Will came to meet me at the shop on Saturday and we went and hit up the charity shops through the city.
The fact that we ended up with these awesome things is helping with the pain of the charity shops feeling the need to up the prices on things that really obviously fit into the 'vintage' trend. There was a coffee pot and 2 cups with saucers that had the most beautiful pattern and altogether came to £34! A cup and saucer for £6. In a charity shop. That's just plain mean. Then I feel bad "but it's for charity" but after discovering that charity shops only have to give 10% of their takings to the charity I've decided that they're actually just greedy. Charity shops clearly exist so that people with less money can get something new (to them) (and obviously to make money for charity too) it's not so that people with money can donate to charity. *insert crazy person annoyed noise* Rant over.
That sticker book actually has most of the stickers still in it, we were amazed.
I'm sure there are lots of charity shops that give a lot more than 10% to charity and obviously some of their stuff still gets priced nice and cheap hence £4.25 for all this stuff. I still think they're getting a bit greedy though.
I'm going to stop doing disclaimers, adding on the sensible half of a rant just takes extra time before anyone has even said that I'm being stupid and wrong. I just see so many people get told they've said something out of line when they clearly haven't that I'm paranoid about people misunderstanding me. If people want to assume I'm just mean and crazy then I'm sure I'll deal with it.
Ha, this kind of turned into a rant of its own. I obviously need to stop worrying about what the crazies think, hello sensible people, I know you're out there :)
I've found that charity shop pricing really depends on where you are - in Bristol where the shops are staffed by younger people & students they know that the vintage shop down the road is selling a Laura Ashley dress for £30 and that they can sell theirs for £15 and it still be a bargain - and often I think good on them. It's when they're trying to sell me a Primark dress for £10 that I get annoyed.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there's a lot of iffy stuff that goes on with charity funding - like the people who come door to door to sign you up for regular donations getting a commission and not giving you the option of making one-off donations. One of my friends worked for a while cold-calling people on behalf of Oxfam and the company he worked directly for sounded absolutely awful.
It's just the same with anything isn't it, some people are trying to con you and some people are being decent. I don't have a problem with people trying to make an extra bit of money so long as it's done fairly.
DeleteI totally agree. Some of the charity shops are getting so overpriced, it really annoys me. Grrr. And you're right about the crazies- I faced it and it was horrible, someone tracked me down at work. I was terrified! (and I hadn't written anything bad!) Sorry, that wasn't to scare you! I agree 100% though! x
ReplyDeleteOh my god! That must have been awful, some people really are crazy!
DeleteYes i have noticed a lot of charity shops upping their prices too! 10% doesn't sound much at all to me either, that's quite a shock to hear!
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