Charity shops

[HSBCrusher]

Just paid a visit to a local charity shop.

 

This one I visited (like so many others nowadays) is becoming a "shabby chic/retro" type of establishment and the prices in there have become reduculously high. A charity shop for the rich.

 

Ok I know the charity in question (which is a brilliant local charity) wants to maximise profit for the cause.

 

However. Compare this to years ago. People brought stuff and gave it free to the charity. Win. Charity sells free stuff. Win. People with not a lot of money come in and buy some cheap stuff. Win. Every so often you could find a little bargain which would lift the spirits a bit.

 

Then over a period of time the bargains started to vanish- one of the things that happened is that some charity shops were showing everything that could be of value to local dealers. Therefore everything that was on sale was now filtered. If it was £1 then that's probably all it was worth.

Now they have dispensed with that. They just look at the label. They know the designers. And so now we have coats for £100. Suits for £80. Soap dishes £30. Prices checked against eBay. For stuff given free. But now only for the rich.

I can see why it's happened. But somehow we are losing something. The charity shop hunt of years ago is dying. I know there are a few of these shops left but they're a dying breed.

[Consumer dude]

The true spirit of charity seems to have been stolen..

[Vauban]

Not really. The point of the donating goods is to raise money for the charity, not to allow other businesses/people to pick up valuable donated goods for a dime and flog them for personal profit on e-bay.

[Consumer dude]

The point of charity is to give relief to the poor.

[Vauban]

Some charities are about poverty alleviation. But many are about raising money for medical research, or international development. And the people donating to charity shops want their goods to raise as much money as possible for their chosen charity, not give a bargain for the e-bay reseller.

[silverfox1961]

There are still some charity shops out there that do serve the poorer. Local ones are the best but the national charities are the ones (IMO) that are trying to get more and more out of us.

The Childrens Society do have some reasonable deals in but they also sell other items that are a similar price on EBay. The British Heart Foundation are another I won't use as they filter out the best bits and sell them at a premium then get shot of the not so good items.

 

The best bit. Registered charity shops get a rebate on their business rates of up to 75%

[isbo]

I know someone that makes a living (I don't think he does amazing, but it beats work I suppose) buying stuff from charity shops and flogging it on fleabay.

[citizenB]

I think the larger charities have lost their way. We have seen some really dreadful stories about the way in which some of them target and bully the elderly - very high salaries for their executives. What is really depressing is that pretty much everything they are given is free along with donations and most of their "staff" are volunteers. They receive rebates as already mentioned.

 

 

Should there be some kind of investigation in to the way they now operate ?

[HSBCrusher]

You are correct.

I have done building work for one charity that shall remain naneless- the way it was run... Like dads army but with women instead... The waste was incredible.

 

It's easy to spend someone else's money.

 

In any case, despite the fleabay sellers, there should be bargains galore. The stuff was given free. And of course make s profit. But in my very limited opinion it's now way to expensive to go shopping in a charity shop.

[labrat]

it is

 

but its not always the charity shops fault tho

 

oxfam near us shut down some three years ago now, it was always one of the cheaper one and the same women had run it for about 5 years

the store was only about the size of my living room with the same size storage above.

 

the landlord had given them the new rent amount - 22,000 a year..

 

this wasn't even a town center shop