Charity Retail Research Articles

Risk and Resistance: Ageing in the Charity Retail Sector

Abstract Background Charity shops have long been found to promote sociability, nurture experiences of belonging and act as spaces for community, caring and well-being. Older people remain likely to participate in this setting and charity shop volunteering is typically associated with events of positive ageing. However, the sector's growing emphasis on professionalism and profit raises questions about the potential impact of organisational change on this group. This research seeks to address this gap by exploring how older volunteers experience their roles within the evolving context of the modern UK charity shop. Methods This PhD study employed an ethnographic approach, involving 268 hours of immersive fieldwork across 3 charity shops in Greater Manchester. Ethnographic data was complemented by 17 semi-structured interviews with volunteers and store managers. Results Ageist discourses have been embedded into the sector, which work to reconstitute older volunteers as a type of ‘risky subject'. Such discourses manifest in unique ways on the charity shop floor and comprise of a range of practices, both subtle and overt, that are driven by the organisations focus on an intensified form of productivity. This prompts diverse forms of resistance from older volunteers, which are underpinned by the aim to not only counter negative perceptions of ageing but be just ‘visible’ enough in order to get by. Conclusion This paper unpacks the multifaceted nature of ageism in the charity retail sector. Whilst it is not as simple as suggesting that charity shops are solely characterised by ageism - especially considering the volunteer experience varies considerably across different contexts and places - age-related tensions are nonetheless more prevalent in the everyday. Older volunteers are not passive in the face of such change and continually work to avoid exclusion and remain integrated in this space in diverse ways.

Reuse within the UK’s Charity Retail Sector: Steps towards Sustainability

The social benefits of charity retail are widely recognized. However, data relating to the potential benefits to the sustainable use of end-of-use consumer goods are scarce. A general survey and an observational study at a typical charity shop aimed to quantify and evaluate reuse via charity retail outlets. We reveal valuable insights to stock data recording, procedures for receiving/dealing with donations (by category), use of standard approaches, quantification of key variables, and accuracy of previous survey data. Methods were successfully developed and trialled to (a) quantify diversion of end-of-use products from residual waste via reuse/recycling, and (b) estimate the cost of unsaleable donations. Future routine use of these methods for charity retail shops is recommended while acknowledging the limitations due to reporting capabilities. We identify four key groups of beneficiaries: (1) the parent charity, (2) charity shop workers (paid and unpaid), (3) donors, and (4) customers. Specific benefits, such as social interactions, are not exclusive to specific beneficiaries. Efforts to improve positive impacts should focus on securing appropriate donations, facilitating information capture, and promoting reuse. An important balance is required between maximising income and reuse, and retaining the social benefits that charities provide to communities.

The place of charity shops post Covid-19

PurposeCharity shops have met a number of challenges in light of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper aims to explore the economic and social impact of charity shops and reviews the transformative impact they have on place, the experience of place and the social environment.Design/methodology/approachThe paper conducts a review of the extant literature in the field of charity shop retail. Considering the issues that are raised, the article proceeds to discuss the opportunities that arise for place marketing efforts and charity shops in the retail environment, the wider sector, the high street and as a positive, key component of place(s).FindingsThe paper provides novel sectorial insights and recommendations that can be adopted by charity retail outlets. This includes discussion on transformative place marketing, the experience of place and the charity shop’ role in the social environment beyond the existing references to charity shops in place(s) and the high street.Originality/valueCharity shops play a vital role in society and yet they are an under researched field. The paper contributes knowledge on the role of charity shops in transforming and experiencing place. The paper concludes with observations made from the discussion on charity shops, and states areas for future research regarding the role of the charity shop and place marketing, place identity and transformation.

Pro-environmental or pro-social: Which motivation is stronger in the case of charity retailing engagement?

The aim of the study is to examine the intention to engage in charity retailing using the norm activation model which has been widely used to predict people’s altruistic and pro-social behavior (De Groot and Steg, 2009, 425–449). Pro-social behavior refers to a person’s action that is intended to help other people and consists of a broad range of helping, sharing, and cooperating behaviors. Three forms of engagement in charity retailing were taken into account: buying at a charity shop, volunteering in a charity store, and donating. The current study was conducted in 2019 using the CAWI method on 766 Polish students coming from 16 universities; for data analysis, SEM was applied. We tested two variants of the model. In the first one we connected personal norm, awareness of consequences, and ascription of responsibility with the context of the natural environment protection, whereas in the second the same variables were connected with helping people in general. The findings show that the norm activation model may be applied as a mediator model for explaining intention to engage in shop charity. Both tested models were positively verified — all relations but one were proven to be statistically significant. The only relation which turned out to be statistically insignificant was the relation between awareness of consequences and personal norm. The results show that environmental context increased the strength of the relations between the analyzed variables.

