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 Posted: Thu 2:23, 05 Sep 2013 Post subject: Behind the scenes at Oxfam's online shop-spun2 |
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Behind the curtain at Oxfam's online shop,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
Every single day four lorries bring in 12 tons of clothes and 15 a lot of books for this brightly lit warehouse, where six staff and 80 volunteers examine the donations for
Oxfam's online shopMilton Point is one of three Oxfam warehouses in Britain (others are near Huddersfield and Bristol). Donations come here from car-park clothes banks, individual donors and other Oxfam retail shops round the country that cannot shift their stock (fashions change regionally: used 1980s-style clothes may sell well in east London but less well in Doncaster, where shoppers are looking for high-street labels).
Oxfam Online was placed in 2007, the very first British charity online shop (now about a third of charities, including Age UK and Cancer Research, also provide online retailers). It gets 11,000 hits a day and makes a lot more than £2 million annually. This figure is less than five per cent of what the charity's high-street shops make. Most mainstream retailers conduct 10 % of economic online - something that the e-commerce team at Oxfam hopes to emulate. Which means this spring the website is being relaunched with a brand new design,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], increased search functions and simpler ways to pay,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in order to double online sales.
Before I can stick to the bin bags as much as the floor above, I have to navigate around shelves stacked high with CDs, vinyl,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], bric-a-brac and boxes upon boxes of books. Tatty books are immediately sent to recycling, and books that appear to be like they might be worth something are sent to the 'Valued' team - three antiques experts located in Ealing,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], west London, who in April 2010 raised a record £37,000 whenever a book of rare Victorian photographs,
A visit to the Highlands of Viti Levu
, was sold by Bonhams in London. A proportion of the rest may make it to the site,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], with sales of more than £21,000 a month. A type of six volunteers man library-style barcode scanners. They scan each book and a computer decides whether or not this will sell based on bestseller rankings. Paulo Coelho's
The Witch of Portobello
is rejected by the computer (it is only 459,110 about the bestseller list) and it is sent to recycling. However the computer makes a 'kerching' sound when it scans
The Fry Chronicles
, which means it's worth selling and it has now been listed simultaneously across Oxfam, eBay, Amazon, Libris and Play.
Upstairs, though, is the website's main money-making operation: fashion. Carefully ordered rows of 30ft rails are full of clothes which have been selected for the website. Barbara Perisnaka, 32, is the sorting manager. She's dressed up in a folksy, brown knitted cardigan and jeans. 'Yes, the cardigan is from Oxfam. I've found stuff that I love and buy all of them the time - it is a bit of an occupational hazard,' she says,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], laughing. She leads me with the rails,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], mentioning an incredible black woollen cape embroidered with white swirls along with a flowing Alice Temperley-style cream maxi-dress with a lace bib and long chiffon sleeves. 'This would look amazing on Florence Welch,' she says. In the middle of a row of tweed jackets she shows me an immaculate vintage Burberry trench coat that is already listed online with an £80 cost. 'That just needed a little bit of Vanish and it came up lovely,' Perisnaka says. 'I'm sure it'll sell quickly, it is a real bargain.' A couple of designer pieces land on the sorting table per week, including a pair of pink leopard-print Dolce Gabbana boots that sold for £1,000 two years ago. Browsing the rails here (as possible do in your own home online) is fun, and combines all of the perks of charity store shopping - the prices, the quirky finds - but it is quicker and more fruitful, because Perisnaka has edited the gathering first.
Perisnaka has been at Oxfam for a year. She studied good reputation for art and design at the London Institute and a BTEC in fashion and textiles, and continued to operate at Marks Spencer as a retail manager. She'd been volunteering for Oxfam eventually a week before being given the full-time job. On her behalf desk is really a faded, well-thumbed copy of
The Vogue History of 20th-Century Fashion'I love textiles of all types - I customise clothes in my spare time,' she says. Together with her team she's accountable for sorting through about 10 tons each week.
Ripping open a black sack, Perisnaka plucks out a pink silk dress. She examines the hem, checks it for marks and puts it on the pile to become steamed, photographed and listed online. 'It's top quality, 100 percent silk along with a bright colour that is on trend,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],' she says. She rummages further along with a delicate white lace dress catches her eye, but one button has a slight make-up mark - 'That won't come off, it's no good' - and she or he drops it down a chute marked 'Frip Ethique'. This is an Oxfam-run initiative based in Senegal, which sorts and sells clothing to local merchants. Next Perisnaka tests the zip on the pair of turquoise trousers. It really works, but a mark the size of a pinhead makes her turn her nose up and throw it on the chute destined for shops in eastern Europe, where Oxfam includes a similar partnership towards the one in Senegal. 'It's fine if you're able to look at it in a shop making that decision yourself, but I can't stand selling things online with marks,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],' she says. 'It ruins our reputation.'
According to Defra several million tons of unwanted clothing is discarded each year in this country, which half results in landfill. Of the remaining Half,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], four fifths would go to charity shops, and of this just below 10 per cent would go to Oxfam. The Charity Retail Association estimates that by recycling this 40 per cent,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], charity shops are helping to reduce net CO2 emissions by about 3.7 million tons per year - comparable to the typical emissions of about 660,000 British households.
Perisnaka's sorting team - Peter,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Paul and Ben - don't have her ingrained passion for fashion,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but they're learning. Perisnaka means they are remove their gloves to look at the design of the material. 'You will easily notice from touching it how many times it has been worn,' she says, tugging at a green knitted jumper. 'This is within very good condition, it hasn't been worn or washed much.' She gives her men trend briefings every couple weeks - before Christmas she said excitedly to appear out for novelty jumpers ('the more horrible the better') and tartan.
'I had a eureka moment in the pub after work on Friday,' she says, laughing. 'The guys were checking out a girl in the bar and something of these said, "That's a vintage Marks Spencer tea dress that she's wearing." The others all nodded wisely.'
Vintage is easily the most searched term on the site, based on Oxfam's online statisticians, who've built up an in depth profile of their typical online shopper and her habits. In addition to understanding that their customer searches for vintage and mostly buys women's tops, they are fully aware she's a wealthy woman aged between 41 and 61 (a decade younger than their average high-street shopper), is well educated, works inside a profession and it has school-age children or children who've just left home. She regularly gives one-off donations to the charity and donates goods to her local Oxfam shop.
The woman responsible for attempting to encourage this shopper to buy more is Sarah Davies, 41, the online hub manager at Milton Point. She formerly worked at Sports World (now a part of Sports Direct), the low-cost high-volume sports retailer that is a market leader in terms of sales,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and its ethos is still alive in Davies. She has been working on the internet shop for four years (a year after the launch), during which time technology has improved enough to ensure that instead of listing a couple of items a day, her team now lists 100 each day. 'You accustomed to upload a photograph, go and also have lunch so when you have back it might be finished. It is so much quicker now.' When Davies started at Oxfam items were for auction on eBay (most charity shops still use eBay either exclusively or alongside their very own websites) but she says the format meant that clothes got sold too cheaply to warrant your time and effort of photographing and listing (books are simple as they're scannable). On the Oxfam website all items have a set price: jackets start at £4.99, dresses are about £25. The typical cost of a product is £10.79.
Most sales come through within the afternoons, as well as in rare cases items sell the same day. 'That's a lovely feeling, whenever you check back on something you listed that morning and contains gone,' Davies says.
Oxfam has commissioned a lookbook to accompany the web site redesign,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], available to download from the
Oxfam website
from today, that is designed to show shoppers that they can appease their purse, eco conscience and fashion cravings in one go. It's been styled by Susanne James, 39,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and Lisa Piercy, 28,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], from
, an internet site that showcases secondhand finds and selected designer pieces. They've created 23 looks, some of which are showcased on these pages.
'Charity shop shopping is easier on the purse and kinder in your sanity,' James says. 'You do not have to be worried about the history of the fast-fashion item that has been made far and shipped here. You can watch a catwalk show out of your laptop after which rush out hunting the following day for pieces. It's even faster than fast fashion,' she jokes. 'And the best bit about Oxfam's web store,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],' Piercy adds,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], 'is it's like being able to visit hundreds of charity shops in a handful of clicks. It is a healthier option to the mainstream online stores, with some nice surprises on the way.'
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