Charity begins at home

Most people on a strict budget have discovered the charity shops as a source of cheap clothing, household items and books. Whether looking for jeans with lots of wear still in them to replace jeans with no wear left, household goods for a rented flat, or books for pleasure or study, these shops often become the first port of call.

However, I have found that there is still one fairly easy way to make a small amount of money to help stretch a tight budget. It involves visits to the charity shops but if you tend to drop into them on a regular basis this is not an arduous task. The areas that still offer up real bargains if you know what you are looking for are those of women’s clothes and accessories. I have found that a flick through the rails, shelves and baskets on the day or days when items are put out into the shop, can provide the sort of goods which can be sold for a profit. I aim to make an average of £50 a month. Not a lot of money, but then, I don’t have to do a lot to get it. I love going into the charity shops, and I am interested in fashion generally, and good clothes labels and fine workmanship in particular.

My approach involves finding any local second-hand clothes shops and then visiting the charity shops in order to source items which can be sold on through the former. There are one or two tricks of the trade which make this a viable proposition. Firstly, it is important to know what type of clothing each second-hand clothes shop takes. One which I sell through will not take in clothes over two years old. Another will not take M&S clothing, only designer labels or the occasional, very usable ‘vintage’ item. If you are lucky enough to find a real vintage bargain, try seeking out a vintage shop (in London if necessary) in order to realize the best price for it.

It is quite difficult to actually make money from buying cheaply from a charity shop and selling on nowadays. TV programmes such as Antiques Roadshow and Flog It have made everyone (those who price the goods as well as those who buy them) much more aware of the worth of items which show up from time to time. Added to this, more and more people set out to make money by selling at boot fairs rather than handing their belongings over to charity. True antique items, collectible curios and first edition books no longer appear very often. Those who pick a specialist area such as books or old LPs and buy from local sources to resell on Ebay require a great deal of time and patience and so this is not a money-making venture for everyone.

 

Secondly, you have to be aware of what percentage of the sale is kept by the shop. You have to make a profit after the second-hand shops have taken theirs. Nowadays, most seem to ask for 50%, so if you buy a charity-shop coat for £2 you need to know that it will be sold for more than £10 in order to make it worth your while. I tend to save up the clothes which I have bought for re-sale and present them in batches which I have estimated will give me a profit of between £30-£40 between the lot of them. This usually works out at about 10 items, each bought at about £1.50 and sold for an average price of £10 (perfectly possible with the right garment placed in the right shop). £50 of the £100 made is kept by the shop, and there is usually upwards of £35 profit to be made after the initial outlay of £15 is deducted. My system allows for some clothes making more money to compensate for others which do not do as well as expected. You will need to rely on the owner of the shop to guide you as to the price she would expect to be able to get for you. I always take advice on this issue unless I feel strongly that I want to try for more initially and reduce if necessary. I usually give an indication of the lowest price which I am prepared to take for something if it does not sell quickly or if someone is interested in it but does not want to pay the asking price. If an item is taking a long time to sell, and I think that it might end up being returned to me, I will aim to get back my money by selling at the price for which I bought it.

 

I think this is preferable to sell at cost price rather than taking something unsold back home with me. However, my third tip is concerned with the need to factor in the cost of items which do not sell at all. The clues to success on this front are: buy as cheaply as possible (always try to get a reduction in price when buying) so that you waste as little money as possible; hold a boot fair once a year to sell off all the items (the clothes, shoes, hats and jewellery) which did not attract attention when they were offered in the clothes shops. If you share a stall with a friend or friends looking to sell unwanted goods of their own you will easily get back your initial outlay and might even make an unexpected profit!

A fourth tip is to make friends with those who work in the charity shops which you visit. It is in the interests of those running the show to sell as quickly as possible. It is not good to have the same goods sitting around in the shop for weeks on end.  I have found that if they know what you are looking for, the assistants will keep an eye out for those items on your behalf and hold them back for you if they know that you come in on a regular basis.

My fifth suggestion has become the key to success for me. I look continually but I keep back anything that I find that is ‘out of season’. Garments made of white linen, for example, can be bought very cheaply at the beginning of Autumn and the same is true of sparkly evening bags which turn up in the Spring. However, both of these sell really well during other times of the year. I have four boxes labelled with the four seasons and white linen goes into the Summer box, sparkling evening bags into the Winter (as there is a great demand for these at Christmas and the new year).      

Tips for success:

1. Look for the best quality and the up-to-date: no cheap high street labels (there is no ‘mark up’ to be had on these). No padded shoulders (at least, not at the moment as ‘80s-retro’ has not yet returned to favour.
2. Be realistic. Look at everything. Old handbags, jewellery.
3. Always clean and iron. DO NOT buy anything which you might have to dry-clean before reselling unless the high cost of the cleaning is likely to be recouped because the garment is worth a lot of money for some reason.
4. Use your eye and develop a knowledge of the labels to look out for. On one occasion I found a Maxmara coat for £5.50 which was resold for £80. A Frederick Fox hat, bought for £4.50 sold for £40. But often the unusual or quirky can be equally successful. For many years I could find old Indian velvet evening bags embroidered with gilt wire for 20p-50p and these would sell at Christmas and New Year for £6-£10 depending on the intricacy of the embroidery.
5. Look out for anything with ‘good’ labels in them. This may seem obvious as most people would notice a ‘Gucci’ or ‘Dolce and Gabbanna’ label. However, there are many well-made handbags with store labels in them which are worth snapping up. Clutches and short-handled bags from the 1940s, 50s and 60s are those which I am looking out for at the moment.
6. Avoid shoes unless in immaculate condition and of particular note (that is, they are a good label (Jimmy Choo springs to mind!) or particularly quirky). With regard to the latter, I once got £15 for a pair of unworn, bronze leather, thick-platformed strappy sandals. I had bought them for £1.
7. Perhaps most importantly, never spend a lot of money in the first place. ALWAYS look for low initial outlay. The charity shop may already have taken the only profit to be had from the item when YOU bought it.

You can also adapt this money-making idea to suit you personally. One of my friends buys throughout the year but sells at a series of boot-fair over the Summer. She shares the stall with a friend. Her approach is worth considering: She wears any items such as jackets, jewellery and hats which can be taken off easily because she found that people often commented on her appearance and wanted to buy what she was wearing. So now, she models items as she mans the stall. If someone buys her coat or brooch she replaces it from her ‘stock’. Her undergarments are not for sale.

The greatest disadvantage of this particular pocket-money project lies in the fact that second-hand clothes shops are usually geared towards women’s clothing. However, anyone with an interest in fashion and a good eye for quality or fashionable quirkiness can use this idea to make money. Go carefully at first in order to find out how to make it work in your area. Test your research by trying to re-sell just one evening handbag or an item of clothing which you think is worth more than the charity shop have put on it.   Remember, what is popular in second-hand clothes shops in Southampton is not necessarily easily saleable in or Edinburgh.