It’s all for charidee
The charity trade paper Third Sector has just reported that the number of charity shops in the UK has shot up by almost a third since 2008 to just over nine thousand according to figures from a retail information company. Leading the field is Age UK with 876 shops (the number boosted, no doubt, by the fact that it includes outlets which respectively belonged to Age Concern and Help the Aged before they merged in 2009). Close behind is Oxfam, with about 700. Neck and neck for third place are the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK with about 500 apiece.
We have Oxfam to thank for charity shops as we now know them. Although the Salvation Army was selling cheap second-hand clothes to the urban poor in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was Oxfam who pioneered the idea of fundraising through selling donated goods from a shop, opening their first branch in Oxford’s Broad Street in 1947. It’s still going strong. Oxfam has also led the way in subsequent developments like specialist shops dealing with books, furniture and music, though most of its competitors seem to prefer a mixed bag of merchandise. The biggest line by far is women’s clothes, followed by books. The latter are important in attracting the elusive male shopper which makes for a more varied clientele than most other retail outlets in these days of niche marketing.
Why the sudden boom in numbers, though? Is it because we’re more frugal dressers and readers since the global downturn? Or perhaps it’s greenness rather than meanness that is making us recycle our own stuff through charity shops, and give other people’s cast-offs a new lease of life? There’s also what’s going on in town centres of course. I suspect that many new charity shops are opening simply to fill all those premises standing empty on the high street. Their previous occupants have fled out of town, where shopper parking is not seen as the quasi-criminal offence it has become in most town centres. But I also think that charity shops themselves offer something that mainstream retailers lack. Basically they are a lot more fun. The volunteers behind the counter in my local hospice shop are always ready for a chat, and appear to be enjoying themselves (even when having a good moan!). The merchandise is like an aladdin’s cave of the vagaries of taste — sometimes good, and sometimes wonderfully bad. It’s amazing what people have had in their houses. Shopping there is like being licensed to look through other people’s wardrobes, book shelves, record collections and kitchen drawers. It’s a bit like being a very virtuous burglar (with the exception that burglars get even better discount).
A notable trend amongst the larger charities (who run something like three out of four charity shops) is their increasing attention to professional retailing design, layout and efficiency. That’s a welcome development if it means that donations can be turned into money more effectively (for example by getting donors to fill out Gift Aid forms so that the sale value of their gifts is enhanced. UK law treats such donations as if they were cash, which also explains why VAT does not apply to sales of donated goods). But it would be a shame if charity shops became obsessed with mainstream retailing practice. Some of the more sophisticated fundraising operations have attracted disgruntled comment from their commercial neighbours who don’t benefit from an 80% reduction in business rates as do charities and can’t persuade shopworkers to work for nothing (well, not yet). Actually, most major charities employ paid staff as shop and area managers, and many have moved into fresh areas of merchandise such as new rather than donated goods. But what makes them special, whether the big hitters like Age UK, or the local minnows like my hospice, is their mission to support good causes (not only financially but also through disseminating information and publicity). This is something that commercial retailers are beginning to learn from (even as some of them complain about the favoured status of charity shops). Increasingly they too are beginning to compete on values alongside value for money.
If you want to know more about retailing check out the popular new Open University Business School module An introduction to retail management and marketing. Or if you are more focused on fundraising through shops and other methods, have a look at Winning resources and support, a perenially popular choice with people working with good causes.
January 5th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Terry, I agree with your analysis of the reasons for the growth of charity shops in the high street. Where I live, the shopping malls by the biggest car park and the bus station have the chain stores and the outdoor high street has five or six charity shops near the bus stop. The shopping malls are boring; you know what you’re going to find in there, but you never know what you’ll find in a charity shop, so you go in just for a browse.
I didn’t know clientele were more often women than men, – is there data on this? And is there any academic research that confirms your impression and mine that charity shops are fun?
February 2nd, 2012 at 8:13 pm
Breaking news, 2012 is the year of ‘The Community’ for ASDA…watch out little charity shops, the big boys are getting involved in charidee!