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Good morning. I could mark the phases of my life through my charity shop purchases: the tweedy jackets of my student days, the nearly new hiking boots (a tenner!) I bought out of necessity when I first arrived back in Scotland, the battered guitar now re-strung for my son to practise Nirvana’s About a Girl.
Since they became a fixture of high streets after the second world war, charity shops have rolled with the punches of wider retail trends. In the 80s, they were showered with tax breaks to take up vacant space as supermarkets put grocers and butchers out of business. At the end of the noughties, after the global financial crash, retail legend Mary Portas promoted charity shops as a vehicle for reviving the high street. And as awareness grows of the planetary penalty of throwaway textiles, next month heralds Second Hand September, Oxfam’s annual campaign to highlight fashion’s environmental damage.
But recent headlines about shop closures – including the potential closure of 100 Oxfam outlets – and sustained pressures from the boom in secondhand selling online suggest a deeper crisis in the sector. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Vicki Burnett, a charity retail expert who has volunteered in charity shops since the age of 15, about why community is key to the sector’s continued success. That’s after the headlines.
Five big stories
UK news | Racism and sexism have become normalised in Britain, the equalities minister has said, as she warned that young men were being sucked into violent misogyny by the “cesspit” of social media.
UK politics | The government’s plans to make young people continue studying maths and English if they fail GCSEs could be demotivating and ineffective, according to education experts and school leaders after retake pass rates slumped this year.
Israel | Far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has posted a video of a gallows complex where Palestinians convicted of terror offences will be hanged.
US news | The United States sent 20 deportees to Liberia, who arrived on Thursday as part of 1,200 migrants that the African country will receive under a new deal.
Climate crisis | Aerial footage of an estate in Somerset has revealed the benefits of rewilding land in the face of extreme weather brought about by the climate crisis.
In depth: ‘With the glut of fast fashion quality donations have reduced’
When “Everybody’s Thrift Shop”, one of Britain’s earliest recorded charity shops, was opened at 79a Nicholson Street, Edinburgh, in 1937, the Scotsman reported queues outside and police on hand to manage restive shoppers.
“One woman went off triumphant with a handsome suit once worn, it was whispered, by a professor. Another secured a real bargain: 10 shirts for half-a-crown.”
The second world war spurred the popularity of temporary fundraising shops, and the escalating humanitarian crisis led to the formation of Oxfam, which opened its first permanent outlet on Broad Street, Oxford, in 1947.
By the 1960s many other charities had done the same, as the demise of wartime “make do and mend” saw the secondhand clothing market expand, and over subsequent decades the sector was increasingly professionalised, with specialist shops opening for music and books.
There are now 10,000 charity shops across the UK, staffed by about 223,000 volunteers and 24,900 paid employees, and raising over £300m profit in 2024/25. But their future is not secure.
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What are the pressures on charity retail?
Oxfam is considering closing up to 100 of its 500-plus UK retail outlets, the Guardian reported earlier this week.
In June, the British Heart Foundation announced plans to close about 150 stores over the next two financial years “to ensure our retail network remains commercially sustainable,” and last October, Cancer Research confirmed it would be shutting 90 shops across the UK.
Costs have increased across retail in recent years. While charities don’t have to pay business rates, they are still hit by increases in national insurance and wage bills. The drop in town centre footfall, accelerated by Covid, is well documented. And indeed the decline of the British high street, with its dispiriting template of boarded up premises, betting shops and vape outlets, has become a political shorthand for a far wider malaise.
An Oxfam insider told the Guardian that shops were facing a fall in donations, as well as competition from online sellers of secondhand goods such as Vinted, now the fourth largest clothing retailers in the country, eBay and Depop.
This proliferation of alternative places to buy pre-loved fashion offers ease, often at a more competitive price point.
With only a cameraphone and decent wifi needed to join the market, a public seeking to monetise every last unwanted item amid the ongoing cost of living crisis has become less willing to donate, particularly more profitable items.
Charity shops are also facing a slump in recycling income. The price of “rag” – poor quality, unsellable clothing that is sold on in bulk for recycling to use as shredded fibres for mattress or insulation, for example – has dived in recent years, and a substantial source of profit has evaporated.
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How is charity retail evolving?
