The charity shop has long been Britain’s happy accident of retail: donated goods, volunteer staff, bargain rails, and a good cause pocketing the proceeds. In plain terms, that deal has been quietly repriced. Shoppers and resellers alike have watched second-hand stores nudge their prices upward as thrifting turned from quirky habit into mainstream hunt, and one professional bargain hunter has now walked out the door over it.
Jordan Lee, a second-hand reseller who documents his finds on social media as @thecarbootguy, told his Instagram followers he rarely bothers with charity shops anymore. “I honestly don’t go into charity shops as much anymore” he wrote, pointing the finger at the big, well-known chains and, above all, their prices. The point of the browse, he argued, has slipped away. “Whether you’re popping in to try and resell items online or just hoping to find yourself a bargain, it sometimes feels like the whole point has been lost.”
His sharpest example was the shelf itself. “I’ve even seen things in charity shops priced higher than they would be brand new in the actual high street store!” he said. And he is not anti-charity, he insists, just anti-math on the sticker: “I completely understand charities need to raise funds, but surely out pricing your customers isn’t the way?” His practical alternative is the resale app: on platforms such as Vinted, he says, the same brands turn up in good condition across a range of sizes, often for less than a charity shop charges.
The comment section disagrees
His followers did not line up behind him. “I think you’re missing the point of charity shops tbh mate,” one replied, arguing that the shops have simply wised up to resellers and learned what their stock is worth, so more money reaches the charity and people who genuinely need a cheap jacket have a better shot at it. Another shopper said getting angry at a charity shop price is a category error: if it is not in your budget, you simply do not buy it. A third put a number on the new normal: “£24 for an H&M jacket is robbery, although I would pay, seeing that the money goes to an Hospice.”
The split, at bottom, is about who the shop is for. One side sees a resale economy that professionalized the rails and got priced out when the shops noticed; the other sees donors’ goods finally earning real money for the causes they were given to. Jordan, for his part, has made his vote with his feet: as he put it, he used to buy a lot from charity shops, and now he does not really get anything from them.
Sources
- ‘I loved charity shops but no longer go thrifting due to 1 sad change' | Wales Online
- 'I'm a thrifting fanatic but I've stopped shopping in charity shops for 1 reason' – The Mirror
