns and colours? They're just ugly.