Beyond these headline closures, those working within the sector suggest a more layered analysis. The Charity Retail Association reports an increase in overall sales space among its members – but a significant trend towards closing smaller shops in favour of larger stores, especially among bigger charities.
With the glut of fast fashion, all across the sector agree that quality donations have reduced – but there has been no reduction in quantity.
In fact, the advent of resellers – people who are coming to the shops to buy stock to resell themselves online at profit – is now providing charity shops with significant income and creating a virtuous circle: as outlets like Vinted normalise the secondhand clothing market, it encourages people to explore charity shops themselves.
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Communities offline and online
The charity retail sector has faced tough times before, says Vicki Burnett, a senior consultant for the Charity Retail Consultancy, who advises clients of different sizes on how to go with the grain of evolving tech and remain rooted in local communities.
All charities need to keep their retail entities under constant review, Burnett tells me, but assessing a shop’s contribution goes well beyond the financial, as communities themselves recognised during the pandemic.
“People had really missed their charity shops. They don’t just bring in cash,” she says.
When she moved from Leeds to Argyll, Burnett started volunteering in her local Oxfam “as a way to get myself into my community, to understand a bit more about it”. A charity shop is a place where youngsters struggling with fragile mental health and a brutal jobs market – who Hettie wrote about yesterday – can gain CV skills alongside some gentle interaction. Many charities now deliver an element of their service through their shops, whether that’s healthcare education or details of animals available for rehoming nearby, something that’s easier to do in the larger format “one-stop” stores that are now emerging.
Charity retailers have been selling online for many years, Burnett reminds me. Ebay, for example, has mentored many charities through online selling and there’s the hope that Vinted and other commercial resellers will follow suit.
What is new is the volume of resellers and content creators. There are now so many working semi-professionally that the Charity Retail Association is about to launch an expanded directory of hundreds of charity shop influencers based around the country ready to collaborate with retailers. One of them, Emily London, offers charity shops tours and second hand personal styling alongside her own online resale shop.
“Influencers are a fantastic resource for charities and great advocates for pre-loved clothing,” says Burnett (If you’re looking for advice, then vintage maven and new Guardian style columnist Stephen Libby – might be worth a read).
Burnett tells me a story: when she was deputy manager of an Oxfam shop in the early 90s, lads from the local school would shove each other over the threshold, such was the teenage shame of setting foot in a charity shop.
“Now I see younger and younger generations 100% embracing secondhand clothing. It’s fantastic for charity shops and it’s great for the planet,” she says.
What else we’ve been enjoying
I appreciated this thorough investigation by Hannah Marriot on how fashion brands are scaling back plus-sizes, in the latest iteration of the body positivity backlash trigged by Ozempic. Libby
I’ve been interested for a while in how the humble shipping container revolutionised global trade. This FT story (£) on how this network is now being pushed to its limits is fascinating. Michael
Here in Glasgow, the schools are back and there’s a distinctly autumnal vibe, so I was glad to be taken through Zan Brooks’s top 20 summer movies. Libby
This rundown of Women’s Super League club cashflow is a great insight into the finances of top-tier women’s football. How many clubs have a single male player who earns more than their entire women’s team …? Michael
This is not something I “enjoyed”, but wanted to share anyway. Last week I wrote about the staggering increase in recalls to prison, reporting on a young man who was about to be released for the second time, having been recalled a mere six days into his first release due to a drug relapse. This week I learned he’s been recalled a second time. Libby
Sport
Cricket | England had four half-centurions on day two at Headingley but there were a few regrets on their failure to reach three figures.
Football | Gianni Infantino wants to split the European and North American coalition that is seeking to oust him by attending a junior tournament in the Dominican Republic this weekend.
Formula One | Max Verstappen has ended speculation about his future in Formula One by signing a new contract with Red Bull that will extend to the end of 2030.
