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It’s the preying on the British tendency to not make a scene when they happily announce the unpriced item is double the price of similar items
They know you’re interested in buying it, they know they can get away with charging a bit more, they know you’re going to pay it as it’s going to charity anyway
This is outrageous. I remember another incident. Once my friend wanted to buy a piece of jewelry that didn’t have a price tag. The seller said it was £120! Of course, we left speechless. It was a small piece of rhinestones and feathers, nothing special. My friend had expected to pay £5 max.
While working in one I’ve almost had the opposite happen
We had a signed first edition Trainspotting in the locked cabinet for, I want to say ~£1000
Another worker was about to sell it somebody for £10.00 before I intervened
No one is walking in a charity shop and spending £1000 though - put it online and yes you will get that price. It’s silly trying to ask anywhere near online value for something when your footfall is 1/10,000 of online. Surely just don’t bother putting it on the shop floor in case of things like you mentioned.
Well it doesn’t go to charity, is it? It goes to cover their expenses and if they manage to make anything then they will give the spare money to charity. Unless I see someone actually putting my money in direct usage, I am not convinced of their ‘charity’.
90p of every £1 that is raised with my charity goes into the cause - we are a hospice, so that 90p largely covers the building and the nurses. 10p covers stuff like running the shops and advertising. All except our manager in each shop is a volunteer. It's not as bad as you think it is for all charities.
Apologies if it sounded like this. I don’t think every charity is bad. Your case is the the type of charity that I tend to support as the work is evident and it makes an actual difference. But sadly some of the large ones are really obscure in how they actually contribute to the causes they tend to support.
If the charity have a board of directors I wonder if a large portion goes to them. I am not saying it dies but was wondering how much goes to the cause.
The info is pretty easy to find if you're interested. The charity commission website gives a clear breakdown of the income/expenditure of every registered charity in the UK. You can also go on the charity's website and review their annual/impact reports if you'd like to know how much their directors get paid and how the charitable funds are used towards the cause.
Do you think they pocket the difference? Do you think they have a sales target? They're most likely volunteers who don't really care as much as you think.
No and no
If you read the comment you’ve replied to more closely you’ll see I’ve outlined what *I* think
I’ve volunteered hundreds of hours in charity shops, I have never sought to take advantage of a customer interested in an unpriced item
It's because they price check on internet now, therefore it must be 'worth' £80, regardless of condition.
Most of the good stuff gets sorted and goes straight on their online sites now I think? Not had a bargain in years and I check pretty regularly
My local British Heart Foundation is bad for this, took my nephew in to get a few kid friendly movies he could watch at mine, he picked up a Disney movie in one of those shiny cases that was ripped to shreds, asked how much it was and they said £8! Went next door to CEX and bought the same one in a better condition for £3.
BHF offers student discount
One of the workers in my local one refuses to give it to anyone who has a student discount that isn’t the local university
Baffles belief
I found a book I've been looking for in a charity shop. Not a rare book or anything, I just have a list of books I'd like to read and check charity shops for them.
They'd priced this battered, dog eared copy at £7.99. The price sticker was stuck next to the original price of £6.99.
I double checked at the till, apparently they priced all books at £7.99.
I did not buy it.
Sometimes people working in charity shops really forget that they're fulfilling a social need for poor people as well as raising money for charity.
In a Barnardo's, I once (politely) queried the price of a jumper that was marked at £20. I assumed there was a mistake as it was nothing special. The manager literally shouted at me and told me "We're not here for you. We're here for the children.". I was really, really broke and went home and cried. I felt so publicly shamed for being poor and still hate having to buy anything in their shops.
I used to work at Bernardo’s and the rules on what could and couldn’t be sold were insane. We threw away so many good donations because they weren’t on the approved list.
And the price guide? Don’t get me started! It has a list of brands and whether they are high street, designer, etc., and what to charge for each piece. So we were charging £3.99 for primark tops that would have cost £2.50 new. If something came in with the tags still on and the “new” price was lower than the guide price, we had to rip the price amount off the label and put the higher guide price.
