Why Are Charity Shops Refusing Donations?

Britain’s charity shops are refusing donations.

I know this for a fact as I’ve been trying to donate my excess antiques and vintage stock for a couple of weeks now … and none of them are accepting donations because apparently, they’re full!

Let that sink in!

At a time when people can barely make ends meet, when headlines scream of austerity and inflation, the very institutions built on generosity… are bursting at the seams and can’t accept donations!

This can’t just be a story about clutter? It has to be a story about a nation under strain. When charity shops say “no more”, it tells us something uncomfortable:

Overflowing supply ... stagnant demand.

The public is discarding more than these shops can absorb and the buyers out there cannot keep up with the supply … or maybe not? That is the paradox. Is this the mirror of our 21st century economic reality. Charity shops once stood as community cornerstones. They thrived on modest donations, steady footfall, the quiet satisfaction you get for donating an unwanted jumper, child’s toy or book. But today, charity shops storerooms look like warehouses after a clearance sale.

Why?

In my opinion, because the cost-of-living crisis has created a paradox. You’ve only got to attend a car boot sale or flea market. People are offloading possessions at unprecedented levels:

Downsizing, decluttering, liquidating, generating space and sometimes to generate cash to simply pay the bills.

But at the same time, the ‘demographic of demand’ appears to have shifted. In my experience selling at car boots and flea markets, stock I’m literally giving away for a pound or two is getting offers of fifty pence or less! Something’s not right at the most fundamental level. With charity shops raising their prices on a regular basis, are buyers no longer flooding through their doors … because in the context of stagnating wages, the cost-of-living crisis and unemployment, even second-hand feels expensive?

Is this why charity shops are overflowing with stock they can’t shift quickly enough?

And as an aside, if charity shops are overflowing, what does that say about the rest of the retail landscape?

Look closer, and you see three forces converging.

First up: Excess Supply.

The global lockdown taught households to clear out. Platforms like Vinted and eBay normalised selling everything. I’ll hold my hand up and admit that in 2020 through to 2022, I’d never sold so much stock online. It was an incredible time for sales. I knew it was unsustainable and so luckily for me, I put away most of the excess profit I earned to sustain my business in leaner years. Probably the best business decision I’ve ever made!

But that’s getting away from the point of the video, so let’s get back to the subject matter in hand!

What I’m saying is, that thanks to 2020/21 & 2022 and the rise of alternative reselling platforms, what used to end up in charity shops now competes online with resellers—while the excess that can’t even be sold at car boots or on-line still piles in to the charity shops. So, is the problem that they are they just getting the rubbish we can’t sell at the car boots or on-line and they simply can’t handle the volume of rubbish being donated? In my specific case, the stock I’m trying to donate is far from rubbish. The only reason I’m donating it is because it doesn’t meet my price criteria for the antyiquescentral.co.uk website, so I thought I’d generate some karma by donating it. Little did I know how difficult it would turn out to be, in fact, nigh on impossible!

Second on our list: Shifting Demand.

Charity shops once served a specific local community service and sustained low-income families seeking bargains. But when heating bills consume entire pay packets, even £3 for a second-hand shirt feels unaffordable. So, charity shops pricing stock at on-line platform rates isn’t going to meet the needs of their core customers … those families and individuals in genuine need. So, is this now being reflected in excess stock piling up in charity shops? Quite possibly!

Third on our list: Retail Saturation.

Every town now seems to have multiple charity shops—Oxfam, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research and a multitude of local hospice stores and animal charities. Their success depends on sales volume. But does too much volume choke the system? Before we address that question, let’s not ignore one uncomfortable possibility.

Are charity shops listing their best stock on-line and filling their stores with the less desirable leftovers?

Is that why their stock sits in their stores for so long, choking the pipeline and making it difficult for them to accept ongoing donations?

But what is the reality?

