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The history of charity shops appears to date to wartime Britain, when several organizations started selling used goods to raise charitable funds. Today, the public can donate things they no longer want, which means they can be sold at very low cost, appealing to bargain hunters and ensuring a rapid turnover. They range from huge organisations such as the Salvation Army and Oxfam to one-off premises supporting a charity in that locality.

In 2009 Mary Portas presented a three part series designed to transform charity shops from, as she saw it, dowdy emporiums of the eclectic into retail powerhouses. Although some now are indistinguishable from for-profit outlets many are still delightfully idiosyncratic!


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