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Comment by fidotron | Hacker News Reader

There's a subtext to this post that may not be obvious to non British people: UK High Streets (Main Streets) have in the last 20 years experienced an incredible explosion of charity shops (thrift stores) including many locations specific to books.

Quite why this has occurred is a subject of occasional argument, but I've never heard a definitive theory on it, and it partly overlaps with the general decline motivated by ecommerce. They do compete on some level with existing businesses, as debated here, but the more curious impact is they completely alter the character of an area.

Ten years ago they used to be fantastic for obscure finds because it seemed people had not caught on, but these days they tend to be subpar, which is probably a major edge the non charitable enterprises have exploited.

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It's a symptom of the decline of high street retail and high long-term vacancy rates for many retail properties.

For commercial landlords, a charity shop paying little or no rent is usually better than no tenant at all - the property is less likely to be smashed up by vandals, burned down by arsonists or occupied by squatters if it's occupied. The landlord would be liable for business rates after three months of vacancy, but not if there's a tenant.

Charity shops get an 80% relief on business rates, pay nothing for their stock and get some or all of their staff for free; obviously this allows them to operate profitably in circumstances where no normal business could.

As I understand it, the landlords are holding on mostly in the hope that their properties will either be compulsorily purchased as part of a regeneration scheme, or granted planning permission for redevelopment as housing.

>It's a symptom of the decline of high street retail and high long-term vacancy rates for many retail properties.

Do you guys not have pawn shops, smoke shops, and check cashing shops over there?

Wait, why do you need a shop to cash a cheque? Isnt that one of the last few things you go to a bank for?

Also, how do you cash a cheque without validating signature (from whichever bank)?

Here in India atleast, cheques are cashed only at banks, and often are a/c payee only (no cash disbursed, only account transfer). They get truncated at the bank (basically scanned), and cleared overnight as a part of the CTS (a NPCI product).

However DDs (Demand Drafts) are your equivalent of cashiers cheques, and can be redeemed at par instantly, anywhere (or paid into an account).

You go to the bank to deposit a cheque into your account. But you need to have an account. Cheque cashing services will essentially buy the cheque from you for a bit less than the value written on it. It's mainly for people without bank accounts.

>Wait, why do you need a shop to cash a cheque? Isnt that one of the last few things you go to a bank for?

In the US, a lot of poor people (and illegal immigrants) are unbanked. But also check cashing places also tend to do title loans (turn over your car title for a temporary loan) and other sorts of "fast cash" loans with usurious rates. They and pawn shops are they type of businesses that show up in areas of town where the cost of retail spaces drop.

In my touristy experience, it's more gambling shops, payday loan shops (surpised UK had these) and real estate agents.

Yeah the bookmakers (gambling shops) are a huge industry in the UK.

A surprising amount of the UK tech industry has history connected to the gambling sector one way or another, be it sports tv, online related, making parts for pub slot machines etc.

Not so much Check-cashing (although they do exist in some parts of larger cities) and I haven't seen a pawn-shop outside of London in ... forever.

We do have Vapeshops (before that 'Legal High' shops) but apart from those Charity Shops you get a lot of 'Gambling' (aka 'High Street Bookies') chains in those areas where the footfall has gone away to the out of town supermarkets or where the landlords are sitting on what they hope will get turned into flats so they can make a profit.

What I would say regarding Oxfam, at least in the area I live is that the book selection is suprisingly good, both in Oxford and Chipping Norton's where the second hand book selection has given me some great reads and I have seen them refuse the 'Celeb/Sports star' biogs and bundles of Harry Potter cast offs from people while waiting to be served.

Where I am in the US, it seems like there are two endgames for the "anchor" of a strip mall.

Typically this starts as a grocery store, but sometimes it will be some other larger retailer that collapsed (see Bed, Bath and Beyond or now Jo-Ann Fabrics)

They either become a Goodwill or they become a gym.

It's interesting that they are almost never subdivided-- they'd rather have a single 2000 square metre shop, presumably paying a concession "better than leaving it empty" rent, than to modify the layout of the building to open it up as two or four smaller shops.

I think a lot of people get the causal relationship the wrong way around when it comes to charity shops and the decline of the high street. It's not (IMO) that charity shops move into otherwise thriving areas and lead to a decline in local business by competing, but rather that they move into spaces that would otherwise lie empty, and therefore are more likely to be found on high streets that were already dying. Where I live we have a few charity shops but it's mainly chicken shops, vape shops and the occasional barber that are cannibalising the local high street.

Very much the case in New Zealand as well.

> Ten years ago they used to be fantastic for obscure finds because it seemed people had not caught on, but these days they tend to be subpar, which is probably a major edge the non charitable enterprises have exploited.

Not sure about UK, but in the USA, people have discovered that there's profit in mining thrift stores for quality products and reselling them. Usually online, but also in antique malls*. There are a quite a few apps that make it easy to look up something by picture and see what it's worth.

* not sure what Brits would call this - it's like brick and mortar ebay. Merchants rent out cubicles that they fill with random stuff, and customers check out at a common till when they are done.

In the UK, charity shops got savvy to this and now do their own 'mining'. Valuable items go to HQ to list on eBay for a lucrative price, the remaining dross goes onto the shop shelves.

There are some exceptions to this such as specialist charity bookshops which keep the stock locally, but do make sure to price match with the going rate online.

Few diamonds to be found in the rough nowadays.

US, too, though the US has tons of smaller “independent” (read tied to a single local food bank, etc) thrift stores that can still have finds.

But the era of LEGO at Goodwill is over; all that stuff goes to the auction sites.

I bought Lego on Tuesday at the Goodwill on Philadelphia Pike in Wilmington. So you just need to look on a regular cycle.

Genuine non-Duplo, non-Megablocks real honest LEGO? Wow.

I've not seen it except by accident (wedged in something) in over a decade, the Goodwills I know all send it to the central area to be auctioned: https://shopgoodwill.com/

It’s not that complicated. Business rates (commercial property tax) are very high for shops in the UK, and Charity shops are exempt. The rates really are high — about 50% on top of the rent. Plus a lot of the staff work for free. Their cost base is just vastly lower.

> but the more curious impact is they completely alter the character of an area.

Could anyone elaborate on this?

In small towns or villages once you have a couple of them the general pace of everything around them tanks, partly because they can get away with far less revenue per sq metre due to the difference in taxation and reliance on volunteers. As others have mentioned the alternative might well be nothing there at all, which would be worse, but it has converted the central section of whole villages into feeling like they are in fact the outer buildings of nearby old people's homes.

Aesthetically they are, at best, a sort of British twist on the cheapest Ikea stylings which can be OK in small quantities but when they become everything it is depressing.

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