In my opinion, charity shops are not rejecting generosity. They are overwhelmed by the symptoms of a nation in economic distress … plus the rise of alternative purchasing platforms where costs are low and some say the pricing race to the bottom is alive and well! In that respect alone, in the face of this competition, how can charity shops with high street overheads compete?

So, let’s not mistake full storerooms for success. Charity shops, like any retailer, measure success in terms of turnover—in other words, what leaves the shelf, not what fills the backroom. Overflow to any retailer is failure, charity shops included. For whatever reason you come up with, it means circulation has stalled and they’re receiving more donations than they’re selling. It means competition is biting deeper … and this can be seen in the popularity of car boots and the growing number of on-line platforms.

When charity shops can’t sell what they already have, every extra bag of donations is a burden … it’s another problem for them to deal with when they have limited space and staff and yes, there is another factor, there’s always another factor!

Many donations are simply not saleable.

Fast fashion for example, has flooded the market with low-quality clothing. Flat-pack furniture crumbles under use. Cheap, disposable plastic toys often arrive broken or missing parts. In this respect, charity shops become unofficial recycling centres for rubbish, initially absorbing the costs of disposal from local councils and government … and have you ever asked yourself this question;

What happens to the stock the charity shops can’t sell, where does it go? Does it ultimately end up in the landfill?

If you know the answer to that question, let me know in the comments below. I’d be interested to learn more.

So we should ask ourselves, when charity shops become the landfills of first resort, what does that say about our consumption patterns and the throwaway society we live in?

There is a brutal irony here.

In theory, this should be the golden age of second-hand retail.

Why?

Well, sustainability is fashionable. Recycling is a moral imperative. Trendy activists preach “reduce, reuse, recycle.”

Yet in practice, charity shops are drowning in excess. The mismatch between rhetoric and reality is stark and reflects a wider truth:

The world’s economy is hollowed out.

Those of us who can afford to, buy imported cheap goods, discard them quickly and to keep our over consumption consciences clear, rely on charity shops to mop up the aftermath … and in my experience, the shops just can’t cope … and the irony is;

their very refusal of donations is an indictment of how disposable our culture has become. We truly are living in a throw away culture … it just depends on how we throw it away! So, if the cheapest, greenest, most community-driven retail model cannot survive under current conditions, what does that reveal about the system as a whole?

Well, I suggest the implications are far-reaching, for the following reasons:

1. Charities will lose revenue. Fewer items sold means less money for hospices, cancer research, international aid.

2. Communities who don’t have access to the internet lose access to readily available 2nd hand goods. For some, charity shops are the last affordable clothing outlet. Empty tills today mean closed doors tomorrow and how many ‘closed’ charity shops do you now see on the high street?

3. Dealers and traders lose a source of supply. In addition to those low-income families who rely on charity shops, antiques dealers, second-hand sellers—in fact everyone who relies on charity shops as part of their retail ecosystem, find themselves watching the source of supply disappearing in front of their eyes!

This is not just a local inconvenience. It is a national indicator. To put it dramatically, the economy is speaking to us through the silence of those locked donation bins and stacked shelves. So charity shops turning away donations is not a side effect. It’s the retail embodiment of the ‘canary in the coal mine’, always waiting to take its last gasp of air!

So next time you hear; “Sorry, we’re not accepting donations right now”, don’t just shrug.

Recognise it as a signal.

A signal that the world’s cost-of-living crisis is reshaping the very institutions built on thrift and generosity.

A signal that supply and demand are no longer in balance.

A signal that the eternal battle between poverty versus excessive consumption is not just tightening its grip—it’s transforming the face of our communities and widening the every increasing gap between the haves and the have nots.

A signal the nation is running empty.

Charity shops are full and I’ve explained why I think it’s happening.

So, the question is not, “where will my excess or unwanted possessions go?”

The question you should be asking yourself is, “What does this overflow of unwanted stock tell us about the state of the western world itself?”

My name’s Mark.

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