Changing the charity shop model
10/21/2021
The Charity Retail Association calculated that during lockdowns, when charity shops were closed, £28m per month was being lost. Stop-start lockdown restrictions hit charity trading hard. Some organisations lost staff and volunteers and unpredictable and reduced footfall meant there was no option but to close shops. At the same time, consumer behaviour is changing and charity shops can be seen to be at the forefront of more ethical and environmentally aware shopping habits.
It is common for charity shops to have multiple routes to donations and sales in their portfolios – such as collection or postal schemes and online shops or eBay pages. This multi-channel delivery is key to reaching a broad audience and offering flexible ways to support.
We spoke to two charity retail teams to hear about innovative pricing models they are testing out.
Severn Hospice
Severn Hospice in Shropshire and mid-Wales has 29 shops. The team were recently up against some of the biggest charities and won the top Charity Retail award. They were recognised for how they responded to the pandemic, involving staff and volunteers as well as implementing a new till system which makes it easier to sign up donors to gift aid.
When shops reopened after lockdown in June 2020, across the country there was a huge spike in donations. Government restrictions meant that bags had to be quarantined for 72 hours before they could be processed. This presented a huge practical challenge for the Severn Hospice team as well as an emotional one - changing the buzz they usually get from hunting for treasure and pride of speed between donation and sale. As with everyone else, they adapted and found solutions to the logistical problem, using their furniture store as a warehouse.
We spoke to Emily Jones, Severn Hospice’s retail strategy support manager, about how the team responded and what they did next. "The beauty of being a smaller charity is that we can be creative and responsive. The managers of each shop are empowered to run their shops themselves. They can do a sale if they want or try a high-value item on the shop floor before sending it to our eBay store or do a fundraiser. It's up to them.
When we first reopened in June 2020 we knew there would be a high number of donations but we didn't understand how huge it was going to be! Within just one day all our shops were completely swamped with bags stacked up to the ceiling! It was a fantastic problem to have. The shops closing had made a huge dent in the hospice's income so we needed to act quickly.
Now, over a year later we still have a backlog of donations. We decided to try something different to sell them and developed a series of pop-up events in four different locations. We are trialling two different price models - everything £2 and a kilo-sale, where we sell by weight. This is a common thing in the vintage sales market but rarely done by charity shops.
Ours is different as we quality control everything. Clothes hang on rails and we try to make it feel like a Severn Hospice shop. We have chosen locations with large footfalls. The first event was in a community centre in Telford and the second in a church in the centre of Shrewsbury. We were in and out in a day, the team were brilliantly organised and efficient. There was a real buzz. It was non-stop!
We'll see at the end of the trial whether this is something we do long-term and which pricing model worked best. The feedback we got was great. The church pop-up in town helped us to reach a new type of customer who wouldn't have come into our shops. The community centre event was a fun day but we also reached people who might not be able to regularly shop in town.
Charity retail is a really exciting and reactive place to work. Success is dependent on volunteers and donors and shoppers. It is affected by the weather, the season and people's loyalty to our brand - our area has lots of charity shops. Our eBay sales are growing and we hope the pop-ups will grow too. People's spending habits are changing and we are keen to do all we can to make it easy for people to choose second-hand fashion as a fun and environmentally-aware choice.
The Good Karma Store
Go Dharmic is an international charity bringing people together to spread love and compassion through social action campaigns. It has projects in the UK and overseas. They have two charity shops. Their Billericay pop-up home store selling pre-loved furniture, home décor, fashion, and collectables made by women in rural India, aims to challenge people to think of the environment and make conscious choices.
In this Good Karma Store, shoppers find an item they love, decide what they would pay for it and make an offer. If the offer is seen to be reasonable by the volunteers running the store, the item will go home with the shopper. The initiative aims to be an example of social business for the community where every purchase has a story and a social connection to a cause.
Hanuman Dass, Founder and Chairman of Go Dharmic said: “The Good Karma Store came about as a challenge to existing frameworks of fast fashion and consumerism which cause so much damage to our environment. Cherishing quality items, sharing, re-using and re-loving are values that need to be promoted and celebrated.
The model works very well. Our previous pop-up on Hampstead High Street was a tremendous success and we are aiming to build a strong online presence. The major challenges for us are finding volunteers as well as getting the word out and marketing the idea.
In store, the volunteers look at comparative item pricing online before deciding on a fair value. But we will always try to ensure that if someone loves an item, we want them to have it and are open to offers."
See also
- Shelter’s pack and post donation service
- Did you know Zurich can provide insurance for UK charities and not-for-profit organisations? Visit our website to find out more