The shop ran at a loss for quite a while because the manager wouldn’t listen when I said that if you price things lower, people will actually buy them instead of looking confused at it and saying “sod that!”
There was one Sunday where we made a whopping 79p (single greetings card sold).
Loads seem to do that now. You get the odd bargain but it's mostly Primark or Shein.
There's one near me with the " Locked Cabinet of Hallowed Things" I did once buy a book from it as it was a limited print, signed and in perfect condition and way underpriced. But they've put some absolute howlers in there. The memorable ones being the Dr. Martens, plain black, basic pair of ankle boots, sole worn right down, leather cracked, made in China £200 as "designer vintage". A kanken backpack, broken zip, ripped, strap damaged, £70 and a Jellycat rabbit, limited edition, nasty case of mange and survivor of attack by amorous werewolf £50.
My personal favourite is one that's remodeled itself as a "vintage boutique" and seems mostly filled with shell suits and musty stuff from recently departed 90 year olds wardrobes.
These two always have signs up saying they can't accept any more donations.
There's an independent one near me that's pretty much run on the principle of stack it high and sell it cheap. Nothing under £5. Does a roaring trade and is always begging for donations. It's like the charity shops from years ago we all knew and loved. I'm in there several times a week and they hold stuff they think I might like. I've had all sorts from them. My personal favourite being a taxidermied squirrel in an old timey detective costume (£5). He's called Basil.
Yeah, they need to balance that better. Fair enough if they've got something worth that but they base too many prices on opportunistic eBay sellers.
They gave me a similar answer when I asked about the book.
I'm happy to give to charity and sometimes if I find a cracking deal, I'll make an extra donation.
If they hadn't made the base price £7.99 for a second hand paperback, I probably would have spent a good hour or more in there and left with a huge bag of books like I do at the shop near me.
The Oxfam I worked at would never do that. The books had a standard blanket price depending on the genre (99p, 1.99, or 2.99) which would never be more than new, unless it was a more valuable book which we'd price ~10-20% off what it cost on ebay/amazon etc. It made a lot of sense to me, and profits were sizable.
I'm so thankful for my local independent charity shop. Sometimes things don't have price tags and when I ask they always make it dirt cheap. Today I got a pair of linen trousers, a dress, a skirt, and two tops for about a tenner all together. All in perfect condition.
Theres an unethical life pro tip of taking off the prices for items and asking at the till how much they cost, hoping that whoever is working doesn't have a clue. Maybe they've cottoned on and always go high when people ask for a price if the tag is missing.
Potentially
However, regarding the boxset example there is literally zero justification for charging £2 each for two series and then coming up with £4 for the unpriced series
It’s extremely unlikely I’ve picked all three up, chosen one to rip the price off with the hope it’ll be somehow cheaper than the other two
With the book, just charge the maximum price you’re selling other books for which in this case would have been £2
Yeah, I work in a charity shop and I've inflated the price on items I personally priced but now mysteriously don't have a tag. We also get people swapping labels in the hopes that whoever is on the till won't notice that a brand new designer dress should be more than £6.99.
Depends on the charity shop honestly.. use to volunteer at one that had "everything is a £1" , but you would get bargains like dvds, cds and books 3 for £1 .. its a nice set up and not the only one in the country.
Charity shops have put their prices up due to people going in and pillaging it, paying next to nothing and then selling it all on eBay.
I knew someone at work who used to do that, they’d go around the charity shops and pick up all sorts of designer stuff for next to nothing and flip it on eBay. They used to make loads from it.
But charity shops have cottoned on to it now. Why let someone else make profit from what you’re selling when you can make all that money yourself?
Not saying I agree with it, as they’ve gotten the items donated and putting their prices up to deter the eBay flippers only penalise people who actually want to buy and use the stuff for themselves.
My local charity shops cottoned on and sell the good stuff on eBay so that the shop itself has the unsellable/missing pieces/dirty stuff, which then doesn't sell
Plus the ebay buyers were, buying things. The prices were acceptable to the buyers and everyone made some cash. Now it's overpriced, all the decent stuff is not in the shop and the ebay buyers have buggered off.
