Charity Shop Prices

It is the price of books which annoy me. My favourite (local) charity shop sells paperbacks for 25p each and hardbacks for 50p. I and many others use it like a library. National charity shops price them at 6 times the price at least.
I think the prices you quote dorsetpennt sound extortionate but I suppose it depends on what the original price was and the value of them now.

I volunteer in a charity shop. If anything is unused and has a price tag on it, it is priced at one third of the original value.
If we think something might be valuable, the manageress checks the internet and charges accordingly.
I passed a charity shop last week and spotted a beautiful glass dish in the window. I am trying to declutter so made myself walk past. It was still there on my way home so I bought it for £4. There was a sticker underneath so I checked on it and it can be bought for 330 Australian dollars - about £150. I'm even more pleased with it now.

I don't think charity shops always realise the difference between designer clothes and supermarket/department store ones. I have seen Primark children's t-shirts priced at £2 where they can be bought new for £1.

I have stopped going into the British Heart Foundation charity shops because of the price of their books. They are in good condition but are IMO overpriced.

I went to a local church run charity this pm and bought 2 paperbacks for £1.49p. Both books were in good condition.

Stopped using British heart foundation years ago because of their prices.
Here in Southend you can't beat Sue Ryder for furniture bargains.
For giving. I just stick to the Samaritans and our local sea scouts.

I've thought the same about charity shop prices for a while, now.

When I decided to look for some DVDs that I could watch with my pre-school grandchildren when they came for a sleepover, I found that all our local charity shops were charging between two to three pounds for them. I thought that was expensive but bought one anyway , but then felt totally ripped off when I discovered ten minutes later that I could have bought the same thing brand new one in the supermarket for only £3!

Totally agree with what Greenfinch said, too.

Charity shop bargain may not be the bargain it appears to be, heard a story about a woman who brought clothes into the house and she got an infestation of moths. Her carpets and clothes were ruined and in the end it cost her £14,000 in replacements and treatment for the house

I have thought prices charged in 'most' charity shops have been unreasonable for quite some time now. Like dorsetpennt I think some of their pricing is unrealistic considering the items have been wholly donated and premises (as far as I understand) are at a nominal rent. They used to be shops were folk could get good second hand goods at reasonable cost. Is it the high cost of advisors, consultants etc? or do they do it for free?

Perhaps that is why we appear to be having a resurgence of jumble sales. There have been two nearby this year and there hadn't been one for many years.

The purpose of a charity shop is to raise money for the charity running it. The fact that the items being sold have been donated is irrelevant. The charity needs to get the best price it can for its goods to fund the charity it there to support. It is not there to be a chritable to its customers.

Having said that, I agree, charity shop prices do seem very high these days, but the fact ithat they have been high for some years and have continued to be so suggests that the majority of their customers are willing to pay those prices.

Like any other business if they were pricing themselves out of the market they would reduce their prices.

I often look through knitting or sewing patterns in charity shops. Today I was a little taken aback to find a charity shop selling knitting patterns for 25p, which had been torn from magazines, very old and out of date magazines at that .

I used to go into charity shops all the time but the prices have really gone up. I do understand that the money is going to a good course,but i'm sure more would be sold if they lower the prices. Dvd's at £3 and a set of 5 tumblers for £12 in our local charity shop window,I don't think I'll bother...

I agree with the fact that the items being sold have been donated is irrelevant, however I think the charity shops may be pricing themselves out of the market. Most of our local shops are charging around the £2 mark for books when I can download many of the same ones from Kobo for less and like Greenfinch have seen many cheaper end clothes priced up to more than the original cost. Whilst I would rather the money go to charities I cannot justify paying the same if not more for second hand goods.

I think one of the problems is that charity shops are run as businesses and have targets, staffing costs and overheads to cover. I have been told that the recession resulted in less high end goods being donated and that prices have increased to cover the loss of these money earners. They are I think trying to make up for a drop in sales by charging more-counter productive of course.

Is it counter productive? If it was prices would have come down. They haven't.

