UK Charity Shop Profits Plunge as Vinted and Depop Reshape the Secondhand Market

Oxfam's shops made £4.9m in retail profit in the last financial year, down 23% from £6.4m the year before. That figure comes from unpublished accounts seen by the Financial Times, and it sits at the centre of a wider story about whether the charity shop model that has funded British good causes for decades can hold up.

Oxfam is not alone. The British Heart Foundation, which has the biggest high street presence of any charity in the country, has said it will close 150 stores after its shops made a £3.3m loss in the last financial year. Cancer Research UK and Scope have also closed, or are closing, some of their shops. In June, the BHF reviewed its retail arm, which employs almost 3,700 staff, after profits from its shops fell from £18.8m in 2024 to £3.6m in the year to 31 March 2025. The charity cited an exceptionally challenging trading environment and said it aimed to close 90 stores by the end of March 2027 and another 60 by the following March.

The losses are striking because demand for secondhand clothing has not shrunk. According to GlobalData, UK spending on it has quadrupled over the past decade, to £8.8bn a year. The shift has come with the rise of Vinted and Depop, which suggests that people who once would have given clothes to a charity shop are now selling them directly to other shoppers and keeping the money. Meanwhile, Chinese companies are selling more clothes in developing countries, particularly in Africa, long a major market for unwanted secondhand clothing.

For Oxfam, the effect shows up in how much of each sale reaches its mission. Its latest filings show that for every £100 spent in its shops, just £6 now goes toward its work on alleviating global poverty. As recently as 2022 the figure was £22, the FT reports. Lorna Fallon, head of Oxfam's retail operation, told the FT it has been challenging and will be painful for the sector. Oxfam has no plans to reduce its number of shops, given its focus on books and music.

The structure of the business explains some of the vulnerability. Vinted and Depop connect sellers directly with buyers. Charity shops carry high street and warehouse rents and the costs of collecting, sorting, pricing and storing clothes. There is also the problem of quality. Tansy Hoskins, author of Charity Shop World, told the Guardian earlier this month that the sector faces avalanches of poor-quality clothes as people use shops as convenient dumping grounds for unwanted purchases. "Quality is the big change marker – it's gone through the floor," she said.

The industry disagrees about how much online platforms matter. Robin Osterley, chief executive of the Charity Retail Association, accepts that fast fashion has hurt donation quality, but says the association does not see Vinted or other platforms as an issue at all. He allows they may have a small effect where people keep one bag for charity and one for Vinted, but argues two things offset it: the platforms have normalised secondhand shopping, and many people buy from charity shops to resell online, giving members significant income.

Osterley points instead to the November 2024 budget. Higher employer national insurance and a lower threshold, which affects more part-time staff, have had a really significant effect on costs, he said, alongside inflation across the economy.

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said the sector has been hit by the cost-of-living crisis like the rest of the high street, but that there is reason for hope. The growth of secondhand offers real opportunities, he said, though it requires rethinking the traditional charity retail model. He also stressed that shops give Oxfam a presence in communities and a way to engage more than 20,000 volunteers.

What to watch is whether the BHF's closures proceed on schedule through 2027 and 2028, and whether other charities follow Oxfam in publishing weaker retail figures.