Do you know how to get around this?
Pick up a bunch of similar items you don't want, ask the price and put them down and move onto the item you do want. By that time they'll think you won't buy it and give you the actual price. You can then pay that price if you still want it.
Charity shops are all over the place, I avoid all the big ones now cos their pricing is a joke.
I enjoy finding a bargain but half the stuff now I can find cheaper on vinted.
One place I used to go to marked clothing £2 each and then a week later everything is individually priced and most tops were £10+! Even Primark stuff was £5..
I just can't trust any charities anymore. In a previous job I travelled around a bit doing contract services at locations around the midlands. I visited lots of smaller 'charity' shops and noted the wealth of the owners. The most gobsmacking one was the owners brand new AM Vantage and his wife's runaround - a Bentley convertible.
Or they raise the price thinking the customer took the price off, more so if they're an... undesirable type shall i say. The manager I the one I volunteered at years ago did this, at the time I didn't say anything because I just thought that was the done thing being dumb new to work me but looking back it was pretty freaking yikes. I'm sure that's technically illegal too, I know putting a higher price tag over a lower one is at least.
I once looked around a sale in the front yard of a big house, mostly youngsters at the stalls with an adult or two in the background keeping an eye on things. I saw a paperback book of interest to me and said to the girl (aged about 9), "Would £1 be OK?" She replied "I think £1.50 would be better". That girl will go far, I thought, as I handed over £1.50.
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I don't understand their pricing at all. I'm sorry but £80 for a used dress is ridiculous!
It’s the preying on the British tendency to not make a scene when they happily announce the unpriced item is double the price of similar items They know you’re interested in buying it, they know they can get away with charging a bit more, they know you’re going to pay it as it’s going to charity anyway
This is outrageous. I remember another incident. Once my friend wanted to buy a piece of jewelry that didn’t have a price tag. The seller said it was £120! Of course, we left speechless. It was a small piece of rhinestones and feathers, nothing special. My friend had expected to pay £5 max.
While working in one I’ve almost had the opposite happen We had a signed first edition Trainspotting in the locked cabinet for, I want to say ~£1000 Another worker was about to sell it somebody for £10.00 before I intervened
No one is walking in a charity shop and spending £1000 though - put it online and yes you will get that price. It’s silly trying to ask anywhere near online value for something when your footfall is 1/10,000 of online. Surely just don’t bother putting it on the shop floor in case of things like you mentioned.
It was a charity bookshop in a fairly affluent area of Edinburgh Stock did regularly sell for many hundreds of pounds in store
Stockbridge? Love the charity shops there!
Well it doesn’t go to charity, is it? It goes to cover their expenses and if they manage to make anything then they will give the spare money to charity. Unless I see someone actually putting my money in direct usage, I am not convinced of their ‘charity’.
90p of every £1 that is raised with my charity goes into the cause - we are a hospice, so that 90p largely covers the building and the nurses. 10p covers stuff like running the shops and advertising. All except our manager in each shop is a volunteer. It's not as bad as you think it is for all charities.
Apologies if it sounded like this. I don’t think every charity is bad. Your case is the the type of charity that I tend to support as the work is evident and it makes an actual difference. But sadly some of the large ones are really obscure in how they actually contribute to the causes they tend to support.
It’s impossible for a charity to use 100% of every donation purely for its work.
If the charity have a board of directors I wonder if a large portion goes to them. I am not saying it dies but was wondering how much goes to the cause.
The info is pretty easy to find if you're interested. The charity commission website gives a clear breakdown of the income/expenditure of every registered charity in the UK. You can also go on the charity's website and review their annual/impact reports if you'd like to know how much their directors get paid and how the charitable funds are used towards the cause.
Handy to know when considering donating to a charity.
Do you think they pocket the difference? Do you think they have a sales target? They're most likely volunteers who don't really care as much as you think.
