I noticed a shop near me recently had a basket full of secondhand Star Wars action figures (from about 20 years ago). My son loves Star Wars so I thought I might get them. They had a price tag of £5, which I thought reasonable until I realised they were £5 EACH!!!.
This is the ebay effect. The toys are actually quite collectable and will go for this much and more on ebay depending on condition. So in a way they were charging the right amount - but its obvious they went and checked online and worked out their market vaule.
They sold anyway.
I second this.. the Oxfam I worked in ran checks on eBay for unusual/unamiliar items.. and obviously it's a totally different market, and they shouldn't have been charging those amounts.
I think the volunteers assume that as they don't get paid then getting first chance of the donated stuff for free is their perk. And they may also know that if the stuff is sold to the public most of the donated money is frittered away by those at the top.
I sometimes donate stuff to my local church who have a sale every two weeks to raise church funds.
I was in one the other day and they had 45's for £3.50 each that you can get on ebay for 99p and even less and although there is postage on ebay if you buy a few records the postage is OK and still a better deal than the charity shops.
I've seen fleeces for £7.99 that you can buy new for less.
Have had one or two goodies as well though to be fair,you do occasionally get lucky, but they were from small local charity shops.
Most major charity shops now in the High St are just money making machines for a few lucky people. Hopefully there are still a few smaller ones who are more honest.
It's a great idea gone wrong. I'll bet the prices continue to rise in these shops.
I often enjoy having a mooch round these shops to see if I can pick up a bargain. It makes me feel good as I find something I want and I'm giving to a good cause, so it's win/win.
However, in the past few months I've noticed that the prices have rocketed and where I could've got trousers or a top and had change from a £5, you're lucky now to get change from a tenner.
I'm not mean and I've always given most of my old clothes to charity shops. Something isn't right when I see that tops from George/Primark are more expensive in charity shops than they are to buy new.
I think some shops are getting too greedy, especially as they get the clothes for free. Surely it's better to sell a lot of stock at a reasonable price than make the prices too high so people go elsewhere (internet, car boots) to buy them.
What does anyone else think? I don't think I'm particularly mean, but by pricing themselves out of the market, I think charity shops will lose out on a lot of revenue.
Yes they are very over priced i once done a test about 8 months ago i brought a couple of items from poundland, (for a pound before you ask ) and then took them to a local charity shop a couple of days later,
Then the next day i went past the charity shop and both items was nearly double what i paid for them, i thought bloody cheek of it haha.
oxfam is an utter con fullstop. only 1p of every £1 donated actually reaches the causes...
Wrong , wrong , wrong.
Last year Oxfam collected £233million and paid out £220millon. So actually 89% of donations are used for the causes. This information is from the Charity Commission website.
So please get you facts right before you spout this garbage.
Gone are the days of handing over your clothes then buying them back for 50p once they have been dry cleaned.
Did people really do that :eek:
I love a good rummage through a charity shop - and i bought a gorgeous pair of untouched leather gloves last year. They were so soft, and obviously cost a lot new.
I got them for £4, and they lasted me all last year. A fab buy.
Last year Oxfam collected £233million and paid out £220millon. So actually 89% of donations are used for the causes. This information is from the Charity Commission website.
So please get you facts right before you spout this garbage.
I noticed a shop near me recently had a basket full of secondhand Star Wars action figures (from about 20 years ago). My son loves Star Wars so I thought I might get them. They had a price tag of £5, which I thought reasonable until I realised they were £5 EACH!!!.
This is the ebay effect. The toys are actually quite collectable and will go for this much and more on ebay depending on condition. So in a way they were charging the right amount - but its obvious they went and checked online and worked out their market vaule.
They sold anyway.
That is totally outrageous. I can't believe this charity had the nerve to go online and find out the market value for some collectables that had been donated to them and priced them at the same price as EBAY!!!! Plus some suckers actually bought them and raised money for the charity. What a cheek.
What is the world coming to when people can no longer buy sought after collectables for next to nothing from charity shops and then make lots of money for themselves flogging them on eBay?