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now
TV
Little Bird | ★★★★☆
Few dramas will enrage you as much as Little Bird. Not because it’s in any way hokey or problematic. On the contrary. Based on the real story of the Sixties Scoop – a period in Canada from the mid-1950s to the 1980s, when an estimated 20,000 First Nations children were forcibly removed from their families and adopted by non-Indigenous families – this heartbreaking tale is restrained and carefully measured. Melodrama is swerved, letting the injustice at this story’s core slowly metastasise. Little Bird is an impressive and heartfelt work, tender and moving. It cleaned up at the Canadian Screen Awards. For it to be ignored globally would be a crime. Patrick Smith
Music
Lambchop: Punching the Clown | ★★★★☆
Thirty-two years on from their debut album, Lambchop find themselves in a curious position. Their sole continuous member Kurt Wagner has displayed an admirable disinclination to rest on his laurels. Their last album, 2022’s The Bible, threw up everything from house music to glitchy rhythms to ambient drift to accompany Wagner’s pained ruminations on mortality and faith. Punching the Clown, pares back their sound to bare essentials: acoustic guitar and banjo and the very occasional deployment of bass or piano, the faintest smear of electronics on Weakened. Wagner’s voice appears stripped of Auto-Tune, distortion, even reverb: he sounds as if he’s singing directly in front of you. Alexis Petridis
Film
Over/Under | ★★★★☆
Practically any woman who had a best female friend in early adolescence will be able to relate to this fragile, thoughtful drama about two American children, Violet (Emajean Bullock) and Stella (Anastasia Veronica Lee), living through the ages of nine to 13. As the film starts, the two are nine-year-old besties, spending their summers together in New England where they go to camp. But when both girls go home at the end of the summer, Violet to Los Angeles and Stella to San Diego, life is not so dreamy and blissful. Violet is bullied at school. Plus, it looks like her parents’ marriage is on the rocks. Stella too has worries, especially around the survival of her mother (Madeline Wise) who copes throughout with breast cancer, while her father (Adam David Thompson) is contending with an off-screen mother with dementia. Leslie Felperin
Game
Agent 64: Spies Never Die (PC) | ★★★☆☆
In lieu of any high-budget flash, Agent 64’s big special effect is nostalgia. From the title onwards, this retro shooter is one long homage to nineties James Bond shoot-em-up GoldenEye, and to its un-Bonded successor, 2000’s Perfect Dark. Enemies have pinched facial features – a result of taking photographs of real people’s faces and wrapping them around diamond-shaped heads – and roll acrobatically from behind cover to take their next potshot, just as they used to. And yes, there’s a Big Head mode that swells those diamonds into enormous target-practice balloons. The fantasy on offer here isn’t really being James Bond. It’s being young again, with one illicitly acquired copy of GoldenEye to last you the summer and all the time in the world to pick the cartridge clean. For all its rough edges, that’s a mission Agent 64 pulls off with aplomb. Alex Spencer.
The front pages
“Racism and sexism normalised in UK, says equalities minister”, is the Guardian’s front page today.
Prince Harry’s return dominates most titles, with the Telegraph writing “Harry hopes to win back King’s trust” and the Mirror splashing “No way back to royal life”. The Times leads with “King puts William first as Harry heads home”, the Mail has “Sussexes’ security could cost taxpayers £5M a year”, and the Sun says “Royal Harry summit at Balmoral”. The i Paper’s headline is “Sussexes fly back to UK without a deal for taxpayer funded security”, while the Express’s take is “Back in the fold but not in the firm”.
Elsewhere, the FT has “US bonds slide after Bessent’s buybacks fail to calm jitters”, and Metro says “Hosepipe hero of fire ‘murder’”.
The Latest
Why are Prince Harry and Meghan moving back to the UK?
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning to return to live in Britain, six years after leaving for the US: a decision that was subject to intense media scrutiny. The couple and their two children are expected to relocate later in August to a non-royal residence. Nosheen Iqbal speaks to senior national news editor Aaron Sharp.
Cartoon of the day | Rebecca Hendin
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
James Reed McGuire and Crystal Fritz were novice gardeners when they made the move from inner-city Chicago out to the Illinois suburbs. They knew one thing, though: that they didn’t simply want their front garden to be a piece of turf – so they set about transforming it through rewilding.
What was once a boring lawn is now a thriving ecosystem that attracts and supports birds, butterflies, bees, rabbits, bats, foxes and more, while their efforts have been recognised by the National Wildlife Federation, who designated the space a Certified Wildlife Habitat. “It’s really a stunning environment,” says McGuire. “It brings us a lot of peace and tranquility in a very troubled world.”
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Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
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