Didn't Mary Portas do a TV programme/series about charity shops? She was trying to steer them away from their usual "tat" to designer type clothes with a significant price rise. She encouraged a more business like approach. I agree many items over priced but you can get some good labels reasonably priced sometimes. Used to love a good rummage at a jumble sale, haven't seen one for years!

It's counter-productive because people look, but don't buy. Prices don't come down because targets are raised year after year. With donations decreasing (blame the recession, e-bay sales, whatever) in quantity and quality increasing prices seems the only solution.
I saw an advert for a jumble sale the other day- first one I had seen for years!!!

I have noticed that some charity shops charge much higher prices than others.Locally, where I live, Oxfam is the dearest.I think of it as buying something I want and giving a donation at the same time.However, nobody will pay £6 for a well used and slightly dingy polo shirt, which I saw in there the last time I went into town.Clothes are piling up, you could hardly move in there,a sure sign that people are not buying.

I went into our Age UK shop today and bought a nice Monsoon dress for £5.99!

My best buy was a cashmere and wool coat last year for £9.99. It was exactly what I had been looking for and would have bought it had it been in a 'proper' shop.
Last week I saw an almost new Mama's and Papa's pram + car seat and lots of extras for £35. I just hoped that someone who needed it bought it and not to re-sell on ebay.

I totally agree. I visit charity shops regularly and they have a large amount of stock.....if they kept their prices more sensible the turnover would be greater for them......
Shirts, for example, are sold for £5 approximately.......however, I found one store where they had rduced them to one pound..,,I bought five to deconstruct and sew with.......this meant they had money and extra space for stock....surely a win, win for them.
I know...a fiver for a shirt is a good price.....but less than that is better and could sway the sale,....

We are really blessed with many charity shops in the market town we live in. Ideal place for picking up small toys & books for when the grandchildren visit.
You do have to check them over, however, as last week I picked up 2 motorised cars marked at £1.99 each. I worked - the other didn't. Very cheekily asked if I could have the dud for £1 and got them both for £3 - result. Always a pleasure to chat to the very helpful staff.
Being a "donater" and "a buyer" feels good.
The charity shops giving out free plastic donation bags is brilliant ~ they can be used for all sorts of things

Tiggypiro - at least 10 years ago I hesitated over paying £9.99 in a London Cancer Research shop for a good condition wool and cashmere winter coat. It fit and suited me so after some thought I bought it. It's kept me warm through every cold winter, goes over and with both casual and formal clothes and when I got it out again recently felt like an old friend. No regrets!
If something is overpriced or in poor condition it may be that a mistake has been made, we all make them.
Dorsetpennt - if the sofa set and cutlery canteen are overpriced they won't sell. Do you and your friend think donated goods should be sold at rock bottom prices? The idea is to finance medical research, not, after all, someone's living room.
In a local hospice shop people who buy a number of items sometimes ask for a discount. They are politely reminded that the money is for the care of dying local people. On the other hand people with family experience of that hospice not only donate goods but sometimes deliberately overpay for purchases.
Yes, you can buy books more cheaply than in Heart shops but you're still helping a charity and recycling a book ,at less than the publisher's price. All their books are pristine. Personally I'll happily buy a book which is a in less than perfect condition if I want to read it. Perhaps because they have knowledgeable staff, Oxfam book shops sell books based on their content, not their condition. The well used treasures are found there - as they are in the shops of smaller local charities who put out almost everything they get donated. Some chains dispose of far too many saleable books because they are trying to be 'Ladies' Boutiques'. If you want to be sure your donated books will actually go on sale choose a shop with plenty of bookshelves!

Indinana - a charity shop I volunteered in had a steady, much appreciated, trade in knitting patterns and needles at low prices. One day we found head office had decreed that, on Health and Safety grounds, we were to no longer sell the needles (previously kept on a high shelf behind the counter or in the back of the shop). Our hefty ring binders of patterns went too. Maybe HO thought someone might drop one and slip over on it ...
We used to sell quirky old kitchen equipment and all kinds of oddments, no longer as the shop remorselessly reinvents itself as a boutique. The target of 200 clothes items put out per day instigated a discussion as to whether a pair of shoes could count as 2!! It meant a rapid cull of clothes etc. which had been on sale a couple of weeks.