Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Oxfam shop logo
Oxfam’s trading director Andrew Horton said improved shop fronts and ethical gift ranges were behind their increased trading. Photograph: Tim Ockenden/PA
Oxfam’s trading director Andrew Horton said improved shop fronts and ethical gift ranges were behind their increased trading. Photograph: Tim Ockenden/PA

Ethical gift market helps Oxfam post highest Christmas sales for five years

This article is more than 7 years old

Year-on-year sales for November and December were up 10%, boosted by 9% rise in gifts such as providing safe water for small communities

Oxfam has reported its highest sales for five years on the back of increased demand for secondhand clothes and ethical gifts.

Healthy sales of Fairtrade goods such as chocolate and coffee helped the charity post a 10% year-on-year rise in sales for November and December, worth £17.2m.

Oxfam, which has 650 shops nationwide, said the extra sales would provide a £1.7m boost to its work fighting global poverty and suffering.

The highest growth in sales of donated goods was in men’s clothing (up 16%), followed by women’s clothing (13%), accessories (13%), linen (7%), books (5%), music (4%) and homeware (3%).

But there was strong demand for ethically sourced new goods, and a 9% year-on-year increase in sales of “virtual” gifts, such as providing safe water for a small community or beekeeping training in developing countries.

Oxfam’s trading director Andrew Horton said: “We attribute this success to a combination of factors, including our new improved shop fronts, ethical gift ranges and increased opening hours.”

In common with other retailers, Oxfam saw sales of winter clothing increase in November when cooler weather arrived, while a donation drive in September ensured stores had enough second-hand stock to meet demand.

Horton said the surge in sales meant Oxfam had been able to raise even more funds than expected to help poor people across the world, including in humanitarian crises like Yemen, Syria and South Sudan.

However it is not clear whether all charity shops had reported such healthy sales increases. The Charity Retail Association (CRA) said indications were that overall most charity shops were seeing a small growth in sales.

The charity retail sector contributed around £270m to parent charities in 2015-16, according to the CRA, with donated good accounting for four-fifths of income. It employs around 22,000 staff and 220,000 volunteers.

British Heart Foundation, which runs 736 stores, said it had had healthy Christmas sales, up around 5%. Its retail director Mike Taylor told the Guardian that customers were attracted to affordable prices in the current economic environment. “Anybody at the value end of the market is generally doing a little bit better.”

But he added: “It would be wrong to single out any one factor. It’s not just rising altruism or an increase in demand for value goods.”

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed