'I spent £36 on charity shop items nobody wanted to buy and made huge profit'

You might not be aware, but charity shops can be a goldmine for fantastic bargains, as many shoppers have previously discovered. One woman recently snapped up 266 items that a charity shop couldn't shift, and she made a "small fortune" by selling them herself.

When you're a shrewd shopper, and you know your stuff, it's astonishing how much money you can rake in by finding some brilliant deals at bargain stores. Danielle, known as charityshoplife on TikTok, undertook the task to see how much dosh she could make by snapping up the bargains that shops fail to sell.

In the video, she confessed she bagged over 200 items, with each bag costing her £4.00. She purchased nine of them for a total of £36.00 to see how much money she could make by re-selling them, and it's not the first time shoppers have been stunned by the value of charity shop items.

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Danielle stated: "Going through the bags, everything was in a pretty good condition, but 175 items I decided were better suited to a car boot than to sell online, leaving me with 91 items to list online.

"It's been 10 days since I picked up these bags, so have I made any money? The first way I made money was through the TikTok creator fund, so I posted a video picking up all these bags, and that made me $211.00, which is about £155.00.

"If that's not your sign to start making videos, I don't know what is. So far I have sold 28 items for a total of £184.00, bringing my profit so far to £303.00, and I still have 63 items to sell online, and a car boot to do with the rest of the items."

She revealed that numerous people have been questioning how she acquired the bags, and confessed a shop contacted her directly; nevertheless, she recommended people approach their local charity shop if they fancy giving it a go. She explained that many of them are receiving "pennies for rags" these days, so they're frequently delighted to flog people their unsold stock.

Viewers were absolutely stunned by Danielle's tale, with more than 2,000 people having watched the clip. Scores have also left comments to share their own thoughts and experiences.

One viewer commented: "I'd be interested to know how many hours in total has been dedicated to this project to earn that money. From collecting the bags, editing videos, photographing and listing, wrapping and dropping parcels off and the car boot."

In response, Danielle answered: "It's difficult because I sell on Whatnot, so I sold 100 items in the 1.5 hour show (not just the 20ish of these items). But, I'd say two hours picking up, going through bags, editing videos and then however long it took to pack up the 28 items (hard to distinguish as they are bundled in with the other items from the show)."

Another added: "This is amazing. It would be interesting to see what the charity shop had listed them as vs what you could sell them for. I do think more people are shopping online for second hand though, so it reaches a broader audience."

A third noted: "What a great pick up! Car boot sale video incoming soon I hope." Meanwhile, a fourth commented: "I've wanted to do this for a while, but have never known what to say when asking."

Someone else also chimed in with: "Just making the video mate? Well worth the decision you made and having fun while doing it. Brilliant!"

What you might not realise is that charity shops sell people's unwanted clothing, but they focus on items in decent condition that can be cleaned, mended and then flogged in-store to help generate money for the charity. Items that can't be sold are typically either recycled into fresh products, sold for reuse in other nations or used for textile recycling, in an effort to ensure minimal waste.

Charity shops shift quality garments to generate funds, but they also send unwearable or excess items to textile recyclers as they can be transformed into new products like insulation or cleaning cloths. Some charities even work to transform them into fresh items to reduce waste.