Last year Oxfam collected £233million and paid out £220millon. So actually 89% of donations are used for the causes. This information is from the Charity Commission website.
So please get you facts right before you spout this garbage.
Okay, back to the unsubstantiated 1p in the £1 going to good causes claim, I felt that seemed slightly unrealistic so I emailed Oxfam to ask them to clarify this. I received this reply back seven minutes later which is pretty impressive.
Thank you very much for your e-mail to Oxfam and requesting information on our administration costs.
We guarantee that 79 pence out of every pound donated goes directly to our emergency, development and humanitarian work, as well as our campaigning work. A further 10 pence is invested to generate future income and typically for every £1 that we invest in fundraising we receive £4 in return. We spend only 11 pence in every pound on support and governance. All our spending is regulated by the Charities Commission who regulate all of Britain's charities. For more information about our finances please follow this link to our Annual Report and Accounts: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/accounts/index.html
If you have any other queries at all, please do get in touch with us again. We will be very happy to help.
I was under the impression that it is only the manager that actually received a salary (in Oxfam anyway). The rest of the staff are made up from a couple of volunteers and mainly those who are doing community service. Could be wrong though.
I wouldn't buy any clothes from charity shops from what I've seen, but the books are fabulous, at only a £1 too!
A bit like when you write to a car repairers federation about a garage and they say all our members work to strict guidelines and rules concerning repairs and prices.
My girlfriend worked in our local samaritans charity shop for 3 months, we both got to know the manager quite well over that time, i know she got paid very well (don't know exact wage) she was privately renting a 3 bed house all to her self and it was well furnished, but it all went horribly wrong for her when another volunteer started putting the odd item that was donated on ebay and then putting all the proceeds back into the samaritans account, them at the top knew about this and thought they was onto a good thing so within 2 months the shop closed down the manager lost her job and then they continued to just sell goods on ebay as far as i know they still selling on there to this day....so they saving a lot on overheads now
Before we roll our eyes, can you do me a favour? Can you go through that letter and tell me the bits in that are PR (by that I am assuming you mean spin or not entirely factual) and tell me the bits that are facts?
We all hope that everything in that letter is true. :rolleyes:
Those rolling eyes can become terribly addictive can't they?
Anyway, as you obviously have proof that Oxfam are lying in their claims made in the letter and in their Annual Report, because why else wouldn't you believe them, I think it is your duty to report them to the Charities Commission as they are breaking the law.
I think the volunteers assume that as they don't get paid then getting first chance of the donated stuff for free is their perk.
Well in the Oxfam bookshop I worked at there were no perks for volunteers whatsoever. The only perk came from working there and putting stuff out on the shelf. If you saw something you liked then you had to buy it like any other customer, and even then the price, date and purchaser had to be entered into a book first.
But that's not the end of it. Oh no. If you wanted a book that was going to be pulped as it was of a sub-standard condition they still made you pay for it anyway!! :rolleyes:
Charity shops are erratic in their pricing. There are still some bargains out there - but there is a lot of tat that should have gone to the tip.
Here the furniture in a charity shop is getting ridiculous, the prices asked for scratched, rubbishy stuff that I would burn means this old depressing stuff stays in the shop for ages. Saggy, dirty, clawed sofas are on sale for silly prices yet a lovely leather /walnut swivel chair went for £35 ! A fake leather office chair was up for £48 - dearer than the new price!
I don't know where they get their pricing ideas from.
Comments
I second this.. the Oxfam I worked in ran checks on eBay for unusual/unamiliar items.. and obviously it's a totally different market, and they shouldn't have been charging those amounts.
Having said that a friend of my mums works in one and apparently the people who work there take all the best stuff before it even goes on sale.
1st to raise funds for good causes but
2nd to provide goods for people who couldn't afford to buy otherwise (charity at home)
Now it appears they are just there to pay inflated salarys to people who don't need it.
I sometimes donate stuff to my local church who have a sale every two weeks to raise church funds.
I was in one the other day and they had 45's for £3.50 each that you can get on ebay for 99p and even less and although there is postage on ebay if you buy a few records the postage is OK and still a better deal than the charity shops.