Taking stock: Continuity and change in charity retail

Since the last surge of academic interest in the charity retail sector, there have been significant changes to the UK’s socioeconomic landscape, and to modes of retailing and consumption. In light of these changes, and in anticipation of another wave of charity shop scholarship, this essay revisits three landmark contributions to charity retail literature: Charity Shops: Retailing, Consumption and Society by Suzanne Horne and Avril Maddrell, Second-hand Cultures, by Nicky Gregson and Louise Crewe, and Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia, by Karen Tranberg Hansen. It considers the foundation they lay for the study of the contemporary UK charity retail sector, and highlights the need for new empirical knowledge. In particular, the changing spaces of charity retail, the role of charity shops within wider systems of consumption and disposal, and the influence of organisational practices on labour relations, social impact, and material flows, are argued to require further research.

Pricing up & Haggling Down: Value Negotiations in the UK Charity Shop

This article uses a micro-ethnographic approach to investigate the shop-floor presence of ‘professionalisation’ in the UK charity shop sector. Previous literature on charity retail has described how business-like, professionalising practices have invaded their operations (Gregson and Crewe 2003, p. 75). However, these arguments focus upon top-down processes, without observing how these are played out by actors within the physical space of the charity shop itself. A key component of second-hand culture is the variable nature of value within it – and value is all the more unpredictable in a time of global flux. Using the examples of price negotiation and haggling behaviours on the charity shop floor, this study concludes that professionalisation of charity retail is tempered by customer/worker interaction and social imperatives. Thus, charity shops house a hybrid of professionalised and non-professionalised actions and behaviours that demonstrate the value systems and humanity of shop actors. These ‘participant-driven experiences’ of value negotiation enable those on the shop floor to challenge the ‘iron cage’-like characteristics (Weber, 1977) that have infiltrated the 21st century second-hand world: bureaucracy, rationality and impersonality.

Makeover welfare: Mary, Queen of Charity Shops and the cultural politics of second-hand under austerity

This paper brings together literature on welfare, austerity and second-hand cultures with theories of the makeover to analyse the cultural politics of charity shops in the UK, and their real aftereffects. Based on an analysis of two television programmes, a 2009 BBC Two reality television makeover programme Mary, Queen of Charity Shops, and a camp, cult-hit comedy web series, Charity Shop Sue (2019), the article traces the politics of makeover culture in second-hand spaces. In the first programme, retail celebrity Mary Portas sweeps in to make over a shabby British charity shop, sweeping out old things, people, and spaces, to make way for new ones. Tracing how the programme not only valorises but causes changes across the charity retail sector, the article shows how a regime of the makeover of things, people, and places in charity shops relates to a regime of real-world austerity politics I call makeover welfare, in which makeover is offered instead of welfare. Yet despite efforts to enforce makeover welfare, second-hand things, people, and places resist and escape this regime. In the second programme, analysing the camp satire of Charity Shop Sue’s failed makeovers, I unpack second-hand’s counter-aesthetic: a surprisingly durable second-hand politics located in unruly tatt, stubborn subjects, and rummage spaces. Further, because charity shops are important but overlooked instruments of welfare provision and governance, understanding their cultural politics opens up insights into how late capitalism is lived and felt.

THE SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF REUSE BY CHARITY SHOPS

Charity shops are retail outlets selling mainly second-hand donated goods to raise funds for their parent charities. The charity retail sector is becoming an increasingly significant player in terms of demonstrating the benefits of reuse and how it can be practically realised. This paper provides an overview of the UK’s charity retail sector and considers the social, environmental and economic benefits of charity shops. We estimate there are 11,200 charity shops in the UK that employ 23,000 staff and have a volunteer workforce of 230,000. Approximately 95Ͽf the clothes charity shops receive are either recycled or reused, diverting 331,000 tonnes of textiles from landfill and reducing CO2 emissions by 6.9 million tonnes in 2015/16. A key factor in understanding how charity shops contribute to social good includes understanding and quantifying how they might contribute to the development of the circular economy via the encouragement and practical realisation of reuse. We see this paper as a step in this process, flagging the social, environmental and economic benefits of charity shops and highlighting the need for additional research into the contribution of the charity retail sector to reuse and resource preservation/recovery.

Charity Retailing in the United Kingdom: A Managerial Capabilities Perspective

Nonprofit organizations are venturing into commercial activities due to the intense competition for the limited government funds and declining availability of donor funds for third‐sector organizations that address social problems. Charity retailing, a popular choice of commercial activity for nonprofit organization, has filled vacant premises in the high streets of the small towns and suburbs of large cities in the nited ingdom. Successful charity retail operation requires distinctive capabilities necessary to manage organizations' resources in commercial environment. Using 60 in‐depth elite interviews, we introduce the concept of managerial capabilities for charity retailing. Research propositions and management implications are discussed.

