Are Charity Retail sales in decline?
A review of the sales and Gift Aid over the past 22 months have been very insightful. The main continent is the wide variance of performance across different charities and whilst Gift Aid percentage is gradually, improving, charity retail sales performance is a growing concern.
Sales performance
The year-on-year charity retail sales performance has fallen considerably since May 23 and over the past three months charity retail sales are down against 2023 so technically, sales are officially in decline.
However not all charities are experiencing this decline, but some charities are really struggling. The common determinator between those charities performing above the average are those who are ensuring the instore customer journey, the pricing of donations, ecommerce and the retail operations are performing above the trend.
Gift Aid
Gift Aid performance has been generally improving over the past 22 months but there is considerable variance between the different charity retail chains and individual charity shops. The main difference between high and low performing shops in most cases is shop managers gift aid focus and capability.
Next 6 months prediction
It is going to be a difficult summer period for many charity retail businesses with some missing their sales and most importantly profits budgets by a considerable margin. However, most charity retail businesses have low hanging fruit, and these opportunities need to be taken and if they can not be spotted by the current retail leadership team then external assistance should be considered.