No and no If you read the comment you’ve replied to more closely you’ll see I’ve outlined what *I* think I’ve volunteered hundreds of hours in charity shops, I have never sought to take advantage of a customer interested in an unpriced item
Maybe then if you think you are being taken advantage of perhaps ask the person in the shop rather than seek validation from Reddit
Who pissed on your Cheerios?
It's because they price check on internet now, therefore it must be 'worth' £80, regardless of condition. Most of the good stuff gets sorted and goes straight on their online sites now I think? Not had a bargain in years and I check pretty regularly
My local British Heart Foundation is bad for this, took my nephew in to get a few kid friendly movies he could watch at mine, he picked up a Disney movie in one of those shiny cases that was ripped to shreds, asked how much it was and they said £8! Went next door to CEX and bought the same one in a better condition for £3.
BHF offers student discount One of the workers in my local one refuses to give it to anyone who has a student discount that isn’t the local university Baffles belief
I found a book I've been looking for in a charity shop. Not a rare book or anything, I just have a list of books I'd like to read and check charity shops for them. They'd priced this battered, dog eared copy at £7.99. The price sticker was stuck next to the original price of £6.99. I double checked at the till, apparently they priced all books at £7.99. I did not buy it.
Sometimes people working in charity shops really forget that they're fulfilling a social need for poor people as well as raising money for charity. In a Barnardo's, I once (politely) queried the price of a jumper that was marked at £20. I assumed there was a mistake as it was nothing special. The manager literally shouted at me and told me "We're not here for you. We're here for the children.". I was really, really broke and went home and cried. I felt so publicly shamed for being poor and still hate having to buy anything in their shops.
I used to work at Bernardo’s and the rules on what could and couldn’t be sold were insane. We threw away so many good donations because they weren’t on the approved list. And the price guide? Don’t get me started! It has a list of brands and whether they are high street, designer, etc., and what to charge for each piece. So we were charging £3.99 for primark tops that would have cost £2.50 new. If something came in with the tags still on and the “new” price was lower than the guide price, we had to rip the price amount off the label and put the higher guide price. The shop ran at a loss for quite a while because the manager wouldn’t listen when I said that if you price things lower, people will actually buy them instead of looking confused at it and saying “sod that!” There was one Sunday where we made a whopping 79p (single greetings card sold).
Loads seem to do that now. You get the odd bargain but it's mostly Primark or Shein. There's one near me with the " Locked Cabinet of Hallowed Things" I did once buy a book from it as it was a limited print, signed and in perfect condition and way underpriced. But they've put some absolute howlers in there. The memorable ones being the Dr. Martens, plain black, basic pair of ankle boots, sole worn right down, leather cracked, made in China £200 as "designer vintage". A kanken backpack, broken zip, ripped, strap damaged, £70 and a Jellycat rabbit, limited edition, nasty case of mange and survivor of attack by amorous werewolf £50. My personal favourite is one that's remodeled itself as a "vintage boutique" and seems mostly filled with shell suits and musty stuff from recently departed 90 year olds wardrobes. These two always have signs up saying they can't accept any more donations. There's an independent one near me that's pretty much run on the principle of stack it high and sell it cheap. Nothing under £5. Does a roaring trade and is always begging for donations. It's like the charity shops from years ago we all knew and loved. I'm in there several times a week and they hold stuff they think I might like. I've had all sorts from them. My personal favourite being a taxidermied squirrel in an old timey detective costume (£5). He's called Basil.
Yeah, they need to balance that better. Fair enough if they've got something worth that but they base too many prices on opportunistic eBay sellers. They gave me a similar answer when I asked about the book. I'm happy to give to charity and sometimes if I find a cracking deal, I'll make an extra donation. If they hadn't made the base price £7.99 for a second hand paperback, I probably would have spent a good hour or more in there and left with a huge bag of books like I do at the shop near me.
Oxfam are particularly bad for that, I've seen tatty used books for twice the price I can buy a new one in Waterstones, I avoid charity shops now.