Managing Branding and Legitimacy

Nonprofit organizations operate charity retail shops to raise the necessary funds to enable them to carry out their primary charitable purpose. This research conducts six case studies in the charity retail sector to develop the charity retail branding strategy decision pathway to link (a) “why” nonprofit senior managers choose different types of charity retail branding strategy and (b) “how” they conduct legitimation strategies accordingly to attain brand legitimacy. In the course of developing our argument, this research extends the theory of brand architecture and brand legitimacy by articulating their application in third sector retailing practice. These findings will also be useful for senior managers when making branding decisions and designing legitimation strategies to attain brand legitimacy.

The changing structure of charity retailers in Edinburgh’s built environment

The retail market contributes significantly to the British economy, but the niche market of charity retailing within it has seen little attention – a lacuna that this article seeks to address. Charity retailing is a recent phenomenon, emerging after the Second World War. The objective of this article is to address the spatial development of Edinburgh’s charity retailers, informed by an overview of the city’s current economic climate and retail market. Edinburgh is conceptualized within a general, UK perspective prior to case study analysis. It was chosen due to the significant number of charity retailers within the city. The article examines socio-economic data about Edinburgh taken from the most recent census, alongside an analysis of the locations chosen by its charity retailers. Through this analysis the article concludes that present-day charity retailers operate as profit maximizers, in locations favourable to appropriating the best quality donations and highest prices for the commodities offered. This is in direct contrast with the notion that they are still likely to be discovered in areas where there is a need demonstrated by poverty indicators.

Location planning in charity retailing

PurposeThis paper seeks to evaluate the particular conditions informing locational decision making and related network planning in the charity retail sector. Its purpose is to identify both differences and commonalities with related debates that have been focussed very largely on the grocery sector and the superstore format. Its wider purpose is to contribute to the growing literature on charity retailing which has not considered this aspect of retail management in detail.Design/methodology/approachDetails the particularities of charity retailing locational decision making and network planning through a detailed case‐study consideration of a hospice charity's emerging retail store network.FindingsFinds that existing conceptual and practical considerations pertaining to locational decision making in retailing require a nuanced re‐revaluation in relation to the locational and network planning of charity retailers. Identifies the importance of supply chain (stock donators) and workforce factors together with the customer demand in informing locational decision making.Originality/valueDetailed academic consideration of location planning in the charity shop sector is absent in the literature. The paper addresses this.

Charity, retail or care? Gender and managerialism in the charity retail sector

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how gender identity is played out in a particular type of work setting, that of charity retail, and to explore the impacts of increased managerialism on this process of identity construction.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is informed by interviews with 22 charity shop managers from three UK cities. The narratives of three of these managers are chosen for more in‐depth analysis. The paper focuses primarily on understandings of identity as practised, exploring the enactment of a series of conflicting and overlapping “selves” in the workplace. The practices and discourses surrounding the retail (or businesslike) self, the charitable self and the caring self in particular are discussed.Findings – It was found that the process of creeping managerialism in the sector both values and promotes the discourses of “retail” but marginalises those of “charity and of care”. This presents serious dilemmas of identity for charity shop managers and is a source of ...

Job motivation and satisfaction: Unpacking the key factors for charity shop managers

This paper explores the role of job characteristics and communication in relation to job motivation and satisfaction amongst UK charity shop managers. Analysis is based on 22 interviews with shop managers and a nationwide survey of 826 charity shop managers. In exploring job characteristics we find that managers exhibit low levels of satisfaction with factors such as pay, job status and working conditions. However, in exploring communication we find a form of ‘altruism payoff’ whereby managers’ dissatisfaction is ameliorated by the fulfilment gained from interpersonal relationships with other staff members and the knowledge that their efforts are benefiting a charitable cause. In closing we draw out the policy implications of the study for charity retail organisations and suggest directions for further research.

