Anyone stopped bothering with charity shops?

bartelbe

While Christmas shopping I popped into a charity shop. Same Primark clothes, cheap chinese china, mass market paperbacks, and general junk you get in the national chain shops. Nothing of interest.

Then I noticed the vintage section upstairs. That's where I found the old books, game, cameras and other interesting stuff. All of it massively overpriced, gathering dust. Some of the prices were absurd, I even checked a few on my phone to make sure that these items hadn't suddenly become priceless. Nope, cheaper online, even with postage.

Know nothing about clothes, but a group of girls got excited looking through the racks.Till one of them read out the £50 price for a jumper in a shocked voice and they all left.

For me the fun of the old charity shops was hunting through the shelves for that interesting item, finding a bargain. That often led to me buying lots of the cheaper tat, that I didn't really need.

Now I don't bother with the national chains, and the number of shops I visit is declining. With the ones I do visit, I see the same overpriced stock there week after week.

After all, who will buy an old film camera for £125, used shoes for £30 or a value DVD player for more than it cost originally?

sulphate

I have noticed the same in some charity shops. We are expecting a baby in February and I am all for buying things second hand. However whilst I have picked up some bargains I noticed most stuff is overpriced. Why would I buy a used babygrow for £1 when I can get a pack of 5 of brand new ones in Tesco for about £3-£4?

jenniewb

I do think many need a major revamp and some training in retailing and consumer fashion/marketing. It is a shame because they are there to do good but some can let down the general charity shop mentality where it is easy for a shopper to view one or two charity shops and then write the lot off because they have had poor experiences.


I'm not saying I have not done the same- I have a friend who gave her entire back-catalogue of clothes to the nearest charity shop (whose well known brand will remain nameless). She went back into the same charity shop to give some more old clothes- all designer stuff and was shocked to see every member of staff wearing an item of her clothing and nothing on the rails. She didn't donate any further after this as she had given the clothes to both donate to the charity and to bring in customers. I know workers will have donated something towards the charity to shop before anyone else but I/we couldn't help wondering if they actually paid the amount they would have charged if they had put everything out to be sold to the general public.

grunnie

I have given up on charity shops too. They are far too expensive for just tat. A few years ago I bought a jacket from M&S in their sale for £5 wore it a few times and gave it recently to a local charity shop. I took some more things in yesterday and spotted the jacket so had a look to see what they were charging £29.50 I had to look again in case it was £2.95 but it was definitely £29.50 -no wonder the shop was empty.

shoegal1

Having done some work in a charity shop- A chain, The staff do get first dibs- but DO also have to pay, with the guide prices on charts/for each brand/condition etc,to price for the shop floor, then with a staff discount of 25 % to be deducted.

Glitterbaby

We have quite a few on our local high street. The chain ones can be quite pricey, but we have a couple which are independent or local, smaller charities which are better. They are always good for children's clothes if nothing else.

wheelz

I like charity shops and have been going for years in different areas. it's great donating stuff too, it's an easy way to get rid of stuff as I don't want it to go to waste or made into rags. Using freegle or something like that is more work and it means people coming to your door which I'm not always keen on. The prices you mention I've never seen in the charity shops I use both in the town I work, where I live and the city I used to live. And yes they are either normal areas or 'upmarket' so would have the potential to charge a lot. One of the charity shops I donate to have an ebay shop and I fully support the idea.

wheelz

Charity shops are also great for buying charity christmas cards. Bought 40 cards for next year yesterday, half price, £7.50 :-) :j

anamenottaken

jenniewb wrote: »

I do think many need a major revamp and some training in retailing and consumer fashion/marketing. It is a shame because they are there to do good but some can let down the general charity shop mentality where it is easy for a shopper to view one or two charity shops and then write the lot off because they have had poor experiences.


I'm not saying I have not done the same- I have a friend who gave her entire back-catalogue of clothes to the nearest charity shop (whose well known brand will remain nameless). She went back into the same charity shop to give some more old clothes- all designer stuff and was shocked to see every member of staff wearing an item of her clothing and nothing on the rails. She didn't donate any further after this as she had given the clothes to both donate to the charity and to bring in customers. I know workers will have donated something towards the charity to shop before anyone else but I/we couldn't help wondering if they actually paid the amount they would have charged if they had put everything out to be sold to the general public.

Training in retailing may actually be part of the problem.

I "blame" Mary Portas for the increase in prices. She told charity shops they were underselling on price and needed to improve their displays. They took on board the price side of things rather too well compared with how they may have changed displays.

Anouchka

I volunteer in a charity shop which raises funds for a local hospice.

Unfortunately running the hospice requires a great deal of money and, as their shops are their main source of funding, the shops are under increasing pressure to generate funds. This is not without difficulty because the the quality (not necessarily the volume) of donations has fallen drastically over the last few years. The shop I am involved with tries hard to keep prices at a realistic level so I suggest anyone looking for a bargain steers away from the "big chains" of charity shops and seeks out the smaller organisations that are often raising money for local causes.

In my shop stock is rotated on a regular basis. For example, any good quality stock that fails to sell within a 2-3 week period is "culled"and sent to one of the Hospice's other charity shops.

In my shop volunteers are allowed to buy donated items. We are allowed (if we choose to take it and not everyone does) a 33% discount as a thank you for our efforts but no one would dream of not paying for anything they take from the shop. In my case I often buy a selection of magazines then return them for resale when I've read them.

The prices are decided by the store management, not the volunteers and we can only sell what kind and generous folk decide to donate.

StumpyPumpy

My local charity shop thinks it is a boutique. Over a year ago they removed all the sizes from the clothes and instead put them in little "colour co-ordinated" groups. So if my OH was looking to buy, for instance, a size 12 dress, she'd have to go through all the different rails dedicated to a different zone on the colour wheel (which aren't even sorted by size) and dig out the label on each dress to see what size it is.

They used to have a "comments" book. After they removed the sizes it was full of comments asking for them to be put back (literally pages and pages of the same comment from different people) So in the end the shop acted on the comments... by removing the comments book.

There certainly seems to be a lot fewer people browsing the clothes when I go in these days and my OH certainly can't be bothered to go through them any more. I just don't get the logic of it all, it is a small charity but has a few shops in the area and they have done the same in all the others. I assume that someone up high likes how "posh" the shops look, and enjoys the peace and quiet of not actually having any troublesome customers coming in any more.