Charity shops – They vary so. I saw an adult colouring book, a little on the small side around 6″ x 4″, in one charity shop today. It was priced at £2.99. For £5 you can get one in W H Smith’s that’s four times the size and with more pages. Even paperbacks can vary from £1 to £2.99 in charity shops and anything “old” (and that can mean anything not exactly new) usually gets an unrealistic price applied. It’s as though in-store managers are all of a sudden knowledgeable of the second hand market in all areas of trade. In fact they just apply a stupid price and usually it doesn’t sell. I noticed the pricing policy in all charity shops before Christmas last year where everything went up in price. The people who shop there are often on low income. You can tell that from the way they dress. But these are often the very people the shops are aiming to help – as they fleece them at Christmas.

 

I go into charity shops because they are like car boot sales – you never know what interesting nugget you may find amongst the crap. If I follow my wife around and go to M&S or any home wares store I know exactly what will be in there. Tedium – unless I need new pants and even purchasing them is pretty tedious.  The Oxfam idea of separate LP, music book, sheet music etc shops are a case in point. Everything is overpriced because they believe it is all “collectable”. When they sell stamps the prices are often far greater than dealers sell for on eBay. I like these shops but usually exit depressed and without a purchase.

 

And the main issue for many shoppers is that there are too many charity shops. Traders complain charity shops get business rate and rent deals from the local authority which the traders don’t have access to while sometimes selling own brand merchandise alongside the donations.

 

They are more interesting than following a partner from one clothes shop to the next knowing she’ll eventually return to the first shop she visited and buy the first thing she liked in there. Shopping together lately is spent shopping apart.