I can even buy a budget pair of brand new shoes for less!

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31 comments

  1. Because they’re trying to raise as much money as they can for the cause they support

  2. Bc those ones are a designer brand charity shops frequently research donations and will sell designer goods at a higher price

  3. I suspect they’ve seen “Ralph Lauren” and overestimated how much they would have sold for when new. You seem to be able to get them new for about £100.

  4. You’re not getting RL shoes elsewhere for £25, though.

    To be fair, charity shop culture isn’t *all* about grabbing a bargain. The only people I know who use charity shops are financially comfortable (I’m aware many aren’t), but have other reasons driving them towards charity shops. Ranging from finding “unique” items, to supporting the charity in question, to being opposed to the disposability of fast fashion, etc. For example, I have a vegan friend who won’t buy leather items new, but is willing to buy them from charity shops. On the grounds that so-called “vegan leather” is (usually) actually plastic, which is remarkably against the wider spirit of lifestyle veganism.

    By contrast, I grew up poor, and we would have *never* shopped at charity shops. There was a shame to it. I’m over it myself, and have bought items over the years from charity shops.

  5. I remember doing some IT work for a local charity shop & noticing they were selling a basic Sony DVD player for £25. I’d just bought a new one from Tesco, with USB, multi-region, loads of connection options, etc for £20… plus a years’ guarantee of course! Crazy!

  6. There’s a perception that because it’s designer it can command a higher price. I worked in a charity shop for years and saw stuff that was damaged, torn, stained etc being priced very high because it was designer or branded. As I was just a till operative I couldn’t really adjust prices without asking a manager or paid staff member. The shop doesn’t pay for it’s stock but that doesn’t stop them from pricing stuff like they do buy it. Oxfam were always the more expensive charity shop as well.

  7. It’s a difficult one because yes, charity shops should make as much money as they can but they second hand market has shot up. It’s around this time that I start looking for next year’s winter coat as you can usually get some good deals as a second hand branded is usually better than a new cheap one (ref vimes boot theory). But I’ve been looking recently and found nothing or have not been prepared to pay those prices.

  8. It’s crazy man…charity shops are usually more expensive than normal shops…but why?

  10. It’s because these are Ralph Lauren apparently- although they look like George from Asda!

    I find smaller and independent charity shops are much cheaper. The big ones near us have a minimum £1 charge for any of their items, so sometimes it’s cheaper in a shop if it’s a small item.

  11. I’d suggest trying to find smaller/independant charity shops, still loads of bargains to be found.

    My latest finds: 2.2k Celine bag for £50, 2k ish Lanvin coat for £25, 500 APC coat for 50, 200 ish quid Acne Studio jeans for a fiver and loads more. All from independant or smaller chains.

  12. Looked in a charity shop whilst away on holiday hoping to pick up a couple decent tops and a pair of blue jeans. No jeans in my size and the only non-gaudy, non-patterned tops were some old primark ones, selling for £3.50 each. You can buy them new for £3.50!! Why would I bother? I agree that you can often get some brilliant finds in charity shops, but se of them are just ridiculously high priced.

  13. I just got a kalvin clein jumper and a puma t shirt for 13 in mine. yours is a ripoff merchant it seems

  14. If it’s Oxfam I’m guessing Haitian children aren’t as cheap as they used to be?

  15. The designer stuff is expensive but I’d put money on there being a rack of shoes for a few quid

  16. While I understand that charities need to maximise the money raised, I think that many of them do charge too much for the goods they’re selling.

    Before Facebook Marketplace, Vinted, Depop etc really took off, charities got far better donations. But now, anything worth a few quid can easily be sold online with very little hassle, so many people tend only to give things to charity shops if they aren’t good enough to sell. Most clothes in my local CS show obvious signs of being worn – fading, bobbling, stretched, stains, pulls, worn heels, scuffs… I wouldn’t have a problem with buying a top for 4 quid and doing some minor repairs, or wearing it a handful of times before it’s too scruffy to continue… but for less than a tenner I can get a brand new, organic cotton t-shirt from M&S… why would I want to pay nearly the same for a second hand item? I don’t really care if it’s designer. I’d rather have a good condition high street item than a damaged or worn designer one. Those shoes in the OP’S picture may be Ralph Lauren, but they look like well-worn school shoes. Not worth £25.