The human resource management practice of retail branding

PurposeWhile the charity retail literature emphasizes the richness of human resource practices among charity retailers, it rarely makes the link between these practices and their interest for establishing charity retailers' brands. Simultaneously, while the retail branding literature increasingly emphasizes the central role of human resource practices for retail branding, it rarely explains how retailers should conduct such practices. The purpose of this study is to test the recent model proposed by Burt and Sparks in 2002 (the “fifth generation of retail branding”) which proposes that a retail brand depends on the alignment between a retailer's substance (vision and culture) and its perceived image by customers.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on an ethnographic study conducted within the Oxfam Trading Division, GB from October to December 2002.FindingsThe study supports the Burt and Spark's model and makes explicit the practice of human resource for branding. The study demonstrates that it was the alignment between the vision of Oxfam's top management and its new customer‐oriented culture, two elements of its core substance mediated to customers by store employees, which has enabled an improved customers' perception of the brand. The study also seeks to elaborate upon the Burt and Spark's model by specifying an ascending feedback loop starting from customers' perception of Oxfam brand and enabling the creation of a suitable culture and vision again mediated by store employees.Research limitations/implicationsNew research should explore whether and how retailers create synergies between human resource and marketing functions to sustain their brand image.Practical implicationsIf the adoption of business practices by charity retailers is often discussed, this study highlights that commercial retailers could usefully transfer human resource best practices from leading charity retailers to develop their retail brand.Originality/valueThe paper is of value to commercial retailers.

Gender and career choice

PurposeThis paper extends the debate on gender and career choice using the case study of managers in charity shops in the UK, a group that have previously not been researched. The charity retail sector has undergone considerable change over the last few years, particularly in its effort to professionalize. As a result shop managers' positions have changed from being voluntary to paid. With the changes taking place in the sector, the purpose of this research was to explore the views of current charity shop managers with regard to their career choice and career development issues.Design/methodology/approachThe methodological approach taken to the research was qualitative and used a series of in‐depth interviews with 22 shop managers.FindingsThe research found that charity retail management serves an important purpose for many women in the transition from the home to working environment. It provides the balance necessary to effectively combine the multiple role demands between personal and professional lives. Career success for these managers was less to do with occupational status or income, but encompassed the satisfaction, autonomy, challenge and self‐fulfillment the job presented them. As such, the majority had little interest in progressing their careers linearly but were contented with other forms of career development.Research limitations/implicationsBeing an exploratory study, the results are not generalisable to the population. A quantitative research methodology could be utilized to test the findings of this paper and enable researchers to draw firmer conclusions.Originality/valueThe findings of this research may aid recruitment and selection practices for the future recruitment and development of charity shop managers.

Managing Change in Nonprofit Organizations: Insights from the UK Charity Retail Sector

Moves toward increased professionalism are now an almost taken-for-granted aspect of change across the nonprofit sector both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. This paper uses the case of UK charity retail to explore the impacts of this move to professionalism, on managers at the local level. In doing so it seeks to develop appropriate techniques for managing change both in charity retail and more broadly, in nonprofit organizations per se. The professionalization of charities' trading activities has resulted in a series of changes at the local level; these include the introduction of new forms of staff, changes to policies regarding the sourcing, pricing, and presentation of stock, and an increased emphasis on sales targets, league tables, and incentive schemes designed to motivate managers to increase sales. These policies set at head office level have had significant impact on the day-to-day working experiences of branch managers. This paper explores managers' reactions to these changes and examines the extent to which such policies could be said to be successful. To conclude, recommendations are made as to the most appropriate approaches to professionalizing charity retail operations. These conclusions are broadened to offer insights into appropriate techniques for managing change in nonprofit organizations.

Charity retailing in the UK: a typology

Recent unprecedented growth in the UK charity retail sector has seen charities becoming increasingly strategic in managing their retail operations. This paper reviews the present state of the charity retail sector through a three-fold typology and uses this typology to critically analyse the range of strategic approaches within the sector. Review and analysis of these strategies suggest that ironically the most profitable charity retailers are not necessarily the most strategic ones. Independent, localised charities which maintain close links within their communities are often more profitable than their more professional national counterparts. The paper closes by exploring the fundamental tension for these retailers, between generating the highest possible profits, and maintaining a charitable and caring image and questioning the future for this distinctive retail sector.

Charity shop managers in the UK: becoming more professional?

The charity retail sector in the UK has undergone a series of changes over the last decade which have typically been grouped under the heading professionalisation. Shop managers have been under increasing pressure from senior management to maximise profits for the parent charity. However charity retail harbours many contradictions and additionally, shop managers are aware of the need to ‘act charitably’ towards their volunteers and customers. This paper focuses on senior managers’ interpretations of professionalism and attempts to close the gap between charity retail and commercial (non-charity) retail and contrasts this with the day-to-day working experiences of shop managers. In doing so it highlights the symbolic and often contested nature of (charity) retail spaces.

UK Charity Retailing: Managing in a Newly Professionalised Sector

The charity retail sector has seen unprecedented growth in the UK over the past ten years. Alongside this growth charities have become progressively professionalised and commercialised and have begun to adopt strategies developed in commercial retail contexts. This paper unpacks this process of professionalisation examining exactly what it constitutes on the ground. It then goes on to consider in turn how this new professionalism has impacted on store managers. The paper closes in considering the challenges represented by these requirements and offers some suggestions for future research.