Mary Queen of Charity Shops

The second episode of "Mary Queen of Charity Shops" made for compelling viewing and threw up a number of interesting situations and questions.  If you haven't seen it and you live in the UK, you can watch it again here.

The premise of the series is straight forward. Retail guru Mary Portas takes over an under performing Save the Children charity shop in Orpington and tries to increase it's profits.

The series highlights a number of issues that many charity shops face including:

• The poor quality of donated goods.
• Problems with recruiting sufficient, capable volunteers and staff.
• Low aspiration/expectation of the the shopping experience.

I expected Mary to come over patronsing, but was pleasantly surprised by how personally involved she got in the project and the way she worked.

The ideas for improving profits by increasing the quality of donations and revamping the store have been done before (see for example here and here plus the emergence of specialist shops for books and even wedding dresses!) and weren't revolutionary, but hopefully they will help change public perception about charity shops in general.  Mary also gave the impression that all charity shops were like the Orpington branch, when in fact many are slickly run retailing outfits.

There was one point I did disagree with Mary on.  I don't believe every charity shop could be made over in the same way and there is only a finite number of viable niche shops.  There simply aren't enough good quality second hand clothes around and she under estimates the importance charity shops can play in deprived communities where often the only clothing some people can afford is from them.

I can't wait to watch next weeks final episode and see if Mary has managed to turn the shop round.

*UPDATE*

The final programme also made for interesting viewing and it seems Mary did manage to turn the shop round.  Takings were up from £900 to £2000 per week (though no mention was made of net takings) and Save the Children were thrilled and are planning on rolling out the changes to their other stores.

The buzz the programme has created about charity shops can only be good for the sector as a whole, but I do stick to my point from last week that such changes will only be suitable for stores in relatively affluent areas.

Finally, my only disappointment about the whole series was that no mention was made at all about people being able to gift aid their donations, which would increase the value of their goods by 28%.