Can you afford to shop at a charity shop? (Charity Shops - Comments)

Member Name: lellagrace

Product:	Charity Shops - Comments
Date:	20/06/07 (237 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good way to recycle unwanted goods

Disadvantages: Prices are too high

When charity shops first appeared they were places where students and hard-up families could kit themselves out in decent clothes, at very low prices.

It seems to me that nowadays most charity shops are pricing their goods so high that people who should benefit from them can't afford to shop there! I was told by one of the assistants in one of them that they have "overheads" like everyone else.

Well, I am sorry, but I understood the people who work in charity shops are volunteers. Also their shops are exempt from normal business council tax. The goods they sell are donated. So what are these so called "overheads"?

I realise they must have some paid staff to manage the shop, but why do they also need to spend money on carrier bags with their logo on? After all, not everyone wants to advertise the fact that they shop there! So why can't charity shops accept the mountains of plastic carrier bags that people get from the supermarket and use these instead? That would be one way of recycling them and keep costs down.

I went into several charity shops last week, looking for paperback books. I am an avid reader and spend a fortune on books so thought I would look and see what I could find in the charity shops. I simply could not believe the prices they were charging! Some of the books I have read in the past have been from bookshops where you get three for a fiver. Some of the very same books were in the charity shop - secondhand ones - priced at two pounds each. There was nothing less than £1.50 and these were quite tatty. It was the same in all the shops I visited, which included British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research, Sue Ryder and Help the Aged.

I was discussing this with another customer, who was also taken aback by the prices, she said she now buys books at car boot sales.

It is not that I cannot afford to buy the books at that price, but I do think these charity shops would sell more if they were not so greedy.

One of the assistants was saying how they often have shoplifters in. This actually doesn't surprise me, the people who shoplift from charity shops must be desperately in need. Surely if the shops lowered the costs of their goods these people would be able to afford to buy them.

The assistant didn't agree that they were overcharging. She pointed out some of the clothes and said "you would pay a lot more for these in a proper shop." Well, of course I would, but they would be NEW not secondhand, or donated to raise funds for a deserving cause.

Another thing that appals me nowadays is that charity shops are becoming choosy about what they take. The other week I had been clearing out some books and bric a brac and a charity bag came through the door. This said they only wanted "good quality clothing." (Can't remember which charity this was).

There have been several scams lately in my area, where leaflets have been put through the door purporting to be from a charity. My neighbours and I have become vigilant about these. Usually there is no name of a charity, just a sentence saying the goods will be sold to help the needy, or something like that. We contacted the police who put us in touch with the consumer protection. Apparently these "charities" are collecting from unsuspecting people and selling the donated goods for their own benefit. We were told there is nothing that can be done, if we choose to give items away then we have, in effect, given permission for the collector to sell them, for whatever purpose. So do be warned, by donating to one of these you could be funding crime etc.

Back to the charity shops. In my local charity shop whenever I go in, there are always a group of people chatting to the assistants. It appears these are friends of the shop workers and I have been told (by one of them, who actually boasted) that when the shop receives goods the assistants sort out things for their friends. This is before the goods are priced, so do they get the best bargains?

Another friend of mine bought a bulk lot of books from E Bay, around 200 in total for ten pounds!!! When the books were sorted many of them had charity shop labels on them. Does this mean the unwanted books that can't be sold are passed on to dealers? I have no problems with this, it is a good way of recyling books, but it brings me back to my first point - if they charged less they would probably sell more. If they were sold 200 books for ten pounds, how much did the dealer give the charity?

At the moment another local charity shop has a display of hats. These are priced from around 25 pounds upwards. I was told this is because it is the season for Ascot and weddings. Ironically, only a couple of hundred yards away from the charity shop, is a dress agency. They not only have similar hats for sale (secondhand, the seller gets a commission) at much lower prices, but you can also hire hats from them for a tenner!

With cut price shops on the high street where families can buy new, they will think twice about shopping at charity shops. However, I think it is a shame that there are so many needy people around who would benefit from being able to buy from a charity shop. As it is at the moment, it seems only the better off can afford to shop there!

Summary: Charity shops are pricing themselves out of the market.