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Charity retailers see growth despite challenging trading conditions

Despite a continued challenging period for high street retail, the latest Quarterly Market Analysis Report for April to June 2019, published by the Research Department of the Charity Retail Association, saw another period of growth for the charity retail sector. Like-for-like consumer sales increased by 1.4 per cent between April – June 2019 compared to the same period in 2018.

Like-for-like sales of donated goods rose by 1.2 per cent from April-June 2018, when they had increased by 4.6 per cent from the equivalent quarter in 2017. Charity retailers with 100 or fewer shops reported the strongest performance.

Gift Aid conversion rate (Gift Aided donated goods sales as a percentage of total donated good sales) stood at 32.2 per cent; an increase of 2.5 percentage points from April-June 2018. In addition, 72 per cent of respondents reported positive growth in like-for-like sales of donated goods eligible for Gift Aid.

Sales of donated goods to traders fell by 10.7 per cent on a like-for-like basis from April-June 2018, when this category saw a strong growth of 9.8 per cent from April-June 2017. The median average price per kilo of rag, at 41 pence for members who participated in our QMA Q2 2019 survey, was one penny lower than in January-March 2019

If you’re one of our members, you can download both the QMA and Rag Reports in the members’ section of our website.