Anyone else inspired by Mary Portas?
June 10th, 2009 by hbourneIt’s very rare that I watch a programme which really inspires me but last night I was lucky enough to catch Mary Portas Queen of Charity Shops and it honestly left me buzzing. I’ve been thinking for a while that charity shops should be taking advantage of the recession and making it sexy to buy second hand goods from them. And as I mentioned in my last blog I did ‘grow up’ in a retail environment so I’m probably inclined more than some to get over excited about the programme.
So, Mary Portas encouraged Save The Children to give her £15,000 for the refit and modernisation of one of their stores, and some further funds to pay for a permanent retail manager to run the shop which is normally run by volunteers who have an average age of 75. Lovely and hard working as they are they have no retail experience. The result was stunning and I really hope it makes enough money to encourage more charity shops to do the same.
What’s more she took a look at the other issue the shops face – that people see them as dumping grounds for their tat, and don’t donate the higher value designer goods. I was going to have a sort out this weekend and I’ll be making sure I only give quality goods to my local charity shop. Worn out t-shirts aren’t going to make them any money but a little worn coat just might.
It also left me wondering how these issues can be carried forward and not forgotten when the programme ends. We run the successful Make Your Mark in the Markets competition and I wonder whether we might be able to use our expertise to bring some entrepreneurial flair to charity retail. We’ve worked with Barnardos in the past so it might be worth having a chat to them about it, and I’ll also be getting in touch with the production company too. And maybe some of our villages applying for Village SOS could think about second-hand retailing as an opportunity?
Matthew celebrates his Make Your Mark in the Markets win
June 11th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Hannah you know Retail runs through my veins!
I think the idea of re vamping charity shops is awesome. Not only does it tick the box of challenging the rescission but also ticks the recycling box too.
Your blog got me thinking about swishing. Swishing is when you get a group of friends together and swap any unwanted clothes, accessories etc. http://www.swishing.org/
some people hold swishing parties!
I think charity shops could promote swishing within there communities, this is an up and coming “in” thing. I think the image of charity shops still seem a bit dowdy, they went through a phase of being “vintage darling” but that seams to have worn off so maybe Swishing could be the way forward.
Oooh networking swishing entrepreneurial communities – Love it!
June 11th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Glad I’m not the only excited one – it got brought up in yesterday’s Entrepreneurship Now meeting. Watch this space…
June 15th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I watched this last night and it was fantastic! In between ‘aww-ing’ at the cute little old ladies (how cute are they, especially Brenda, my fav), I was also nodding in agreement with some of Mary’s tips…Charity shops in recession can be a great business model, and watching it all come to life via Mary and her team is pretty exciting stuff! Love it.
June 26th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Mary Portas you inspire me!!
Having watched all of your programes, the charity shop set really bought it home to me we need to do better.
I work for a well known high street retailer and we work with oxfam, we give old but hopfully good cloths to oxfam but on reflection this could have been better so, the plan is to ecourage my team to put together a complete ‘look’ which will be hung and have accessorises, this will then be presented to oxfam ready to sell all they have to do is price it!
My aim is to encourage staff and hteir families to think more about what they give to maximise on the price.Here’s hoping for a good turn out!!
July 6th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I have always been a fan of charity shops, you can pick up some amazing fashion items that are cool and retro, for a couple of quid!
Thanks for a great article, you sound cool yourself, if you fancy joining a fashion social networking site, try http://www.welovecool.com, it’s a new global phenomenan!