I've seen fleeces for £7.99 that you can buy new for less.
Have had one or two goodies as well though to be fair,you do occasionally get lucky, but they were from small local charity shops.
Most major charity shops now in the High St are just money making machines for a few lucky people. Hopefully there are still a few smaller ones who are more honest.
It's a great idea gone wrong. I'll bet the prices continue to rise in these shops.
Yes they are very over priced i once done a test about 8 months ago i brought a couple of items from poundland, (for a pound before you ask ) and then took them to a local charity shop a couple of days later,
Then the next day i went past the charity shop and both items was nearly double what i paid for them, i thought bloody cheek of it haha.
Last year Oxfam collected £233million and paid out £220millon. So actually 89% of donations are used for the causes. This information is from the Charity Commission website.
So please get you facts right before you spout this garbage.
Did people really do that :eek:
I love a good rummage through a charity shop - and i bought a gorgeous pair of untouched leather gloves last year. They were so soft, and obviously cost a lot new.
I got them for £4, and they lasted me all last year. A fab buy.
I think occasionally you can get a good bargain.
Do you have a source to back up that statement?
Where did you get 89% from?
220/233 is 94%.
That is totally outrageous. I can't believe this charity had the nerve to go online and find out the market value for some collectables that had been donated to them and priced them at the same price as EBAY!!!! Plus some suckers actually bought them and raised money for the charity. What a cheek.
What is the world coming to when people can no longer buy sought after collectables for next to nothing from charity shops and then make lots of money for themselves flogging them on eBay?
Okay, back to the unsubstantiated 1p in the £1 going to good causes claim, I felt that seemed slightly unrealistic so I emailed Oxfam to ask them to clarify this. I received this reply back seven minutes later which is pretty impressive.
Thank you very much for your e-mail to Oxfam and requesting information on our administration costs.
We guarantee that 79 pence out of every pound donated goes directly to our emergency, development and humanitarian work, as well as our campaigning work. A further 10 pence is invested to generate future income and typically for every £1 that we invest in fundraising we receive £4 in return. We spend only 11 pence in every pound on support and governance. All our spending is regulated by the Charities Commission who regulate all of Britain's charities. For more information about our finances please follow this link to our Annual Report and Accounts:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/accounts/index.html
If you have any other queries at all, please do get in touch with us again. We will be very happy to help.
With best wishes
Amy Orgee
Supporter Relations
Oxfam GB
:rolleyes:
I wouldn't buy any clothes from charity shops from what I've seen, but the books are fabulous, at only a £1 too!
OK if you say so.
Before we roll our eyes, can you do me a favour? Can you go through that letter and tell me the bits in that are PR (by that I am assuming you mean spin or not entirely factual) and tell me the bits that are facts?
We all hope that everyone who works for a charity is honourable.
We all hope that almost all of the money goes to the charity concerned.
That's why we donate.
Those rolling eyes can become terribly addictive can't they?
Anyway, as you obviously have proof that Oxfam are lying in their claims made in the letter and in their Annual Report, because why else wouldn't you believe them, I think it is your duty to report them to the Charities Commission as they are breaking the law.
Well in the Oxfam bookshop I worked at there were no perks for volunteers whatsoever. The only perk came from working there and putting stuff out on the shelf. If you saw something you liked then you had to buy it like any other customer, and even then the price, date and purchaser had to be entered into a book first.
But that's not the end of it. Oh no. If you wanted a book that was going to be pulped as it was of a sub-standard condition they still made you pay for it anyway!! :rolleyes:
Mabye I should go in undercover with a secret camera in my knickers ?
Eleanor McIntyre.
Here the furniture in a charity shop is getting ridiculous, the prices asked for scratched, rubbishy stuff that I would burn means this old depressing stuff stays in the shop for ages. Saggy, dirty, clawed sofas are on sale for silly prices yet a lovely leather /walnut swivel chair went for £35 ! A fake leather office chair was up for £48 - dearer than the new price!
I don't know where they get their pricing ideas from.