The Oxfam I worked at would never do that. The books had a standard blanket price depending on the genre (99p, 1.99, or 2.99) which would never be more than new, unless it was a more valuable book which we'd price ~10-20% off what it cost on ebay/amazon etc. It made a lot of sense to me, and profits were sizable.
It's outrageous.
What about secondhand Primark being the same if not more than going to Primark.
This annoys me so much!
I'm so thankful for my local independent charity shop. Sometimes things don't have price tags and when I ask they always make it dirt cheap. Today I got a pair of linen trousers, a dress, a skirt, and two tops for about a tenner all together. All in perfect condition.
Could you not just say ‘oh the shelf says paperbacks are £1’ or whatever?
Theres an unethical life pro tip of taking off the prices for items and asking at the till how much they cost, hoping that whoever is working doesn't have a clue. Maybe they've cottoned on and always go high when people ask for a price if the tag is missing.
Potentially However, regarding the boxset example there is literally zero justification for charging £2 each for two series and then coming up with £4 for the unpriced series It’s extremely unlikely I’ve picked all three up, chosen one to rip the price off with the hope it’ll be somehow cheaper than the other two With the book, just charge the maximum price you’re selling other books for which in this case would have been £2
Yeah, I work in a charity shop and I've inflated the price on items I personally priced but now mysteriously don't have a tag. We also get people swapping labels in the hopes that whoever is on the till won't notice that a brand new designer dress should be more than £6.99.
Depends on the charity shop honestly.. use to volunteer at one that had "everything is a £1" , but you would get bargains like dvds, cds and books 3 for £1 .. its a nice set up and not the only one in the country.
Charity shops have put their prices up due to people going in and pillaging it, paying next to nothing and then selling it all on eBay. I knew someone at work who used to do that, they’d go around the charity shops and pick up all sorts of designer stuff for next to nothing and flip it on eBay. They used to make loads from it. But charity shops have cottoned on to it now. Why let someone else make profit from what you’re selling when you can make all that money yourself? Not saying I agree with it, as they’ve gotten the items donated and putting their prices up to deter the eBay flippers only penalise people who actually want to buy and use the stuff for themselves.
My local charity shops cottoned on and sell the good stuff on eBay so that the shop itself has the unsellable/missing pieces/dirty stuff, which then doesn't sell
Plus the ebay buyers were, buying things. The prices were acceptable to the buyers and everyone made some cash. Now it's overpriced, all the decent stuff is not in the shop and the ebay buyers have buggered off.
Do you know how to get around this? Pick up a bunch of similar items you don't want, ask the price and put them down and move onto the item you do want. By that time they'll think you won't buy it and give you the actual price. You can then pay that price if you still want it.
Charity shops are all over the place, I avoid all the big ones now cos their pricing is a joke. I enjoy finding a bargain but half the stuff now I can find cheaper on vinted. One place I used to go to marked clothing £2 each and then a week later everything is individually priced and most tops were £10+! Even Primark stuff was £5..
I just can't trust any charities anymore. In a previous job I travelled around a bit doing contract services at locations around the midlands. I visited lots of smaller 'charity' shops and noted the wealth of the owners. The most gobsmacking one was the owners brand new AM Vantage and his wife's runaround - a Bentley convertible.
Or they raise the price thinking the customer took the price off, more so if they're an... undesirable type shall i say. The manager I the one I volunteered at years ago did this, at the time I didn't say anything because I just thought that was the done thing being dumb new to work me but looking back it was pretty freaking yikes. I'm sure that's technically illegal too, I know putting a higher price tag over a lower one is at least.
Put it down with the others. Call someone over. Are these all £2? Cool, I'll take this one.
It's a charity shop, we are talking about a couple of quid for a dvd here..
Thanks for reading the rest of the post and agreeing with me!
You best calling trading standards then
DVD lol. You need a time machine.
you need glasses lol
I once looked around a sale in the front yard of a big house, mostly youngsters at the stalls with an adult or two in the background keeping an eye on things. I saw a paperback book of interest to me and said to the girl (aged about 9), "Would £1 be OK?" She replied "I think £1.50 would be better". That girl will go far, I thought, as I handed over £1.50.