Charity Shops getting cocky with their prices.

Pollycat

pinky28 wrote: »

To be fair if I buy anything and it's super cheap I tend to stick a couple of quid/my change in the box anyway... I wouldn't be so willing if things were nigh on full price.

Obviously still depends like the other poster said they could be worth a lot of money - fair enough.
I think in these days of "fast fashion" they will suffer against the likes of primark and supermarkets selling clothing so dear

Some charity shops seem to have lost the plot in pricing some items.

Recently seen: a Primark vest - clearly not new - priced at £2.50 when it wouldn't have been that expensive new.

Our local Barnados sell books at £1.99 each or 3 for £5, regardless of condition. I can buy new from The Works for that.

I can't comment on the OP's complaint about the owl, plates & vase as I have no idea if they were worth less or more than priced.

I think the old lady may have made a mistake with the shoes and thought they were £5.50 instead of £25.50.

ThumbRemote

specialboy wrote: »

Do you seriously believe that? I do some delivery and collection work for a charity shop and the staff have daily targets that they have to meet or they get a dressing down from their area managers. The bulk of the money that comes in goes on managers wages, assistant managers wages, area managers wages and travel expenses, regional managers wages and company car costs and then there's the staff at the headquarters who need paying, the volunteers I see at some of the shops I visit are treated like skivvies and cost the charity nothing but I'd love to know how much is left after all expenses to give to charity.

If you'd "love to know how much is left" then why don't you ask? Although I suspect you don't really care, you just want to make baseless allegations.

For most charities running a charity shop can be a big money-maker (along with other side benefits, like publicising the charity and their work). It's a difficult balancing act between keeping spending as low as possible, and making the most money. If a store manager costs £20,000; but over the course of a year the professionalism they bring means the charity makes an extra £40,000 (both arbitrary numbers), then that would seem worthwhile - although of course overheads go up so the charity is spending more on admin and looks worse in their annual report.

trukdiver

Azari wrote: »

The answer to 'why would a pair of leather shoes be £5.50?' should have been: because that's the price at which you have indicated you wish to
sell them.

Because you can get a new pair at Wynsors for £17?

When I worked in a charity shop, we had to sell stuff for the marked prices, even when they were daft prices. Some of the prices were odd... Clothes and paperback books were overpriced (sometimes more than new ones!) but other things were way off... eg a Canon F1 (working) for £10, a photography book by Don McCullin that they had for £5 was listed on Amazon for £250-£500 (don't ask me why...). Old aviation and railway books were usually cheap as well. Computer books were cheap because they assumed if the book was more than a year old, it was out of date - even if it was a book on relational database design (for example).

We used to get people asking "what's your best price?" and commenting that they wouldn't be able to make any money on it at that price (so obviously eBaying or car booting...)

This was back in the 90's so there is nothing new about charity shop pricing.

Azari

Money-Saving-King wrote: »

Could she have thought a 2 was a £ sign?

Possibly.

I know I've occasionally had to look at a badly written price to make sure I'd interpreted the £ sign (or not) correctly.

Pollycat

trukdiver wrote: »

Because you can get a new pair at Wynsors for £17?

It depends what make the shoes in the charity shop were.
You may not have been able to buy an identical pair brand new for £17 in Wynsors.

If they were Jimmy Choo and in very good condition, I'd have snatched their hand off even at £25.50 (although it's doubtful that an 80 year old would be buying Jimmy Choo - unless she was an ebay seller).

trukdiver wrote: »

We used to get people asking "what's your best price?" and commenting that they wouldn't be able to make any money on it at that price (so obviously eBaying or car booting...)

I've never asked 'what's your best price' in a charity shop as I know that's not how they work.
I do, however, ask if they would reduce something if thee is a fault with the item that I think I can repair/rectify e.g. mark or trailing hem.

trukdiver wrote: »

This was back in the 90's so there is nothing new about charity shop pricing.

I think the 'new' thing is that there are lots of so-called designer items about now - such as Superdry, all the 'designers at Debenhams', Radley handbags etc.
Charity shops are aware of these and realise that some things can be priced high or even sold on ebay.

DigForVictory

Himself tours the charity shops looking for things we need or the "odd thing" that he knows will appeal to one of us.

Some places price higher than others, some places don't seem to have realised we went decimal a while back - cheerfully demanding tenpence for an armful of paperbacks. (No surprise we pay up & drop the change in their collection box.)

He blames the smartphone for making everyone "experts" on old things & yet comes back with astounding finds most weeks.

hollydays

whodathunkit wrote: »

Charity shops are there to raise as much money for their charity as possible, not to help you buy goods cheaply.

Yes I really do think a lot of people think " charity shop, a shop that dispenses charity to the needy" as though they believe this is the definition , lol.
A charity shop is a shop run by a charity to make a decent amount of money for , for example, children in other countries who have no water to drink.
Sometimes they get prices way out- of course they are run by unskilled volunteers .
Freely giving their time .

How rude to say " you got it for free"! I do find it's the over sixty generation who still think like this, but they need to get some manners!
As to those who are experts on what things are worth, perhaps they could volunteer themselves and offer their expert services?

Horseunderwater

This over pricing has been going on for a long long time. Time was when my daughter was 8-10 years old I could go into BHF & get her a whole large lot of clothing for around £10 ish - that has not been possible for ages now. Yes you can still find bits priced reasonably here & there. We used to sell books on line - mostly obtained at boots or auction gen sales, but if we were in a town, we would do a little CS browsing to see if there were any good+ conditiom books to sell. Sometimes we would get lucky on the books in the get rid of bin/table or we'd find a couple not too expensive. But last time I was able to go look - there were as some have said some odd pricing methods. Cookson books no matter how tatty were at least £2 - belva plain too - then there are the chic lit ones often £2.45+ sell for 1p on line. Then of course there's the agents who collect anything unsold placed in the bins to pulp/recycle & pay by the kilo. Not only that a CS gets to pay no business rates in lots of cases for prime high street/ high footfall areas. I could go on..

hollydays

Horseunderwater wrote: »

This over pricing has been going on for a long long time. Time was when my daughter was 8-10 years old I could go into BHF & get her a whole large lot of clothing for around £10 ish - that has not been possible for ages now. Yes you can still find bits priced reasonably here & there. We used to sell books on line - mostly obtained at boots or auction gen sales, but if we were in a town, we would do a little CS browsing to see if there were any good+ conditiom books to sell. Sometimes we would get lucky on the books in the get rid of bin/table or we'd find a couple not too expensive. But last time I was able to go look - there were as some have said some odd pricing methods. Cookson books no matter how tatty were at least £2 - belva plain too - then there are the chic lit ones often £2.45+ sell for 1p on line. Then of course there's the agents who collect anything unsold placed in the bins to pulp/recycle & pay by the kilo. Not only that a CS gets to pay no business rates in lots of cases for prime high street/ high footfall areas. I could go on..

Yes, how dare charity shops sell things too expensively so you can't buy them then make a profit selling them...,

hollydays

specialboy wrote: »

Do you seriously believe that? I do some delivery and collection work for a charity shop and the staff have daily targets that they have to meet or they get a dressing down from their area managers. The bulk of the money that comes in goes on managers wages, assistant managers wages, area managers wages and travel expenses, regional managers wages and company car costs and then there's the staff at the headquarters who need paying, the volunteers I see at some of the shops I visit are treated like skivvies and cost the charity nothing but I'd love to know how much is left after all expenses to give to


Everyone's an expert!
If you hate your charities way of running, why do you continue to volunteer for them?
You can look at a charities account they are public