    I still have a browse occasionally, but I buy far, far less than I used to.

  17. If they are genuine RL shoes, you can pretty much get that they will be more expensive on the likes of Depop.

    Source: I have a used clothing business

  18. Literally saw a pair of *George* (Asda) trousers for £14! Sometimes i dont mind if theres still a tag on and clearly unworn but these weren’t. I doubt they were more than £10 new. See it often with primark stuff aswell, easily charging more than they were ever actually worth and these are poor quality fast fashion pieces that arent going to last either.

  19. Who tf buys someones old sweaty trainers? I’d just buy cheaper but new ones

  20. Because some of the bigger ones have higher ups that give impossible price targets for designer goods.

    But also charity shops are getting overrun with resellers who want to buy something like this for £3 sell.for £30 because they can. So the charity might as well try to get a decent price themselves.

    Another point is they still have bills to pay on those shops, rent, electric, gas, water, waste, other fees. All that’s going up and people still expect the same £1/2 price point. So the odd high price sale will make a difference.

  21. I used to live above a charity shop. They constantly filled their large bin with recently donated things. I’d guess they think they can sell these for the price listed or they wouldn’t bother.

  24. No clue. It happens with other things too. I wanted to volunteer somewhere and it was significantly more expensive to travel as a volunteer, than it is to travel as a tourist 🙁

  25. Charity shops are forgetting one of their roles; to provide affordable clothing to those who can’t afford it.

  26. Most likely someone saw the brand, Googled it to see what similar shoes are selling for on eBay, then decided £25 would be worth a shot. [Here](https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/POLO-RALPH-LAUREN-Mens-Shoes-SAYER-CANVAS-Black-Size-UK-9-EU-43-/284720388925?hash=item424aa85b3d%3Ag%3ASesAAOSwHzRiC6CP&nma=true&si=%252Bz84zO3ekwri%252F%252Bagg%252FMc1VBtKTY%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557) is another grubby looking pair of RL shoes on eBay that sold for £20 last week.

    I volunteer in an Oxfam store too, and a lot of volunteers seem to rely on brand names too much. Even if they are a good brand, asking someone to pay £25 for shoes that aren’t very stylish, are noticeably worn out, and don’t have any packaging, is too much. That being said, a used pair of RL shoes are going to be worth more than a new pair of cheap shoes (and they’ll probably last longer too).

    Personally I don’t think I would have gone above £15 on those, and I wouldn’t have put them out in the shop either. Nobody is going to walk into a charity shop and pay £15 (or especially £25) for a used pair of shoes on a whim. You’d want to sell them online, where someone specifically looking for RL shoes can find them. We routinely sell used shoes for £20 – £50 on our online store. There are even pairs listed for £100+ on [there](https://onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/category/womens-footwear?N=2590360736&Ns=sku.activePrice|1&Nr=AND(product.active:1,NOT(sku.listPrice:0.000000))&No=0&Nf=sku.activePrice|BTWN+4+126&Nrpp=30)!

  27. That seems expensive. My wedding dress was £20 in my local charity shop but when I paid for it, she only charged me £10. I asked why and she said that it was included in the 50% off items. It was literally perfect, apart from one of the bones in the corset part had come through the stitching – took me 2 minutes to sew it back in!

  28. Re-sellers.

    I found an item that didn’t have a price tag so I asked and the first lady said “I think £2 but I’ll got check” manager/supervisor came out and showed me the same item on ebay for £15 and said “some of these can go for this much on ebay but I can do £5”

  29. Ex-charity shop manager here

    It’s because Area Managers come around and harass about targets to be met, and insist that putting up prices is the obvious solution. They value the store by sq meter and the stock within it has to fulfil that value, despite the actual value of the items.

  30. i used to work in a charity shop and no joke, the area manager insisted that they were more “high end” than other charity shops. She had a book of prices we had to follow to the letter-based on brand names. if any clothes looked less than new they were “recycled”. By “recycled” I mean HUGE bags of clothes almost in perfect condition were sold to a recycling centre for £2 a bag.

  31. I shop at charity shops only because I’m broke. All the time.

    It’s not necessarily because I care about the cause.

    I think y’all have a romanticised view of charity shop customers.

    I’m not ashamed of shopping there, either.

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