Young fashion fans help UK charity shops thrive on struggling UK high streets

Young people inspired by secondhand fashion websites such as Vinted and Depop are helping charity shops thrive despite rising energy and employment costs.

Save the Children’s retail sales rose 3% last year, helped by a surge in December when the charity rang up 11% more than the same month a year before, raising more than £1m for its causes.

Ian Matthews, the charity’s director of retail and communities, said it saw a “big spike”, with sales continuing to be pretty strong in January.

It did better than the charity industry’s average of 1.4% last year, according to the Charity Retail Association (CRA), which was itself ahead of the wider retail industry’s 1.1% increase in non-food sales last year, according to the British Retail Consortium.

Allison Swaine-Hughes, the chief commercial officer at British Heart Foundation, one of the UK’s biggest charity retailers, said: “Platforms like eBay, Vinted and Depop have helped grow interest in secondhand shopping, which is positive for the whole reuse sector. As the biggest eBay charity seller and a top‑rated Depop seller, we know there’s strong demand for quality preloved items.

“Transactions across our physical shops are up on the previous year, demonstrating that demand across our wider estate remains strong.”

But despite the sales rise, charities said making a profit was tough.

Robin Osterley, the chief executive of the CRA, said increases in national insurance for employers and the minimum wage had “put a big squeeze on profitability” for some charities.

The price of rag – or clothing which it is not possible to sell for reuse in the UK – has also sunk in recent years, hitting income for charities, which sell this fabric on to specialist traders.

The total number of UK charity shops fell by almost 80 to 4,304 last year amid inflation in rent, utilities and pay, as well as the rise of fast fashion, which has diminished the quality of donations. Some large charities closed stores last year, including Scope, which is cutting 77 of its 138 stores by the end of next month.

However, Osterley said “the story was one of change and consolidation rather than disaster”.

He said the total amount of space occupied by charities on high streets rose almost 6%, as many are turning to larger stores where they can offer more choice. Online sales also surged as charities broadened their audience. They are also finding new ways to clear less sought-after items, including specialist clearance sites or discount rails with goods priced at £1 or less.

Matthews said costs were a challenge for the whole sector but Save the Children was offsetting them with higher sales.

The charity’s performance has also been boosted by a burgeoning army of volunteers – particularly young people. Last year, 42% of new Save the Children shop volunteers were aged between 18 and 24, compared with 28% in 2021, taking the average age of volunteers down by 14 years, to 28, in the past five years.

The influx of volunteers meant the charity was able to sort through more stock and tailor its offers to suit different locations, highlighting vintage items in urban stores near universities, for example.

“We are seeing an increase in younger people interacting with our shops, whether that is shopping or volunteering,” he said.

He said sites such as Vinted and Depop did bring a bit more competition on sales and for high-quality donations, as some people were choosing to sell online rather than giving items to charity, but he said: “the public is generous with their time and the volume of donations”.

“The market is so much bigger and it is making us really step up our game,” he said. “Younger people want to buy more sustainably and people are more conscientious about how they spend their money.”