Charity shops.

I frequent charity shops, donate to them and buy from them.
We had one excellent one in my local town but they closed after Covid. The charity now has a large warehouse out of town that is on an industrial park and not accessible except by car.

Another one is on a local retail park, again well off the high street.

In the nearby major market town there is almost a whole street of them!

So yes, it is a conundrum...how some remain and some leave.

I'm in Whitby, and there are somewhere between 10 and 15 here still open.

I moved from Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria, where originally there were 3, then one closed to become a dog groomer, about 3 years ago.

I live in a very small town, not much more than a village to be honest …….and we have THREE charity shops plus the church collects items for a local food bank.

In our market town I think there are six charity shops. Two are for hospices in our county (for children & for adults). I love all the shops!

Ours all seem to be doing ok, but I have noticed an upturn in 'events'. The Handbags & Glad Rags Month or Happy Homeware Week. My personal favourite is the Haberdashery event every 6 weeks - little bags of buttons, crocheted doilies and any number of embroidered tray cloths.
All vying for my shiny coins! What's a girl to do?
(Some of the window displays are very pretty and creative, which is downright sneaky of them)

There are numerous charity shops where I live. They’re quite fussy about what they’ll accept and one is currently refusing all donations. We also now have ‘social enterprise’ shops, which seem to focus on one particular type of item, eg a school uniform and children’s clothes shop which also has sports equipment for sale. There’s another which sells repurposed homewares like quilted cushions, small items of furniture like dining chairs and coffee tables that have been renovated and accessories such as knitted hats and mittens.

So pleased to hear that charity shops are alive and thriving in some places.
I think I shall enquire why they are closing locally to me.

we had one in our village, but it closed, the next village has a couple that I know of, but as Sue Donim said, they are getting choosey about what they accept. by the way I love charity shops ,,

There are two kinds of Charity shops. One kind is local, run almost entirely by volunteers, the usually for a local charity and sells also for the benefit of local people, so fairly cheaply. That’s how they started off.

Then there is the big business Charity shops. These are run entirely for profit. There is no other motive, such as the OP is suggesting like providing a cheaper alternative for people who are hard up. They operate with a hierarchy of paid staff. Manager, Assistant manager, District manager, Regional manager, Marketing manager, Head of purchasing ( a lot of the stuff you see is bought in from wholesale) Head of Retail and all the associated admin and accounting staff.

The costs are enormous and any shop that does not raise its expected target to contribute to these costs and cover it’s running expenses will be shut down.

It’s a business decision. Big name charity shops are pretty much like any big name retail organisation- except that they don’t have to pay staff at the lowest levels 😬

I volunteer in a charity shop and in my market town there are about 5 shops . All doing well . My charity shop accepts most items , except electrical and duvets /pillows . If it’s not in a saleable condition, it gets put in the rag bag or recycling bags , so the charity gets something. When I started I was amazed at the amount of unsalable items .
As for shops closing, only one charity has closed its shops and apparently the head office has closed too. It’s a local charity for adults with learning disabilities. So doesn’t have the big presence and money that the big charities have .

My small town has three charity shops. They seem to be getting more and more up-market though. Too good for some of my cast-offs. They are all big names.

As has been said many times, some people see charity shops as a place to offload their rubbish.Where I volunteer up to 70% of the donations are unacceptable and have to be disposed of elsewhere.We work on the principle of would I or any of my family be happy to wear or use these items? If not they have to be disposed of somehow. We are slightly different though as we are not a shop and donate directly to those in need. I think the same principle could be applied to shops. We have a lot in our town but they tend to be quite expensive. Could they not sell more items much more cheaply?

They thrive where footfall is almost guaranteed. So if some key business shuts down then they suffer.

Also the rents on these buildings in suburbs are killing shops as they are not making enough sales to cover costs and this is undoubtedly due to the popularity of online market places such as Vinted and EBay and the ease with which you can both purchase and sell your stuff.

The quality of the donations has deteriorated in many charity shops too. Lots of Primark stuff well worn t-shirts and bobbly jumpers. It does though often depend on the locality.

Plenty of charity shops near us in London but quite pricey and they offer a lot of vintage wear for eye watering amounts.

I always fill up a Charity bag when one pop through the front door, but I don't ever go go into Charity shops.
But I do know that a lot of folk now put their unwanted "good" items onto "Vinted" to get something for it, were as before it went into a free bag.
My DiL has told me to stop putting "good" items in the bag and she will sale them for me.

I know that charity shops throw a lot away which is understandable but would be good if they held sone back and sold on a 50p or pound rail, in the winter particularly people may not bother if a jumper looks a bit worn and bobbly, they just want to keep warm.

Yes, I do enjoy visiting my local charity shop.

I have been thinking about my post and realise that all of the charity shops locally were on the main road with no parking.
One was actually on a corner so street parking was available but the others all had a fair walk to them.
Another thought, at one time all the bags that came through the door were for charity shops, now they are for organisations which say they will give a percentage to the charity named.
Is this because the shops don’t want the rubbish often put in these bags?
If so I don’t blame them.
They are also constantly requesting not to leave bags at their door during closing hours, again to prevent being a dumping ground for rags etc.

The charity shop in our village shut a few years ago - around the time Covid started. ( before I retired) It had been manned by volunteer local retired ladies. I wondered if raising the age of retirement for women had affected the availability of healthy volunteers. I also heard rents had increased. The shop building is now a small Greek cafe restaurant which seems popular.

Parking is an issue. I have currently got stuff in my boot because I drove to the next town to a charity shop which has parking outside only to find they were not taking donations.

I was once searching for a fancy waistcoat for my GC to wear in a school production of Guys and Dolls.
The charity shops I went into really smelled of damp, very noticeable and unpleasant.
Maybe in some places the rent is cheap because of this, i.e. no one else wants to take them on.

Our nearest smallish town has now got eight or nine charity shops (at least two of those are quite new) and most of them are very good, too. The town is going from strength to strength, and apart from the lack of any decent shops for buying new clothes, it is far better than it was before Covid.

But the town's plentiful free parking is set to end soon, so sadly some of the shops might struggle to survive. If the proposed plan goes ahead, even parking just long enough to drop items of at a charity shop will incur a parking charge, which is bound have an effect.

On the other hand, our nearest large town (Northampton) has far fewer charity shops in the centre, and most of those are not very nice.
That sums Northampton up, though - it has become an awful place!

To be honest the original Cat Protection Shop in our city centre was a vast old building over a couple of floors and it was seedy. No other word would suffice but there were treasure to be had and for pence!
It used to come with the territory you examined the stuff before buying and washed/cleaned the stuff before use.
With posher shops came higher prices and less interesting finds imo.

Many of my friends give me their clothes and household goods to take to the food bank, so our neediest group can have such for free.
One of my fellow volunteers brings in baby and children's clothes, because the charity shop she supports bins donated children's wear, as the manager says that there's not sufficient space.